Arthur Neville Chamberlain's Governmental Timeline
Arthur Neville Chamberlain was born in Birmingham, England, on March 18, 1869.
After being educated at Rugby School he spent seven years managing his father's plantation in the Bahamas. Chamberlain arrived back in England in 1897 where he went into the copper-brass business. He was active in local politics and in 1915 was elected Lord Mayor of Birmingham. In the 1918 General Election Chamberlain was elected as a Conservative in the House of Commons. He rose with speed and ease, and by 1923 Stanley Baldwin appointed him as Postmaster-General. The following year he became the Minister of Health, in which he served for five years. He also achieved the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government headed by Ramsay MacDonald from 1931 to 1939. He was an efficient administrator abolishing the Poor Law and reorganizing unemployment assistance.
Chamberlain became Prime Minister when Stanley Baldwin resigned in 1937.
The following year he travelled to Germany to meet Hitler in an attempt to avoid war between the two countries. The result of Chamberlain's appeasement policy was the signing of the Munich Pact
Chamberlain confronted the threat to peace posed by Germany and Italy. Seeking to appease Adolf HITLER and Benito MUSSOLINI, he first negotiated a treaty with Italy accepting the conquest of Ethiopia on condition that Italy withdraw from the Spanish Civil War. Turning to the Czech question, Chamberlain conferred with Hitler and Mussolini. The Munich pact was signed on September 29, 1938, by Chamberlain, along with Germany, Italy, France. The agreement accepted Hitler's territorial claims to predominantly German areas of Czechoslovakia. Though Chamberlain assured Britain that his concession had brought "peace in our time, Hitler soon broke his agreement and marched into Czecho-Slovakia and subsequently made most of the country a German protectorate.
In May 1939 Germany and Italy signed a pact pledging to support each other in war. ). To prevent this in a new war Hitler and the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin signed a ten-year nonaggression pact on Aug. 23, 1939 (see Stalin).
On Sept. 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. England and France demanded that Germany withdraw its troops; Hitler refused. Resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. Under the pressure of Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and India aligned themselves with Chamberlain. Ireland was the only member of the British Commonwealth to keep out of the war.
In the 1930s, European governments found it necessary to appease Hitler and Mussolini. Appeasement is the word that clearly sums up the policies and actions that were taken by the European governments. There were a few reasons that these concessions were offered by European countries: none of the countries wanted another World War, the devastating effects that the Great Depression had on each country, and the European governmental chaos and political turmoil was widespread.
...erman economy was down. This led to migrations to other countries. In his speech, Hitler just wanted to liberate nearly four million Germans, and return to their thousand-year-old Reich. For Hitler to united his Germans he had to remove different national and ethnic groups in Germany. Which clearly broke the treaty.
This was a short term factor because it was 1938 when the Munich Agreement was signed but a year later WW2 started.
Other countries mainly Britain responded to Hitler’s actions with appeasement and by not stopping him early on with collective security it directly caused World War Two. Collective Security is when multiple countries work together to strengthen a country in need. Based off of document 6 Winston Churchill suggested that Britain, France, and other nations should come together and protect Czechoslovakia from Hitler to stop the growth of Nazi power. Collective Security could have prevented Czechoslovakia from coming into German control. While in accordance with document 9 nobody could openly oppose Hitler’s massive forces he had accumulated. Which is why they didn’t use collective security to protect Czechoslovakia. Instead they used The Munich Agreement to appease to Hitler. The Munich Agreement handed over Czechoslovakia in hopes it would diminish Hitler’s need to keep taking over surrounding countries. Stated in document 7 The Munich Agreement was unnecessary because Czech defenses were relatively strong and during this time Germany wasn’t at its zenith of strength. Also Hitler’s generals were going to try to overthrow Hitler if he attacked Czechoslovakia because the Generals believed it was a foolish endeavour that would mean the downfall of
... of a driven man, full of a blinkered determination for peace such as Chamberlain, for he held such a powerful influence in parliament and government. They had to wait for the policy to prove itself foolish, or to fail if not foolish, for the chance for them to take over and implicate a stronger policy against Hitler, by this time war had already began however, and they had limited options. Perhaps if these men were in power before Munich, Hitler might have been deterred from going to war and Britain better prepared, with greater munitions and allied agreements to face the German armed forces. The tremendous unity against Nazi Germany during the Second World War owes more to the critics of appeasement, then it does to the supporters, for these men took over Chamberlains helm, where he had failed to keep peace, and bravely stood up and faced Hitler's war machine.
On September 3, 1939 Britain and France declared war on Germany after the deadline for troop withdrawal passed. (BBC UK)
The appeasement allowed fascist countries to take advantage of their pacifist intentions as demonstrated the failure of the League of Nations. The League of Nations was intended to resolve international disputes peacefully, however its concept of appeasement demonstrated its place as a ‘toothless tiger’ in events such as the invasion of Manchuria (1931.) Allied intervention in Russia in 1919 was ignored by the League, Italy ignored the League in 1923, the League failed to deal with issues outside of Europe and several issues were not allowed to be presented to the league such as: Allied debts, relations between Britain and Egypt, and between China and the great powers. Due to the appeasement policy, Germany and Italy now realised that the democracies were seeking to avoid confrontation, so both countries continued to ‘test the limits.’ As a result of the appeasement, the impact of Abyssinia proved the concept of collective security and the Stresa front had failed. Consquently, this motivated war as it encouraged Hitler that he could get away with acts of aggression, transformed Italy into Germany’s partner as furthermore the Hoare-Laval plan made it clear Britain and France preferred to seek peaceful resolutions rather than engage in conflict. Hence, the appeasement policy was responsible for
During the early stages of World War II, Germany won a series of swift victories over Poland, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and France. Then attempted to bomb Great Britain into surrendering, but to no avail. After Hitler took over Czechoslovakia he began to demand land from Poland. Britain and France pledged to help Poland if Germany was to attack. Unfortunately helping Poland would include the invasion of Germany, which neither country was willing to do. Great Britain and France had hoped the Soviet Union would help protect Poland. But Hitler and Stalin shocked the world when they became allies. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact; in which both agreed not to attack each other. They secretly decided to divide Poland between them. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and began Wo...
This enabled Hitler to rise to power in this country in the years after World War I and leading up to World War II. France and Britain still had the memory of World War I when Hitler started to rise to power and take over new lands. Because they did not want to enter another conflict with Germany France and Britain hoped that taking an approach of “appeasement” with Germany would prevent another World War. It was this philosophy of appeasement, which led them to sign the “Munich Agreement” in which France and Britain agreed to allow Germany to take over portions of Czechoslovakia. Those who Neville Chamberlin argued in defense of appeasement, “….if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted”(379). He clearly felt that the threat of Nazi Germany was not as serious as it would ultimately become. “As long as war has not begun, there is always hope that it may be prevented”(379). France and Britain hoped desperately that by appeasing Germany they could prevent a total war. However, by giving Germany land and power France and Britain strengthened Germany and weakened themselves for when they would eventually have to fight
...nted from this meeting because of appeasement. Europe was happy from this because it avoided war. This did not benefit the Czechs at all though.For some reason, Chamberlain favored Appeasement. According to Document 5, He thinks appeasement is the best way because he believes war is a "fearful thing".He thinks that appeasement will benefit Europe.
On September 30, 1938, France and Great Britain agreed to let Nazi Germany have a piece of Czechoslovakia. Hitler told the British and French that it would be his last demand for territory in Europe. Hitler ended up breaking this pact when he took over Prague. During that same year, Germany attacked Poland and defeated them in one month. Poland was then split into two parts with Hitler's Nazi Germany taking part and Stalin's Communist USSR taking the other part. The invasion was what started World War II.
signed at the end of World War 1. This treaty outlined the rules that Germany must follow
In conclusion, the policy of appeasement was described by some scholars as ineffective. The fact that the policy of appeasement failed to avert World War 2 is a direct justification that it was a wrong-headed policy. The policy allowed Germany to reconstruct its military slowly and eventually was prepared to go into war to defend its military triumph. Chamberlain was aware of Hitler’s ambitions, but thought that the best alternative to deal with his ambitions was negotiations. This was a misguided move which the world is able to learn from.
...en dealt with in a firm manor. Hitler was able to use his countries momentum and his negotiation skills to achieve what he wanted for Germany and made a deal he knew that he was not going to honor and eventually lead to WWII. Prime Minister Chamberlain also needed to be aware of possible deception that he was likely going to face with dealing with Germany. “When German troops invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1929, Hitler’s promise that Sudetenland was his ‘last territorial demand’ was revealed for the lie it has always been. At best Chamberlain’s summit diplomacy has bought Britain another 11 month to prepare for war at the considerable expense of Czechoslovakia’s freedom”(Rathbone 19). In fairness, Chamberlin had avoided war for a period of time, but the consequences were much greater in the sense that war was inevitable and his people’s lack of faith.
It’s 4:30am on September 1st, 1939 and the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein awaits for the order to open fire on the Polish garrison of the Westerplatte Fort, Danzig in what was to become the first military engagement of World War II. Meanwhile, sixty two German divisions supported by 1,300 fighter planes prepared for the invasion of Poland. Fifteen minutes later the invasion would take place and spark the beginning of World War II. Two days later at 9am Great Britain would send an ultimatum to Germany, demanding that they pull from Poland or go to war with Great Britain. Four hours later the Ultimatum would expire and Great Britain would officially be at war with Germany on September 3rd, 1939. Six hours later France would also declare war on Germany.