“Neville who? Longbottom?” “No, Chamberlain. Asshole.”

*WARNING - For this post you may require some form of imagination and/or the ability to hear voices inside your head.*

So, it’s a Sunday night, and what you want more than anything in  the world is more History revision, right?

Erm… Wrong actually.

Oh really?! Then why the hell did you click on this, eh? EH?!

I thought it was going to be about Harry Potter, goddammit!

Oh….

Shit.

 

ANYWAYZ.

Know what I love?
Appeasement.

*puts hand up*

*sighs*
What now?

Yeah so…. Erm…. I was just wondering… What the HELL is appeasement?

I was getting to that.
Geez.

(Appeasement is basically where you give in to lesser demands of aggressors in the hope that then they’ll stop asking for more. In this context, Britain and France kept giving Germany what they asked for in the hope that this would stop him asking for more serious demands and in turn waging a full-blown war against them.)

So yeah, I love appeasement.
I really do.
Like, in the same way people love Sporks.
It’s so weird and crazy, you think it just miiiight work.
And then you try and eat soup with it.
And all you get is Hitler stains on your clothes.
Or something like that….

So yes, todays topic is:

*drumroll*

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN: A GUILTY MAN?

Or, in simple terms:

HOW STUPID WAS OL’ NEV FOR THINKING APPEASEMENT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK?

Chyeahh.

 

“All rise. On trial today is Mr Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister 1937-1940. He has been accused with general stupidity for believeing appeasement could actually stand a chance… Bring him in boys”

 

“IIiin the blue corner, weighing in at 126 lbs* we have Neville ‘Guilty Man’ Chamberlain”

*Cheers from Revisionist Historians* 

 

“Aaaaand in the red corner, weighing in at a hefty 189 lbs*, iiiiit’s Winston ‘Bulldog’ Churchill.”

*Cheers from Traditional Historians*

 

 

 

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…

Oh, wait… Wrong script.

Right, *ahem* FIIIIIIIGHT.

 

Churchill: You asshole Chamberlain, look at what you did! What the hell were you playing at, trying to appease Hitler?! That man is UNAPPEASABLE, you hear me? He wrote all about his little invasion plans in Mein Kampf, which he published in 1925, a full 12 years before you even became PM. You should’ve KNOWN he would just agree to a little bit! You should’ve threatened him with WAR!

Chamberlain: Oi, calm it Churchy baby. You know as well as I do that you can’t just go trying to threaten a man with a ‘tache like his!  We, my friend, were in a very vulnerable position, what with our large and scattered empire. He could easily have wiped us out!

Well then maybe you should’ve tried a little bit harder to make some more allies, no? Instead what do you go and do? You’re kinda rude to the Frenchies, you refuse to attend a world conference proposed by the US in 1938, which could’ve seen them change their isolationist attitudes, and OH, that’s right, you make NO ATTEMPT to form a pact with the Soviet leaders ’cause you were a little bit scared of Communism. Pshht.

Woah, woah, woah. Hold it, right there. The French clearly had a very weak and unstable government, they weren’t really that valuble as allies were they. And the Americans? Don’t even get me started… As if they’d have come to help us! They didn’t enter the war at all until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. They were only ever going to think of themselves. And the Russians? God. “I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia…. I distrust her motives, which seem to me to have little connction with our ideas of liberty.”**

Shame the public didn’t agree though, eh Nev. In the Public Opinion Polls of 1938-9, 84% said that not only did they want to see Britain and the USSR being more friendly to each other, but that they also wanted a military alliane with France and Russia.

Know why that is though, Winny? Because they DIDN’T WANT A WAR. Have you completely forgotten the last one? A ‘war to end all wars’, a ‘lost generation’… Any of that ringing a bell?!

Well maaaybe, your silly policy of appeasement only ENCOURAGED Hitler. Maybe, without you being all “No go on Adolf, help yourself” he wouldn’t have been all “Our opponents are worms. I saw them at Munich”** and then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have thought he could walk all over us… Meaning that he would’ve wanted to avoid a war too cause we’d have been all scary!

My policy? Hold your horses, Churchy. Britain’s policy of appeasement was in place long before I came to power. And I’m sorry, but had you not noticed how weak we were in terms of both our defence and our economy? Hitler knew we were in no fit state to be waging war… He’d have KNOWN we were bluffing.

You should’ve rearmed faster though! Then we would’ve been ready for a war, we could’ve scared him off and everybody’s happy!

Do the words ‘weak’ and ‘economy’ mean nothing to you? I did the best I could given what little money we had! In 1937, when I became PM, 5.6% of our Gross National Product was being spent on defence, whereas by 1939, this had reached 2.4%. Given what a crappy situation we were in after WW1, we couldn’t actually afford to do anymore. Se we did what any sane country did, and we bided our time until we COULD afford it. Four year plan, anyone?

And a fat lot of good ‘biding our time’ did us. If we had fought in 1938, we would’ve had the Czechs and their army as allies. But no, y0ou screwed that up at Munich with your silly little piece of paper. Instead, Germany just carried on getting stronger.

And so did we! We were much better prepared for war in 1939 then we had been previously! Not that anything would’ve happened differently if war had broken out earlier, anyway. Do you recall that whole Phoney War business? You know where NOTHING HAPPENED?! And ANYWAIZ, we couldn’t have kept the Czechs OR the Poles for that matter… The Poles were still slaughtered despite us declaring war against Germany. It didn’t help!

But if you’d have been less weak and indecisive, and you’d have had more experience in terms of foreign policy, then maybe you’d have rearmed faster and then….

It would’ve made no difference! Know what I focussed on when we were rearming? The RAF. And you know why that was clever of me? Because we won the Battle of Britain. And Hitler didn’t win the war. DUH.

But…. But….

SHUT UP. We had to bide our time, bitch! Hitler announced his rearmament in 1935… I hadn’t even come to power then! What was I meant to do? We had to sit it out, and prepare ourselves, okay? WE WERE TOO WEAK. We had a lot of enemies, and no really strong allies. Even General Ironside said “We can not expose ourselves now to a German attack. We simply commit suicide if we do.“** So there. 

 

*Ding ding ding*
We have a winner.

Though saying that, it’s all about how you argue it.
You personally might think that appeasement was a load of bull, and the stupidest policy Britain could have possibly followed.

But personally, I think it made sense.

We weren’t ready for a war, so Chemberlain did the sensible thing.
He waited until we were.

 

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,”

 

* Totally made up fact. Sorry, I have no idea how much either of them weighed.

** “Hi, I’m an actual quote. Put me in your essay, bitch!”