Neville Chamberlain used many policies when it came to deciding on how to deal with Hitler. One of the main policies he pursued was appeasing Hitler. Chamberlain was a pacifist and didn’t want war so many historians believe that he used appeasement to prevent another world war. Other Historians believe he used appeasement because Britain wasn’t ready to go to war and so he was buying time so the country could prepare for war. Finally, other historians believe that he used appeasement because he wasn’t a good leader in general and that he was a pushover and was just giving in to Hitler’s demands.
In many ways Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was justified. To start with, people could still remember what had happened during the First World War and they knew how bad it was. Chamberlain wanted to avoid another war at all costs and made every effort through appeasement to do so. Another reason is that the British government was still recovering from the great depression and so they did not want to spend large sums of their budget on the military. Britain was also in no state to fight a war with Germany and by Chamberlain pursuing his policy of appeasement, it gave Britain time to rearm and prepare for a war. He used it was an opportunity to stall for time.
The agreement was generally popular with the British public because
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For example, when Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland which was against the terms of the treaty of Versailles, the British should have put their foot down and stopped Hitler there and then. By allowing Hitler to do such things, it meant that Hitler think that he could do whatever he wanted and take over whatever country he wanted to take over without ever being challenged by the British. The delaying of confronting Hitler gave him time to build up his military strength as when remilitarised the Rhineland he had a small army and could easily have been stopped by the British or