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International Relations: The Changing International Order 1918–1975

Changing interpretations of Appeasement

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Guilty Men and wartime hostility, Churchill's unnecessary war, the orthodox view, the Munich analogy and its use over Vietnam, the Cold War's influence, the thirty-year rule, the revisionist case for Chamberlain and the archives opened after 1991.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why were views of appeasement written during the war so hostile to it?

Key term

How did Churchill describe the conflict in his war memoirs?

Numbers

What was the Munich analogy?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the book Guilty Men, and when did it appear?

    Model answer

    A short book published in 1940 that attacked the ministers who had appeased Hitler and blamed them for leaving Britain unready to fight.

  2. 2

    Why were views of appeasement written during the war so hostile to it?

    Model answer

    Britain was fighting for survival, and blaming the men who had failed to stop Hitler explained the danger and united people behind the war effort.

  3. 3

    How did Churchill describe the conflict in his war memoirs?

    Model answer

    As the unnecessary war, one that could have been prevented had the dictators been faced down early.

  4. 4

    What is the orthodox interpretation of appeasement?

    Model answer

    That it was a weak and mistaken policy which fed Hitler’s ambitions and made a general war certain.

  5. 5

    What was the Munich analogy?

    Model answer

    The argument, used constantly after 1945, that giving way to a dictator only invites further demands, so aggression must be met at once.

  6. 6

    How was the comparison used to justify American policy in Vietnam?

    Model answer

    Presidents argued that pulling out would be appeasement of communist aggression and would invite more of it elsewhere.

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International Relations: The Changing International Order 1918–1975

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AFactories switched from consumer goods to weapons.
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