The Spirit of Ulysses? Ideology and British Appeasement in the 1930s

Abstract

The British government's appeasement of fascism in the 1930s derived not only from economic, political, and strategic constraints, but also from the personal ideologies of the policy makers. Widespread guilt about the terms of the Versailles Treaty and tensions with France created sympathy for German revisionism, but the Cabinet properly recognized that Nazi Germany represented the gravest threat to peace in the 1930s. Fear of war and the recognition that Britain would have to tolerate peaceful change underlay attempts to appease the dictators, culminating in the Munich agreement in September 1938. After Munich, continued German belligerence, the Kristallnacht, and British intelligence assessments indicating that Hitler was prepared to attack the Western powers led to a reassessment of appeasement. The British government gave security guarantees to several European countries, seeking to deter future aggression and to lay the groundwork for a successful war against Germany should it prove necessary. While most of the British elite detested communism, anti-communist views did not govern British policy; security considerations required Soviet support in Eastern Europe, and Britain and France made a determined effort to secure Soviet support for the Peace Front.