People tend to forget, Chamberlain was the British Prime Minster till May 1940, as Norway then France fell to the Germans. It was Chamberlain, not Churchill that declared war on Germany in September 1939 and set up the Defenses of Britain that would provide the British Victory in the Battle of Britain. Till his death in November 1940, Chamberlain not Churchill was the leader of the Conservative party of Britain, the majority party in the Commons (Chamberlain and Churchill wanted an "All-party-Government" but Labour under Attlee and the Liberals under Lloyd George would NOT enter a government headed by Chamberlain, Attlee do to a general unwillingness on the part of Labour. And Lloyd George do to mutual hatred between George and Chamberlain, thus Chamberlain resigned so an all party government could be entered into, Labour had no problems working with Chamberlain for he stayed in the Government and no one really cared about the Liberals at that time period).
In many ways, Munich was more an attempt to win time for France and Britain to build up their Militarily then any affect for a long term solution.
I do NOT want to minimize what Churchill did as Prime Minister after June 1940, but just to point out that Chamberlain wanted peace, but was willing to go to war to achieve it. After Munich in September 1938, Britain went into full production of its latest fighters, the Hurricane and Spitfires of the Battle of Britain. The Hurricane was ready in 11938, but the Spitfire was NOT, this at a time where the ME-109 which had already seen combat in Spain in the Spanish Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain#Road_to_Munich_.28March_1938_.E2.80.93_September_1938.29ME-109, in production by 1937:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109Spitfire, in production in August 1938, but held up by problems with its engines, not enough of them to defend Britain till the Summer of 1940, as one writer wrote, Paris fell on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_SpitfireThe Hawker Hurricane was introduced about the same time as the ME-109, but is considered inferior to it, but was the main British Fighter of the Battle of Britain (The Spitfire did not become the main British fighter till long after the Battle of Britain):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_HurricaneThe year Munich provided the French and the British permitted Britain to survive 1940. France had lagged behind both Germany and Britain in re-armament, only starting re-armament in 1938 (This had to do with internal French Politics, the Right wing did NOT want the left wing to build up the French Military so opposed any re-armament till after the left was removed from office and the Right Wing controlled the French Government, that occurred in 1938 and the left wing refused to oppose re-armament for it was needed, even if it benefited the right wing of France).
By September 1939, Germany had a window of opportunity. If it attacked Poland in September 1939 and Britain and France declared war, Germany had enough military strength over France and Britain to defeat any allied attack AND even launch its own attacks. The French Army told its Government it would not be ready to do any offensive operations till 1941 do to a lack of supplies and equipment (including Tanks and planes). At best the French Army was capable of defending France NOT attacking Germany (Thus the French efforts to work out another Munich in September 1939. to give its time to rearm). Chamberlain seems to have supported the French efforts for the same reason the French were making the efforts, Britain and France would lose any war with Germany if fought before 1941. The problem was no one trusted Hitler after the Spring annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia in the Spring of 1939, thus war was declared but the British and French Armies went on the Defensive (In September 1939 the French did launch a limited offensive in Alsace-Lorraine but withdrew when it became clear it was NOT drawing any German Troops from Poland).
British Plane production went into full swing, but clearly inferior in numbers to German fighter strength for the remainder of 1939, would remain inferior till the fall of France in June 1940. One historian pointed out that France held out another month after Paris Fell to the Germans, preventing the Start of the Battle of Britain for a full month, during that month British Air Place Production finally went on par with the German Fighter strength permitting Britain to win the Battle of Britain.
All of the above was want the Western Allies won by Munich. Yes, Germany was weaker in 1938 then it would be in 1940, but the allies were even weaker (when compared to Germany) in the fall of 1938 compared to what they would be in the Spring of 1940 (The French Army had wanted to push the Germans out of the Rhine Valley when Hitler re-occupied the "Rhineland" in 1936, but the rejection of the plan to attack by Britain, pre-Chamberlain, killed the idea).
One last comment, Chamberlain is attack for NOT putting Britain on a war footing in 1938, but lets be honest, Hitler did not technically put Germany on a War Footing till the fall of 1944. Thus it is more an attack that ignores the world situation (including the ending of the Great Depression) at that time. Chamberlain added more money into production of weapons and development of weapons, but given the increase use of oil was the fuel of war, what was good and what was bad was in flux (Britain in the late 1930s became the first army to do without horses, more the result of Ireland's independence and lost of Irish graze-land for horses then any real improvements provided by the Trucks of the Time period. The US had only adopted 89 octane as its main form of gasoline in 1936, and then only for airplanes, what passed for Gasoline for most automobiles were inferior, the AAA in the US was praising states that set a lower limit of 60 octane for Gasoline sold in that state, most states permitted the sale of even lower octane gasoline, no wonder the horse stayed the main farm implement till after WWII).
Thus Chamberlain was in a time of transition, Motor transport was the wave of the Future, but no one knew what the standards would be. 89 octane? 130 octane? 50 octane? no one knew. The lower the octane the less power the engine provides for its size. The higher the octane, the more refining it requires and thus increased costs of gasoline. France, Germany, the USSR and the US all had experimented with oil motor transport, but had not yet determined how they should be used nor what should be used in them (89 became the default for it had been the pre-WWII airline gasoline, but lower octane fuel was used and shipped while into WWII).
Another transition was the Great Depression, All the world was still coming out of it in 1938, no one wanted to go back into the Depression and it was clear that the ultimate cause of the Great Depression had been the economic stresses of WWI and how everyone tried to deal with those economic pressure in the 1920s. No one wanted to ride that roller coaster again.
A third factor was that by 1939 it was clear that the Number Country in the World was the USA. The USA had clearly passed Britain as the main world economic power in the 1920s, and while the US suffered worse then Britain in the 1930s, the US was still economically more powerful then Britain in 1939. Without US support, any war with Germany would be limited, and the US did NOT want to go to war in Europe in 1941 let alone 1938.
A fourth factor was trying to get France and Britain's Eastern European allies to accept Soviet troops inside their borders. France and Britain realized by the late 1930s that the only reason the Germans failed in 1914 was the Russian Empire had attacked Germany sooner then the Germans thought they would (Germany expected the Russian Empire to wait till it was fully mobilized, Russia had the longest time to mobilized its forces given it had the most land and the most troops to call up, German assumed that the Russians would not be mobilized by the time the Germans took Paris. The problem was the Czar had not waited for full mobilization, but attack East Prussia with only part of his army, this panic the German High Command that pulled troops from the attack on France to stop the Russian attack on East Prussia, that withdraw of troops gave the French army a situation on the critical part of the Front where the French had overwhelming strength and into the gap the French army had attacked and drove back the German Offensive of 1914. Furthermore the Russian attacks in 1916 had been so successful that Germany had to send more troops East to stabilized the situation, ending the Battle of Verdun in France for that is where the German Reinforcements for the Russian front had to come from).
Thus, by the late 1930s the French and British Militarily were telling their political leaders that it was very marginal for both France and Britain to defeat Hitler without Stalin. If almost all German Forces could be committed to France, France would have a problem even with British assistance to hold out. Britain had just reinstated the Draft, but even with the Draft when war was declared only one in every 48 British men were called to arms. In France the number was one out of Eight. France would have to fight Germany with limited British Assistance for the first year of any war with Germany. With Soviet support it looked Grim for France (and Britain was only able to liberate France with the Assistance of the US AND that 2/3rds of the German Army was tied up in Russia by 1944.
My point is Chamberlain's position in 1938 was weak, he achieved what he needed to get, time to re-arm. Time to negotiate some sort of deal with Stalin. Time for the French Army to be re-built.
The above is a long paper, but I just wanted to show that Chamberlain was willing to do what Obama is NOT willing to do, get people mad at him for what he did for needs to be done. Chamberlain would deal on things he had to, but also fight for the things he wanted. Obama has yet to show that, for example what has he done to show he oppose the GOP plans on his Government? Nothing, Chamberlain at least tried to upgrade his military.
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