It's a pretty cliched "factoid"... if it weren't for Neville Chamberlain and his piece of paper in 1938, 55,000,000 lives could have been saved!
Hardly anybody in Europe says this or thinks it. But for some reason people in American public life use it all the time it to try to insult one another in a kind of hairy-chested, ahistorical, Hitler Card Up The Sleeve political ritual.
Can anybody offer a scenario that runs from September 1938 to, let's say, 1950, in which there ISN'T a war in Europe started by the Germans? What is the different-thing-that-Neville-Chamberlain-could-have-done and how exactly do you think it might have panned out?
Originally posted by FMFA war in 1938 with France, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia and the USSR arrayed against Germany would certainly have been more in the Allies' favor then the one which broke out in September 1939. The foolish sell out of the Czechs (who had a reasonably large army and a strong set of fortifications in the mountains of the Sudetenland), shattered any possibility of a united front against Hitler.
It's a pretty cliched "factoid"... if it weren't for Neville Chamberlain and his piece of paper in 1938, 55,000,000 lives could have been saved!
Hardly anybody in Europe says this or thinks it. But for some reason people in American public life use it all the time it to try to insult one another in a kind of hairy-chested, ahistorical, Hitler Card Up The Slee Neville-Chamberlain-could-have-done and how exactly do you think it might have panned out?
EDIT: Shirer's Inside the Third Reich has an interesting discussion regarding the opinion of the German generals on how a war in 1938 would have went if the French and Brits hadn't sold out the Czechs. You can read it here: http://books.google.com/[WORD TOO LONG] on pages 423-424.
The bottom line is their conclusion is that Germany would have been quickly defeated.
Originally posted by no1marauderInteresting post. But I am not sold on it yet. The French Army, alone, was indeed bigger than the German Army in 1938, but France was just finishing the building of the Maginot Line and its military mindset was wholly defensive. France sat through the Phoney War until it was attacked in 1940; I contend that it would have been even more inclined to sit out a Phoney War in 1938, especially as the concrete on its spectacularly passive barrier to the German threat was still drying. I cannot see the circumstances under which the USSR would have attacked Germany in 1938; they seem to have a much more step by step game plan... Finland, Baltic States, Poland. The British were ready for nothing in 1938 and needed until 1940 to be able to cobble together even the flimsy British Expeditionary Force which was quickly overrun, even on the defence-favouring semi-urban and bocage terrain of Belgium and north France. If you're looking to France and Britain to nip German ambitions in the bud in 1938, I just can't see it. I see the Allied brass breathing a sigh of relief when they saw Neville Chamberlain waving his piece of paper.
A war in 1938 with France, Great Britain, Czechoslovakia and the USSR arrayed against Germany would certainly have been more in the Allies' favor then the one which broke out in September 1939. The foolish sell out of the Czechs (who had a reasonably large army and a strong set of fortifications in the mountains of the Sudetenland), shattered any possibility of a united front against Hitler.
Of course the German generals didn't want to go to war as soon as 1938 but it does not mean that they would have lost it. I reckon that we can see from Allied actions and decisions in 1940 that they would have been beaten in a similar way in 1938, regardless of the fretting of some of Germany's generals. More pertinent perhaps is whether French generals thought they could beat Germany in 1938, 1939 or 1940.
Your point about the Czechoslovakian army and its fortified positions is very interesting but are we assuming that the hypothetical war that replaces the actual war that "Neville Chamberlain could have avoided" would have had the same sequence of conquests?
Originally posted by FMFA better question would be, could England have won the war with Chamberlain at the helm?
It's a pretty cliched "factoid"... if it weren't for Neville Chamberlain and his piece of paper in 1938, 55,000,000 lives could have been saved!
Hardly anybody in Europe says this or thinks it. But for some reason people in American public life use it all the time it to try to insult one another in a kind of hairy-chested, ahistorical, Hitler Card Up The Slee Neville-Chamberlain-could-have-done and how exactly do you think it might have panned out?
You know, at times I think being on the winning side has only two criterea which are staniding for what is right and having the perserverence to do so. How strong the opposition is that you are facing is less of an issue. I say without someone like Churchill they woudl all be speaking German.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1938#September.E2.80.93October
August 23 – Hitler, hosting a dinner on board the ocean liner Patria in Kiel Bay, tells the Regent of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, that action against Czechoslovakia is imminent and that "he who wants to sit at the table must at least help in the kitchen," a reference to Horthy's designs on Carpathian Ruthenia.
August 27 General Beck leaves office as Chief of the General Staff; he is replaced by General Franz Halder.
August 28 – Lord Runciman's mission to mitigate the Sudetenland crisis begins to break down. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain recalls the British Ambassador Nevile Henderson from Berlin, to instruct Henderson to set up a personal meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler.
August 31 – Winston Churchill, still believing France and Britain mean to honor their promises to defend Czechoslovakia against Nazi aggression, suggests in a personal note to Neville Chamberlain that His Majesty's Government may want to set up a broad international alliance including the United States (specifically mentioning U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as possibly receptive to the idea) and the Soviet Union.
[edit] September–October
September – The European crisis over German demands for annexation of the Sudeten borderland of Czechoslovakia heats up.
September 2 – Soviet Ambassador to Britain Ivan Maisky calls on Winston Churchill, to tell him that Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov has expressed to the French charge d'affaire in Moscow that the Soviet Union is willing to fight over the territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia.
September 4 – During the ceremony marking the unveiling of a plaque at Pointe de Grave, France celebrating Franco-American friendship, American Ambassador William Bullitt in a speech states, "France and the United States were united in war and peace", leading to much speculation in the press that if war did break out over Czechoslovakia, then the United States would join the war on the Allied side.
September 5 – Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš invites mid-level representatives of the Sudeten Germans to the Hradcany palace, to tell them he will accept whatever demands they care to make, provided the Sudetenland remains part of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
September 6 – What eventually proves to be the last of the "Nuremberg Rallies" begins. It draws worldwide attention because it is widely assumed Hitler, in his closing remarks, will signal whether there will be peace with or war over Czechoslovakia.
September 7 – The Times publishes a lead article which calls on Czechoslovakia to cede the Sudetenland to Germany.
September 9 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt disallows the popular interpretation of Bullitt’s speech at a press conference at the White House. Roosevelt states it is “100% wrong” the U.S. would join a “stop-Hitler bloc” under any circumstances, and makes it quite clear that in the event of German aggression against Czechoslovakia, the U.S. would remain neutral.
September 10 – Hermann Göring, in a speech at Nuremberg, calls the Czechs a "miserable pygmy race" who are "harassing the human race." That same evening, Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, makes a broadcast in which he appeals for calm.
September 12 – Hitler makes his much-anticipated closing address at Nuremberg, in which he vehemently attacks the Czech people and President Beneš. American news commentator Hans von Kaltenborn begins his famous marathon of broadcast bulletins over the CBS Radio Network with a summation of Hitler's address.
September 13 – The followers of Konrad Henlein begin an armed revolt against the Czechoslovak government in Sudetenland. Martial law is declared and after much bloodshed on both sides order is temporarily restored. Neville Chamberlain personally sends a telegram to Hitler urgently requesting that they both meet.
September 15 – Neville Chamberlain arrives in Berchtesgaden to begin negotiations with Hitler over the Sudetenland.
September 17 – Neville Chamberlain returns temporarily to London to confer with his cabinet.
September 18 – During a meeting between Neville Chamberlain and the recently-elected Premier of France, Édouard Daladier, and Daladier's Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, it becomes apparent that neither the English nor the French governments are prepared to go to war over the Sudetenland.
September 21
In the early hours of the day, representatives of the French and British governments call on Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš to tell him France and Britain will not fight Hitler if he decides to annex the Sudetenland by force. Late in the afternoon the Czechoslovak government capitulates to the French and British demands.
Winston Churchill warns of grave consequences to European security if Czechoslovakia is partitioned. The same day, Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinov makes a similar statement in the League of Nations.
The New England Hurricane of 1938 strikes Long Island and southern New England, killing over 300 along the Rhode Island shoreline and 600 altogether.
September 22
Unable to survive the previous day's capitulation to the demands of the English and French governments, Czechoslovak premier Milan Hodža resigns. General Jan Syrovy takes his place.
Neville Chamberlain arrives in the city of Godesberg for another round of talks with Hitler over the Sudetenland crisis. Hitler raises his demands to include occupation of all German Sudeten territories by October 1. That night after a telephone conference, Chamberlain reverses himself and advises the Czechoslovaks to mobilize.
Olsen and Johnson's musical comedy revue Hellzapoppin' begins its 3-year run on Broadway.
September 23 – The Czechoslovak army mobilizes.
September 24 -
Sir Eric Phipps, British Ambassador to France, reports to London that "all that is best in France is against war, almost at any price", being opposed only by a "small, but noisy and corrupt, war group". Phipp's report creates major doubts about the ability and/or willingness of France to go to war.
At 1:30 AM, Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain conclude their talks on the Sudetenland. Chamberlain agrees to take Hitler's demands, codified in the Godesberg Memorandum, personally to the Czech Government. The Czech Government rejects the demands, as does Chamberlain's own cabinet. The French Government also initially rejects the terms and orders a partial mobilizaton of the French army.
September 26 – In a vitriolic speech at Berlin's Sportpalast, Hitler defies the world and implies war with Czechoslovakia will begin at any time.
September 28 – As his self-imposed October 1 deadline for occupation of the Sudetenland approaches, Adolf Hitler invites Italian Duce Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edourd Deladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to one last conference in Munich. The Czechs themselves are not invited.
September 29
Colonel Graham Christie, assistant British military attaché in Berlin, is informed by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler that the mobilization of the Royal Navy has badly damaged the popularity of the Nazi regime, as the German public realizes that Fall Grün is likely to cause a world war.
Munich Agreement: German, Italian, British and French leaders agree to German demands regarding annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government is largely excluded from the negotiations and is not a signatory to the agreement.
The Republic of Hatay is declared in Syria
September 30 – Neville Chamberlain returns to Britain from meeting with Adolf Hitler and declares "Peace In Our Time".
October – The Japanese Imperial Army largely overruns Canton.
October 1 – German troops march into the Sudetenland. The Polish government gives the Czech government an ultimatum stating that Teschen must be handed over within twenty-four hours. The Czechs have little choice but to comply.
October 2
Tiberias massacre: Arabs murder 20 Jews.
Disgusted with Neville Chamberlain's conduct at Munich, Duff Cooper resigns his post as First Lord of the Admiralty. With his resignation, formal debate begins in Parliament on the Munich Agreement, but with Chamberlain at the peak of his popularity, there can be little doubt His Majesty's Government will receive a vote of confidence.
October 4 – The Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War begin withdrawing their foreign volunteers from combat as agreed on July 5.
October 5 – Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia, resigns.
October 10 – The Blue Water Bridge opens, connecting Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Ontario.
October 16 – Winston Churchill, in a broadcast address to the United States, condemns the Munich Agreement as a defeat and calls upon America and western Europe to prepare for armed resistance against Hitler.
October 18 The German government expels 12,000 Polish Jews living in Germany; the Polish government accepts 4,000 and refuses admittance to the remaining 8,000, who are forced to live in the no-man’s land on the German-Polish frontier.
October 21 – In direct contravention of the recently signed Munich Agreement, Hitler circulates among his high command a secret memorandum stating that they should prepare for the "liquidation of the rest of Czechoslovakia" and the occupation of Memel.
October 24
The minimum wage is established by law in the United States.
French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet carries out a major purge of the Qui d'Orsay, sacking or exiling a number of anti-appeasement officials such as Pierre Comert and René Massigli.
At a "friendly luncheon" in Berchtesgaden, German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop tells Józef Lipski, the Polish ambassador to Germany, that the Free City of Danzig must return to Germany, that the Germans must be given extra-territorial rights in the Polish Corridor, and that Poland must sign ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939
Events of 1939
January
January 1 – The Hewlett-Packard Company is founded.
January 1 – Texas A&M University wins its first football national championship.
January 5 – Amelia Earhart is officially declared dead after her disappearance.
January 6 – Naturwissenschaften publishes evidence that nuclear fission has been achieved by Otto Hahn.
January 13 – Black Friday: 71 people die across Victoria in one of Australia's worst ever bushfires.
January 23 – “Dutch War Scare”: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the Abwehr leaks misinformation to the effect that Germany plans to invade the Netherlands in February, with the aim of using Dutch air-fields to launch a strategic bombing offensive against Britain. The “Dutch War Scare” leads to a major change in British policies towards Europe.
January 24 – An earthquake kills 30,000 in Chile, and razes about 50,000 sq mi (130,000 km2).
January 26 – Spanish Civil War: Spanish Nationalist troops, aided by Italy, take Barcelona.
January 26 – In Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, in response to rumours (which are true) that he is seeking to end the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, gives a speech highlighting his government's commitment to the cordon sanitaire.
January 27 – Adolf Hitler orders Plan Z, a 5-year naval expansion programme intended to provide for a huge German fleet capable of crushing the Royal Navy by 1944. The Kriegsmarine is given the first priority on the allotment of German economic resources.
January 30 – Hitler gives a speech before the Reichstag calling for an "export battle" to increase German foreign exchange holdings. The same speech also sees Hitler's “prophecy” where he warns that if "Jewish financers" start a war against Germany, the "...result will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe".
February
February 21: Golden Gate International Exposition opens.February 2 – Hungary joins the Anti-Comintern Pact.
February 6 – British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain states in the House of Commons that any German attack on France will be automatically considered an attack on Britain.
February 6 – In a response to Georges Bonnet's speech of January 26, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, referring to Bonnet’s alleged statement of December 6, 1938 accepting Eastern Europe as being in Germany’s exclusive sphere of influence, protests that all French security commitments in that region are “now off limits”.
February 10 – Spanish Nationalists complete their offensive in Catalonia.
February 21 – The Golden Gate International Exposition opens in San Francisco, California.
February 27 – The United Kingdom and France recognize Franco's government.
February 27 – Borley Rectory in England burns.
February 27 – Sit-down strikes are outlawed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
February 28 – The first issue of the Serbian weekly magazine Politikin Zabavnik is published.
March
March – The 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine ends.
March 1 – A Japanese Imperial Army ammunition dump explosion on the outskirts of Osaka kills 94.
March 2 – Pope Pius XII (Cardinal Pacelli) succeeds Pope Pius XI as the 260th pope.
March 3 – In Bombay, Mohandas Gandhi begins to fast in protest of the autocratic rule in India.
March 3 – Students at Harvard University demonstrate the new tradition of swallowing goldfish to reporters.
March 3 – In Durban, South Africa the timeless test begins between England and South Africa, the longest game of cricket ever played. It was abandoned 12 days later, when the English team had to catch the last ferry home.
March 13 – Hitler advises Jozef Tiso to declare Slovakia's independence in order to prevent its partition by Hungary and Poland.
March 14 – The Slovak provincial assembly proclaims independence; priest Jozef Tiso becomes the president of the independent Slovak government.
March 15 – German troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceases to exist. The Ruthenian region of Czechoslovakia declares independence as Carpatho-Ukraine.
March 16 – Princess Fawzia of Egypt marries Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran.
March 16 – Hungary invades Carpatho-Ukraine; final resistance ends on March 18.
March 17 – British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in Birmingham, stating that Britain will oppose any effort at world domination on the part of Germany.
March 18 – “Romanian War Scare”: Virgil Tilea, the Romanian Minister in London, spreads false rumours that Romania is on the verge of a German attack.
March 20 – At an emergency meeting in London to deal with the Romanian crisis, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet suggests to Lord Halifax that the ideal state for saving Romania from a German attack is Poland.
March 21 – In London: the O.T.O. publish Aleister Crowley's "Eight Lectures on Yoga".
March 22 – After an ultimatum of March 20, Nazi Germany takes Memelland from Lithuania.
March 23 – The Slovak-Hungarian War begins.
March 28 – Dictator Francisco Franco assumes power in Madrid.
March 28 – American adventurer Richard Halliburton delivers a last message from a Chinese junk, before he disappears on a voyage across the Pacific Ocean.
March 31 – Neville Chamberlain gives a speech in the House of Commons offering the British "guarantee" of the independence of Poland.
April
April 1 – The Spanish Civil War comes to an end when the last of the Republican forces surrender.
April 3 – Adolf Hitler orders the German military to start planning for Fall Weiss, the codename for the invasion of Poland.
April 4 – Faisal II becomes King of Iraq.
April 4 – The Slovak-Hungarian War ends with Slovakia ceding eastern territories to Hungary.
April 7 – Italy invades Albania; King Zog flees.
April 9 – African-American singer Marian Anderson performs before 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after having been denied the use both of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and of a public high school by the federally-controlled District of Columbia.
April 11 – Hungary leaves the League of Nations.
April 13 – Britain offers a "guarantee" to Romania and Greece.
April 14 – John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath is first published.
April 14 – At a meeting in Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet meets with Soviet Ambassador Jakob Suritz, and suggests that a “peace front” comprising France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Poland and Romania would deter Germany from war.
April 18 – The Soviet Union proposes a "peace front" to resist aggression.
April 20 – Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit", the first anti-lynching song.
April 27 – Ely Racecourse in Cardiff closes.
April 28 – In a speech before the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler renounces the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.
April 30 – The 1939 New York World's Fair opens.
Originally posted by dystoniacAt the time they had a huge state debt to other countries (including USA). The economy was plummeting like the Zimbabwian today. They couldn't afford to wait, they hadn't the time to wait.
If Germany had just been patient and waited another 3 years...with jet and rocket technology, they could have easily defeated all 'takers'.
Originally posted by FMFChamberlain wasn't doing anything other European countries were doing.
It's a pretty cliched "factoid"... if it weren't for Neville Chamberlain and his piece of paper in 1938, 55,000,000 lives could have been saved!
Hardly anybody in Europe says this or thinks it. But for some reason people in American public life use it all the time it to try to insult one another in a kind of hairy-chested, ahistorical, Hitler Card Up The Slee ...[text shortened]... Neville-Chamberlain-could-have-done and how exactly do you think it might have panned out?
WWI had left so many dead, most countries didn't want to consider another one.
Chamberlain's actions wouldn't have made a difference one way or another. By taking a harder stance (Churchillian stance), he would have pushed Britain into a war at an earlier stage (the results of which can merely be speculated upon).
One could, I suppose, argue that if the Versaille treaty had been more realistic / lenient (the stance taken by the US, which serves to prove that even they are sometimes correct) the German economy wouldn't have been so dire and there would have been a chance of another outcome.
You can't really go back and change things though, so lessons should be learnt for future generations.
Originally posted by FabianFnasThe Zimbabwe comparison applies to Weimar Germany, not the 3rd Reich, but it's correct to say that Hitler's 'economic miracle' relied heavily on military spending and other factors associated with a war economy.
They only had one solution, and that's war.
I don't know ho much in debt they really was. Anyone knows? That's (one of) the reasons USA went in to the war - to secure the loan.
Originally posted by Bosse de NageSorry about the Zimbabwian comparison. I extrapolated a bit too hard there...
The Zimbabwe comparison applies to Weimar Germany, not the 3rd Reich, but it's correct to say that Hitler's 'economic miracle' relied heavily on military spending and other factors associated with a war economy.
But do you agree that Germany, at that time, lived very much over its economy? That the war was the only solution for a secure future?
Three possibilities:
(1) A war they won: A very good future with world dominance and economic independance.
(2) A war they lose: Well, we know now what happened. They're back in business after a while.
(3) Not going on war: They have a heavy burden with a state debt they cannot handle for a very long time ahead.
The bet on alternative (1) but got into (2). (3) was not an option.