The Munich Agreement - Dissertation Example

Chamberlain’s role was central to the appeasement process as a committed person in response to the public opinion. But this was not without criticism. Left wing-writers under a pseudonym Cato published guilty men in 1940, which accused Chamberlain of taking undue advantage of public opinion and giving unrealistic hopes of peace with Germany.  They sought to point out that Chamberlain underestimated the British capacity and overestimated the German’s capacity of war. They have painted Chamberlain as a great deceiver .

Because of the outbreak of the Second World War in spite of the cession of the Sudetenland, Chamberlain stood exposed to criticism for having slowed down the rearmament program after the First World War. Historical research on this episode has these writers as the first phase. In what can be called the second phase of historical research, Taylor in his 1961 publication ”The Origin of Second World War”, remarked that the role of appeasement in the outbreak of Second World War was;  “The cause of war was therefore as much the blunders of others as the wickedness of dictators themselves.

”  In 1963, The Appeasers, Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott maintained that Chamberlain deceived the public by showing the bogey of another war which the British could not afford. However, since the 1960s, revisionist historians argued for the compelling reasons for appeasement as that was the only viable policy for the British in the 1930s. The Nation had a weak economy drained of resources after the needs in the war just ended. Historians such as Patrick Finney agreed that appeasement was the inevitable result of British decline.

They also argued that public opinion prior to 1937 could not be easily dismissed. Maurice Calling in his 1975 publication, The Impact of Hitler: British Politics and British Policy 1933-40, maintained that the appeasement policy was compelled by domestic considerations. Chamberlain, motivated by the state of the country’s economy and political stand of his Conservative party, took the appeasement decision that was expected to become popular with the British public. Chamberlain changed his stand in response to the public opinion after Germany occupied Prague in 1939. R.A.

C Parker, in his Chamberlain and Appeasement (1993), argued that Chamberlain deliberately used the reasons of weak economy and weak military, to shape the public opinion, as he was deeply committed to appeasement for the sake appeasement and not due to weakness.5 From looking at the historiography relating to the Munich agreement it is clear to see that there is an ongoing debate relating to the issue. Throughout this piece I intend to