Diplomatic Mistakes by Britain and France towards Hitler

Without doubt,the British and the French pursued a diplomacy of sedativeness towards Hitler during his invasion decisions of Czechkoslovakia and Austria...which encouraged Hitler diplomatically to ask for more.Diplomacy doent forgive sedativeness to be used against aggressive eladers.The dreams of protecting Eruope from a war fell.The truth was then understood...Chemberlain was no longer a hero..

Other mistakes to count down?

btw,do you guys find Hitler's diplomat successful from the aspect of Nazi interests?Joachim Von Rippentrop is who i am mentioning about...

Edited by TheDiplomat

Why didn't the Western powers take Hitler down in 1935 when the Wehrmacht was formed and the treaty was seriously broken. What the hell were they thinking, maybe that Hitler just wants to be friends with a bigger army and an airfoce.

"Why didn't the Western powers take Hitler down in 1935 when the Wehrmacht was formed and the treaty was seriously broken. What the hell were they thinking, maybe that Hitler just wants to be friends with a bigger army and an airfoce."

I recall that Hitler himself said that if the French and their Eastern European allies were smart, they would have invaded Germany before he became too powerful.

I think this is one of the only times in history we should say "If only we had listened to Hitler everything would have been great."

They underestimated Hitler and Germany, and they don't want war. That's why they committed so many mistakes.

"btw,do you guys find Hitler's diplomat successful from the aspect of Nazi interests?Joachim Von Rippentrop is who i am mentioning about..."

I would say that Nazi diplomacy was very effective in giving Hitler his victories without blood and buying him time to build up his army.

you all forget one important thing, that is Stalinist Russia. back then, everyone was afraid they would push west and make everyone Communist. thus, they allowed Germany to become strong, Hitler and Nazi Germany should be the wall that shielded Western Europe from the Bolsheviks just like Rome did with the Foederati. Fascism back then was not regarded as bad as Communism by the western world so they went with the lesser evil.

Any other nice stories about their mistakes?

Your view on this is too one sided. You do not put yourself in the position of the british and the french during the inter war period.

These poliltitians, were not stupid and understood what was happening. what u must understand is the guilt F+B (france and britain) had over the whole reperations issue, which plundered germans into great suffering(hyperinflation 1923 and a major reason behind the post 1929 sufferings). The dawes and young plans eased reperations on germany and point to a greater understanding of germanys needs from F+B...more money for themselves to help rebulid infrastructure, and more importantly for this debate, a larger army than the 100,000 ordered in 1919 at versailles and an actual navy to defend itself.

As sovietJesus points out hitler had already made his inmtentions very clear in "mein Kampf", russia must be attacked and bolshevism destroyed. In the thirties russia was undergoing massive internal change with stalin stearing them to becoming a major power in the world through his collective farming and his five year plans. Bolshevism and stalinism as it had become was still something which conflicted directly with the way of life in western europe. If you may recall after  WW1 The British French Polish and Japanese went into russia to overthrow the Red's, but were defeated. The british and the french saw the nazis as an effective barrier against communism. the british and french wanted to get germany to attack the USSR or at least help defeat it, this suggests why the british and french refused Stalin's alliance proposal in the thirties (cant remember the year).

finally the, and probalbly the most significant of all the fact that th british and french armies and navys were underprepared for war and the policy of appeasment was masked by a huge reamrament effort inboth countries. It is fact that had germany have begun its war a year earlier it would have most probably defeated britain in the battle of britain and in its subseqent invasion. i agree that giving away the sudetenland then the rest of czekloslovakia is outragous in itself, compounded but the fact that they had an extremly effective army which could have caused hell for the germanys- but germany could too have brought a swift victory like they did in france when nobody expected it- the risk of czek faliure was too great for britain and france, who needed above all their army airforce and navy ready in case of this, as war begun in 1938 in the sudatenland could have had disasterous consequences...for it was britain reamrament in the late thirties which allowed them to survive the battle of britain and eventually drag the US into the war, which defeated the nazis. the US would have needed much courage going into battle against a germany which controled most of europe, with no friendly territory and supply line extended accross the atlantic, where wolfpacks lurked.

Basically their policy of appeasement was encouraging hitler, but needed to confront him militarily in the near future.

Originally posted by Catt Originally posted by Kalevipoeg Why didn't the Western powers take Hitler down in 1935 when the Wehrmacht was formed and the treaty was seriously broken. What the hell were they thinking, maybe that Hitler just wants to be friends with a bigger army and an airfoce. because,  then after Britain and France defeated Germany.. it would have been called an illegal war.

 

This would have been a legal war because the French and British could very easily use the treaty of Versailles (which was to be complied with until early 1980's) to back their invasion.

but i rekon that the reason for which there is more controvercy about iraq is because WW1 was the war to end all wars- there they had a defined enemy who accepted their fault. there was more emotional envolvment as it was a world war and the entire nation was involved plus millions died.

what you are talking about and by that i mean iraq, you must acknowledge the legal international involvement in a very sensitive area of the world, compounded by a completely new chapter in world history, means that even when treaties which are being ignored or breached, it could not ever be as simple as it was then to introduce necessary measures. for example look at darfur how long it is taking for action there?