Review of Appeasement by Tim Bouverie

Cover of “Appeasement” by Tim Bouverie, photographed by Alexander I. Velasquez

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Book Details

Category: Non-fiction, history, international diplomacy
Page Count: 419 (Paperback Edition)
Year of Publication: 2019
Rating: 5/5
10-Word Summary: The diplomatic history of Neville Chamberlain’s failed policy of appeasement.

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About Appeasement

Tim Bouverie wrote the authoritative book when it comes to Neville Chamberlain’s failed policy of appeasement in the 1930s. After getting through this masterpiece of a book, I had to stop and ask myself: “How did the British refrain from placing Chamberlain’s head on a spike?”

Appeasement begins with Adolf Hitler’s ascension as Chancellor of Germany in 1933. The British press didn’t know what to make of Hitler; The Times claimed he “was held to be the least dangerous solution of a problem bristling with dangers,” while The Economist, the Spectator, and the New Statesmen foolishly stated: “We shall not expect to see the Jews’ extermination, or the power of big finance overthrown.” (Pages 8-9) The French press was equally clueless, and reading all this gave me the realization that newspapers, in general, are terrible sources for geopolitical information, as journalists usually guess as to what a world leader is really up to, and their guesses do not constitute knowledge any more than the average person on the street who guesses correctly which side a six-sided die will fall on.

As for the policy of appeasement itself, Bouverie gives a wonderful explanation as to why it was the foreign policy of choice for Britain throughout the 1930s: The Allies believed that they were to blame for the rise of the Nazi Party; as a matter of fact, Nazism was “the natural, if violent, reaction to legitimate grievances stemming from Versailles.” (Page 48) At this point, the Treaty of Versailles had come to be viewed a treaty that was too harsh, hence the idea was that “the Treaty should be altered and Germany allowed to regain that place and status to which her size and history entitled her.” (Page 48) The only problem with this policy is that it assumed Hitler could be appeased, and few people saw Hitler for who he really was.

Mein Kampf

Anyone who reads Mein Kampf will be baffled at how open Hitler was in stating his foreign policy ambitions: He announces his desire to unite Germany with Austria, he announces his desire to expand Germany’s territory at the expense of Russia, who he refers to as a “culturally inferior” nation, and he announces that the French were the mortal enemy of the Germans. Hitler said the following about France:

Never suffer the rise of two continental powers in Europe. Regard any attempt to organize a second military power on German frontiers, even if only in the form of creating a state capable of military strength, as an attack on Germany, and in it see not only the right, but also the duty, to employ all means up to armed force to prevent the rise of such a state, or, if one has already risen, to smash it again. (Mein Kampf, Page 664; First Mariner Books Edition)

All of this begs the question: With Hitler’s foreign policy of territorial conquest out in the open, why did the British choose the policy of appeasement? If anything, one would think that the British leaders would favor to formulate some sort of Bismarck-style alliance system with France, the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in an attempt to keep Hitler from conquest.

But Bouverie makes it clear that the British chose appeasement for the same reason we in the 2020s would chose appeasement if Adolf Hitler were around today: No one read Hitler’s book. And those that did read his book were of split opinion: Since Hitler was proclaiming that he was “a man of peace” early in his chancellorship, those that believed him dismissed his early writings as the “the moribund rantings of a young firebrand.” (Page 18) Even Neville Chamberlain, who had read excerpts of Mein Kampf, chose to ignore Hitler’s early writings, stating: “If I accepted the author’s conclusions I should despair.” (Page 418) This brings me to my final point and the main character of Bouverie’s book: Neville Chamberlain.

Neville Chamberlain

To be fair, I don’t want to put all the blame on Chamberlain, as Bouverie makes it clear that appeasement had already been the policy of choice for both the government and, more importantly, for the British people. Stanley Baldwin, who preceded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister, admitted that even if he were to go back in time and try to convince the British populace that Germany was a threat and that Britain should focus on rearmament in the midst of an economy attempting to get out of the Great Depression, the effect would have been disastrous and have meant the loss of a General Election. (Pages 25-26) Indeed, it was Winston Churchill’s pursuit of rearmament that made him so unpopular in the 1930s until his eventual ascension to Prime Minister in 1940.

By the time Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in 1935, his main goal was to balance the budget and cut expenses to get Britain out of the Great Depression; but he just so happened to take the job at the same time Hitler’s rearmament program was in full swing. Eerily, it was Chamberlain’s half-brother Austen Chamberlain who had reminded Neville after a dinner in 1936: “Neville, you must remember you don’t know anything about foreign affairs.” (Page 129) That statement turned out to be prophetic, as the rest of the book details how poorly Chamberlain handled the international situation. To make things worse, Chamberlain was hard-headed, always convinced that he was right. For example, his desire to appease Benito Mussolini’s aggression in Ethiopia would eventually lead to the resignation of his Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, all of which Bouverie brilliantly details in chapter ten. Chamberlain even went so far as to have secret channels of communication with Mussolini so as to not have to go through his secretary—an obvious sign that Chamberlain felt he could handle the international situation himself without the need to seek advice from any members of his cabinet. And when you couple Chamberlain’s stubbornness with the fact that he surrounded himself with “yes men” who were convinced that appeasing Hitler’s desires for German greatness was the right policy to pursue, what you get is a recipe for disaster.

Should You Read Appeasement?

The answer is a definite yes. Tim Bouverie’s first book is both a classic and a must-have for those who are interested in history—in particular the diplomatic history leading up to the Second World War—and the best source for explaining why Britain’s policy of appeasement failed to stop Adolf Hitler in his pursuit of empire. Bouverie does a wonderful job weaving the policy of appeasement in the 1930s into one dramatic narrative, and, if you can, read the book along with the audiobook narrated by John Sessions. Sessions did an amazing job narrating and deserves an equal amount of praise for his performance.

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Review of Munich, 1938 by David Faber

Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)

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Book Title

Category: Non-fiction, diplomatic history, politics
Page Count: 504 (Paperback)
Year of Publication: 2010 (Simon & Schuster Reprint Edition)
Rating: 1/5
10-Word Summary: A detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from 1937-1938.

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About Munich, 1938

I don’t like this book; I’m just going to state it from the beginning. I will never write a review for a book having read only half of it—in this case 230 pages. For me, I have to read the entirety of a book to write a good and comprehensive review. But I’m willing to make an exception in this case for one major reason: The title is completely misleading.

The title is Munich, 1938: Appeasement and World War II. Yet, Munich 1938 gets one or two chapters at the end of the book. And I get it: Faber is writing the buildup to Munich 1938 and all the diplomacy that preceded it. But Faber starts his account from November 1937. Why on earth would anyone start at November 1937? The logical place would be to start at 1933 because that is when Hitler comes to power and assumes the chancellorship in Germany.

Also, to understand Munich 1938, one would have to understand Hitler’s foreign policy ambitions and, hence, understand what lies in the pages of Mein Kampf. Yet, Faber never mentions Hitler’s famed book or even references his ultimate foreign policy objective of fighting the Soviet Union and destroying France. And because Faber starts his account so late in 1937, it’s impossible to understand why Hitler is even invading Austria and Czechoslovakia in the first place.

What about appeasement? Appeasement is never fully explained. Faber makes it clear that Chamberlain wanted to appease Hitler but not why he wanted to appease Hitler.

What about World War II? Everything in the book happens before World War II. I have no idea why World War II is even part of the title of this book.

The real title of this book should be: A detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from November 1937 to October 1938; that’s all this book is. And I’m upset because I bought this book to understand appeasement, to understand why Chamberlain trusted Hitler’s promise at Munich, and to understand those who opposed appeasement. After all, appeasement is in the title of the book. You would think things like this would be explained. But no. I got none of that.

There are also so many people in this book—too many as a matter of fact. Because Faber condenses a dramatic eleven month history of diplomacy, his account is overly detailed and has so many people involved that it is easy to forget who most of them are outside of the major players in the account such as Hitler, Chamberlain, Eden, and so on. It makes for a very frustrating read having to constantly ask the question, “Wait, who is this again?”

Just about the only positive thing I have to say about this book is that Faber does know his stuff, and he gives a very detailed account of all of the diplomacy, both secret and public, that went on in both Hitler’s and Chamberlain’s cabinet from 1937-1938. Otherwise, this book was completely useless for me.

Should You Read Munich, 1938?

If you are looking for a book that will explain appeasement—what it was and why it became Britain’s foreign policy, the conflict between Chamberlain and Churchill, and the road to World War II, read Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War by Tim Bouverie (a review for this is coming soon). However, if and only if you are looking for an extremely detailed diplomatic history between Britain and Germany from November 1937 to October 1938, then this is definitely your book.

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