Britain signed the naval agreement with Germany in 1935, Britain agreed to a policy of giving Hitler what he desired. This agreement was known as the appeasement. Many people saw this as a good initiative because it would avoid war, however with hindsight we can see that there were many disadvantages.
We can see in Source A that Neville Chamberlain was in favour of the appeasement and settled that it was the only viable route. Neville Chamberlain exclaims in a radio broadcast, “Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me” when Chamberlain stated this he implied that appeasement was the only option to avoid war. Neville Chamberlain showed that he was willing to allow Hitler increase his territory in order to escape from another war. The reason that Neville wished to avoid war is due to the fact that in “the great war” there were devastating economic consequences as well as countless lives lost. Conversely Hugh Christie in his report to MI6 (this denotes that it was private and therefore honest and reliable) asks, “How soon will the next step against Czechoslovakia be tried?” The message Hugh Christie was attempting to put across is that now we have given Germany more ground it is only a matter of time before they demand more and more (Czechoslovakia). We can see with hindsight that his prediction was precise as Hitler did get hold of Czechoslovakia. It is noticeable from Source C that The Nazi troops invaded Czechoslovakia. This shows that appeasement was a not the best option. One can infer that since Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, he would ultimately want to take over Europe and the entire world.
In addition in source D we read an extract of what Winston Churchill spoke in October 1938. He announced, “This is only the beginning of the reckoning.” Churchill was telling the public that the Germans will conquer Czechoslovakia; and that’s just the beginning. He is implying that Hitler will just want more and more power. He is suggesting that although it delayed a great war due to the appeasement there will be a possibly greater war as Hitler now thinks he can get away with anything. Source E was drawn by David Low (a British cartoonist) The message that he is trying to get across is that Hitler is walking over all “leaders of Democracy” thus making himself ultimate dictator. David Low is telling us that since Britain and France signed the appeasement Adolf Hitler is able to walk over all democratic leaders (which is also communism) this is as a result of the appeasement. Britain and France displayed to the Germans that they can get away with taking chunks of land and eventually whole countries.
Furthermore Source F