Idle hopes? A bad gambler? Whatever we think or do believe, we can't blame it on this man alone. We had a League of Nations and they did ..........................
Uhm, nothing at all.
They just let Hitler get away with it.
Maybe I'm in for war right now, but A.H was a very capable politician who knew how to get the things he wanted. This was all due to the fat he kwew the League of Nations was unwilling to go to war again and would not call his bluff.
Chamberlain is a easy name to pick on but don't forget the bigger picture.

Part of the thinking was the perception of unreadyness for for war. As with France many of Britians military leaders were telling the PM & others in the cabinent that they could not adaquately defend the nation. The rearmament program would not mature until 1941-1942. The politcal and military leaders assumed that not only would Britan be subjected to submarine warfare as in 1915-1917 but also subject to air attacks with all the horror they were witnessing in Spain & China. None of them wanted to see another round of six figure casualty lists, that now would include many more civilians.

Had the British and French a better intellgence department they might have understood how much bluff there was in Germanys military posture of 1935-1938, Unfortunatly their data was off and their analysis abysmal.

The half hearted attempts to make a alliance with the USSR and Chamberlains efforts to the last minute to negotiate something-anything came from this reluctance to see the deaths of another ten million people as in the Great War.

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You know the funny thing is, what if they did call Hitlers bluff and stop him before ww2 started, or at least held the war to a minimun, would we still be having this converstion?

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That's really the point of the thread, isn't it.

Of course we shouldn't blame Chamberlain for the war in Europe, that falls directly on Hitler and the German people. There were many factors that could have prevented the war way before Chamberlain came to office.

We are certainly using 20/20 hindsight, but that's what you do in a "what if".

I never knew the Sudetenland was Chamberlains to give in the first place...all he agreed to do was not go to war over it....as did the French,Russians, poles not lend a hand or raise a finger..interesting side note prior to Chamberlains going to meet Hitler/Ribbentrop, Dowding warned him, war with Germany is/was inevitable, but to go to war now, when the Raf was in it's infancy, defenses not yet ready, the spits and hurricanes without de wault ammo, wooden props, variable non-pitch air screws,against a tried, superior Luftwaffe would have been a disaster...little if anything about Britians home-defense in such peril straights has been revealed/told both in an attempt to thwart public outcry for this, and the lashing the conservative party would have received for allowing a nation to be in such peril position...as source..."A summer bright and terrible" biography/BoB and RAF tactics of Hughford Catskill Tretford Dowding

wow, if Britain had the power to give the Sudetenland to Germany,,,they should have raped it first of all armament factories,labour before handing back to Germany...Chamberlain brought back a declaration that Britain wopuld not seek war over the Sudetenland...France or Russia could have done likewise...would this had made it theirs to give....
It was Hitlers blunder to failing to realize the threat Britain made over an invasion of Poland was a publicly made address and to foreign powers, one which a quick dash and to secure the Danzig corridor with hopes of a non-confrontation, even Hitler or Ribbentrop should have heralded as being real or locked the British at their word...HUGE MISTAKE....HUGE...