Sources 1 to 5 FO 371/19892

This is not an easy topic. The background information on the treaties and the League and the need to carry information about several countries and their attitudes all make this hard. It is also hard for us to realise that, at that time, as Eden says in Source 1, "our influence was greater than that of any other nation."

However, appeasement is an important phase in British foreign policy: it helps to explain why the Second World War broke out when and how it did. It also traumatised a generation of British politicians into trying to redeem themselves, from Suez in 1956 to the Falklands in 1982.

The extracts from the Cabinet minutes show how little room for manoeuvre British politicians actually had. It was going to be re-played again over Czechoslovakia in 1938, but all the key issues are mentioned here:

• Horror of war
• Unpreparedness for war
• Belief that Communism was an evil to be avoided an any cost
• Mistrust of our key allies
• Weakness of the League of Nations
• Recognition that the Treaty of Versailles may have been wrong in parts and readiness to revise it.
• Assumption that Hitler was a reasonable politician with reasonable demands and should be dealt with as such.

For these reasons a study of the Rhineland crisis is a good case-study of British appeasement policy.

Hot War, Cold War: Why did major twentieth century conflicts affect so many people? KS3