Why Did The French Adopt The Policy Of Appeasement Essay

The British and the French adopt the policy of appeasement towards Hitler to prevent a militaristic conflict in which neither the French or British were ready to partake in. Hitler had developed an ever growing obsession with ethnic cleansing and believed the fighting capacity of a race depended on its purity, as stated in his book Mein Kampf (Churchill 50). Hitler had demanded the sudetenland from Czechoslovakia which contained over 50 percent of German inhabitants (Churchill 271). It was evident that only the cession of the sudetenland to Germany would prevent an invasion of the Czechs by Germany. Both the British and the French knew the invasion of the Czechs would cause an outbreak of chaos and jeopardize the peace of europe. As previously noted during the first world war the alliance system risked turning a small conflict into a big one. The French had an alliance with Czechoslovakia and if Germany did invade the

In Britain, those on the left wing thought that appeasing Hitler was a good idea because Hitler opposed the idea of marxism. During the 1930’s Britain feared the spread of communism and at time thought that it opposed a far greater threat to Great Britain than Hitler did. In contrast, those on the left wing, Winston Churchill for example, believed that action should be taken against Hitler. It was believed that Hitler was not a man that could be dealt with because his objectives were delusional and irrational. Moreover, France had a political disparity of their own. During the 1930’s economic affairs divided France. Those on the left wing advocated for socialism as opposed to the right wing which wanted economic liberalism. Europe was facing economic difficulties as a result of the World War One, therefore did not to get into another conflict that could be potentially be avoided with appeasement, especially since the country was divided in