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Resources . . . and using time to create or convert them . . .
Britain’s Prime Minister before and at the beginning of World War II was Neville Chamberlain. He was Prime Minister for three years, from May 1937 to May 1940. For anyone who knows a little about the history of the that time, his name conjures associations with words like “fool,” “dupe,” “ineffective,” . . . and above all, “appeaser.”
He is famous for not “standing up” to Hitler — for allowing him to proceed “unresisted,” while declaring he had secured, “Peace for our time!”
After the guns of “The Great War” were silenced (They didn’t call it “World War I” at the time, since numbering it would have implied a “sequel!), it seemed unimaginable that such a conflict would ever be allowed to happen again. In fact, it was popularly referred to “the war to end all wars.” As such, there was a strong motivation on the part of the survivors to permanently put away the tools of war. As a result military spending decreased dramatically.
For reasons beyond the scope of this topic, peace didn’t last, and by the early 1930s, Germany was dramatically rearming, ignoring the, unenforced, Treaty of Versailles that limited the size of their military. After Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria (the Anschluss) in March of 1938, Hitler’s attention turned to the bordering portion of Czechoslovakia where a significant proportion of the population were ethnic Germans. He insisted that they were “oppressed” and demanded that they be allowed to join Germany.
Reluctant to go to war, the leaders of Britain and France met with Hitler and Mussolini to work out what became known as the “Munich Agreement” on September 30, 1938, agreeing to allow Germany to occupy the German-majority parts of Czechoslovakia, if Germany would agree to abandoning any claims to additional territory.
Much of Europe celebrated the Munich Agreement, as they wanted to believe it would prevent a major war on the continent.
Churchill, a great critic of Chamberlain, reacted by saying, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war.”
In March 1939, Hitler reneged on his promises to respect the integrity of Czechoslovakia by occupying the remainder of the country. The conquered nation’s significant military arsenal played an important role in Germany’s invasions of Poland and France in 1939 and 1940.
Today, the Munich Agreement is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states.
Many histories have condemned Chamberlain, arguing that his weakness allowed the coming war to happen. Interestingly, his reputation has been somewhat rehabilitated, of late. Yes, Hitler lied to him, but did he believe him?
There is strong evidence that Chamberlain was not naïve. When he became Prime Minister in 1937, British defence spending was 2.9% of their GDP. By the time Nazi Germany invaded France in 1939, his government had ramped it up to 9%.
During that time British armed forces grew from 353,000 personnel in 1937 to 1,813,000 in 1940. At the same time the Royal Air Force grew from 53,000 to 379,000 personnel and the number of aircraft had quadrupled to 3,700.
Chamberlain may have appeared to some as weak, cowardly, or naïve, but judged by his actions he was acting in keeping with with Sun Tzu’s observation that war requires deception. It might have been somehow more “heroic” or “honourable” to have “thrown a glove” in Hitler’s face but, in the big picture it would have been less effective and more foolish. Instead, he can be seen to have “bought time” for Britain to retool its industry, to rearm, and to prepare for war. Britain went from being almost helplessly weak in 1938 to being just strong enough to thwart an invasion in 1940, and then continue to turn the tide thereafter.
At the very moment that Chamberlain stood publicly waving an empty piece of paper and declaring “peace for our time,” . . . . . . he and his government were actively preparing Britain for war.
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And so, diplomacy has been called “the art of saying ‘Nice doggy’ while you look around for a stick.“