Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Appeasement, in an international context, is a diplomatic negotiation policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power with intention to avoid conflict. [1]
[5] Although appeasement, which is conventionally defined as the act of satisfying grievances by concessions with the aim of avoiding war, was once regarded as an effective and even honourable strategy of foreign policy, the term has since the Munich Conference symbolised cowardice, failure and weakness.
The Munich Agreement [a] was an agreement reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and Fascist Italy.The agreement provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. [1]
In his two volumes, Chamberlain and Appeasement (1993) and Churchill and Appeasement (2000), Parker stated that Chamberlain, due to his "powerful, obstinate personality" and his skill in debate, caused Britain to embrace appeasement instead of effective deterrence. [243]
The phrase is primarily remembered for its bitter ironic value since less than a year after the agreement, Germany's invasion of Poland began World War II. It is often misquoted as "peace in our time", a phrase already familiar to the British public by its longstanding appearance in the Book of Common Prayer.
After World War I the League of Nations was formed in the hope that diplomacy and a united international community of nations could prevent another global war. [2] [3] However, the League and the appeasement of aggressive nations during the invasions of Manchuria, Ethiopia and the annexation of Czechoslovakia was largely considered ineffective.
On 4 October, the Manchester Guardian printed a letter from F. L. Lucas, a professor of literature at the University of Cambridge who had been a wounded veteran of World War I and would later work at Bletchley Park during World War II. His letter was headed "The Funeral of British Honour" and stated: [13]
Following World War II, the United States, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union each took control of occupation zones in Germany and the German capital of Berlin The Second World War dramatically upended the international system, as formerly-powerful nations like Germany, France, Japan, and even Britain had been devastated.