Solving the appeasement puzzle: contending historical interpretations of British diplomacy during the 1930s

1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen G. Walker
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Second World War ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
British Policy ◽  
Second World

The historical interpretations of British diplomacy during the 1930s are difficult to separate from those interpretations that explain the occurrence of the Second World War. Historians often link them by relating the British policy of appeasement to the outbreak of the war. British policy becomes a “permissive” cause of World War II by allowing Hitler to rearm Germany, consolidate western German frontiers, and expand towards the east. First, the British failed to prevent Hitler from occupying the Rhineland in March, 1936, and then merely protested the German annexation of Austria two years later. Within six months after the Anschluss Prime Minister Chamberlain accepted the cessation of the Sudetenland to Germany at Munich. Finally, after Hitler conquered the remainder of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939, the British guaranteed the territorial integrity of Poland. When Hitler attacked Poland in September, 1939, the British government, with the French as allies, came to Poland's defence. The British decision to honour this commitment belatedly but irrevocably reversed their earlier appeasement policy, which was to concede Hitler's territorial demands in an attempt to reach a peaceful European settlement with Germany.

scholarly journals The formation of the Ulster Home Guard

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (158) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
William Butler
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Police Force ◽  
British Government ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores the problems encountered in the formation of the Ulster Home Guard, supposedly a direct equivalent to its well-known British counterpart, as part of the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary in Northern Ireland, during the Second World War. Predictably, the Ulster Home Guard became an almost exclusively Protestant organisation which led to many accusations of sectarianism from a variety of different national and international voices. This became a real concern for the British government, as well as the army, which understandably wished to avoid any such controversy. Though assumptions had previously been made about the numbers of Catholics in the force, this article explores just how few joined the organisation throughout the war. Additionally, the article investigates the rather awkward constitutional position in which the Ulster Home Guard was placed. Under the Government of Ireland Act, the Stormont administration had no authority on matters of home defence. It did, however, have the power to raise a police force as a way to maintain law and order. Still, the Ulster Home Guard, although formed as part of the Ulster Special Constabulary, was entrusted solely with home defence and this had wider implications for British policy towards Northern Ireland throughout the Second World War.

From Scotia to ‘Operation Tabarin’: developing British policy for Antarctica

Polar Record ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 342-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Dudeney ◽  
David W.H. Walton
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Second World

ABSTRACTThe roots of a British Antarctic policy can be traced, paradoxically, back to the establishment of a meteorological station by the Scottish Antarctic Expedition in the South Orkneys, in 1903, and the indifference of the British Government to its almost immediate transfer to the Argentine Government. It was from that modest physical presence upon Laurie Island that Argentina came increasingly to challenge British claims to the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands Dependencies (FID), first in the late 1920s and then more extensively in the second world war. This challenge shaped British policy for the next forty years, with further complications caused by overlapping territorial claims made by Chile and the possible territorial ambitions of the USA. Britain's eventual response, at the height of World War II, was to establish permanent occupation of Antarctica from the southern summer of 1943–1944. This occupation was given the military codename Operation Tabarin. However, it was never a military operation as such, although monitoring the activities of enemy surface raiders and submarines provided a convenient cover story, as did scientific research once the operation became public. Whilst successive parties, rich in professional scientists, considerably expanded the pre-war survey and research of the Discovery Investigations Committee, their physical occupancy of the Antarctic islands and Peninsula was essentially a political statement, whereby the Admiralty and Colonial Office (CO) strove to protect British territorial rights, whilst the Foreign Office (FO) endeavoured to minimise disruption to Britain's long-standing economic and cultural ties with Argentina, and most critically, the shipment of war-time meat supplies. In meeting that immediate need, Tabarin also provided the basis from which Britain's subsequent post-war leadership in Antarctic affairs developed.

scholarly journals The Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Perception of the USSR during World War II: 1939–45

2021 ◽  
pp. 593-602
Author(s):  
Anton N. Uchaev ◽  
◽  
Elena I. Demidova ◽  
Natalia A. Uchaeva ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Second World

The article analyzes the specificity of the Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s attitude to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The study analyzes the frequency of the Prime Minister referencing the USSR in his diary from September 1, 1939 to September 2, 1945, as well as his reaction to a number of the most significant events of the Second World War associated with the Soviet Union: the German attack on the USSR, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Canada, the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, the victory over Germany. In the course of work, both general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, inductive method, comparative method) and special methods (historical-chronological and content analysis) have been used to study the materials of the diary. The use of the historical-chronological method is due to the need to correlate information from the diary with the overall historical picture of the studied period, and the use of content analysis helps to create a more reliable picture of Canadian Prime Minister’s perception of the Soviet participation in World War II. The article has made allowances for the fact that Mackenzie King sought to create his own positive image in his diaries, planning their posthumous publication. But, since the USSR was not a key topic for the Prime Minister (as evidenced by keywords statistics), it can be stated that the leader of the Canadian liberals was quite frank, at least as frank as a person who, in his lifetime, was known as an extremely cautious politician could be. It is clear, that King was well aware of the significance of the events on the Eastern Front. But throughout the war he retained both a negatively neutral attitude towards the USSR (due to its communist nature) and his perception of the Soviet Union as part of Asia and thus a step below the Anglo-Saxon world, which had a higher level of culture and moral principles. The objective reality, i.e. absence of hostilities in Canada, its maneuvering between Great Britain and the United States, and priority of economic and domestic policy for King, explains that a lesser part of his attention was paid to the events in the USSR in comparison with processes associated with England and the United States.

Politics and Ideology: Lord Moyne, Palestine and Zionism 1939–1944

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-169
Author(s):  
Ronen Yitzhak
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
World War ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Jewish Immigration ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Second World

This article deals with Lord Moyne's policy towards the Zionists. It refutes the claim that Lord Moyne was anti-Zionist in his political orientation and in his activities and shows that his positions did not differ from those of other British senior officials at the time. His attitude toward Jewish immigration to Palestine and toward the establishment of a Jewish Brigade during the Second World War was indeed negative. This was not due to anti-Zionist policy, however, but to British strategy that supported the White Paper of 1939 and moved closer to the Arabs during the War. While serving in the British Cabinet, Lord Moyne displayed apolitically pragmatic approach and remained loyal to Prime Minister Churchill. He therefore supported the establishment of a Jewish Brigade and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine in the secret committee that Churchill set up in 1944. Unaware of his new positions, the Zionists assassinated him in November 1944. The murder of Lord Moyne affected Churchill, leading him to reject the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Metamorphoses of memory of the the Russian-Serbian Brotherhood of War in Modern Serbia

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 142-156
Author(s):  
A. Yu. Timofeev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Party System ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Second World

The article considers the perception of World War II in modern Serbian society. Despite the stability of Serbian-Russian shared historical memory, the attitudes of both countries towards World wars differ. There is a huge contrast in the perception of the First and Second World War in Russian and Serbian societies. For the Serbs the events of World War II are obscured by the memories of the Civil War, which broke out in the country immediately after the occupation in 1941 and continued several years after 1945. Over 70% of Yugoslavs killed during the Second World War were slaughtered by the citizens of former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The terror unleashed by Tito in the first postwar decade in 1944-1954 was proportionally bloodier than Stalin repressions in the postwar USSR. The number of emigrants from Yugoslavia after the establishment of the Tito's dictatorship was proportionally equal to the number of refugees from Russia after the Civil War (1,5-2% of prewar population). In the post-war years, open manipulations with the obvious facts of World War II took place in Tito's Yugoslavia. In the 1990s the memories repressed during the communist years were set free and publicly debated. After the fall of the one-party system the memory of World War II was devalued. The memory of the Russian-Serbian military fraternity forged during the World War II began to revive in Serbia due to the foreign policy changes in 2008. In October 2008 the President of Russia paid a visit to Serbia which began the process of (re) construction of World War II in Serbian historical memory. According to the public opinion surveys, a positive attitude towards Russia and Russians in Serbia strengthens the memories on general resistance to Nazism with memories of fratricide during the civil conflict events of 1941-1945 still dominating in Serbian society.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE OF UZBEKISTAN IN THE VICTORY OF OVER FASCISM IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
Dilorom Bobojonova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Additional Material ◽  
Historical Aspect ◽  
The People ◽  
Second World

In this article, the author highlights the worthy contribution of the people of Uzbekistan, along with other peoples, to the victory over fascism in World War II in a historical aspect. This approach to this issue will serve as additional material to previously published works in international scientific circles

La “neutralidad” chilena en la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1939-1943): Un análisis historiográfico con énfasis en la literatura sobre las relaciones Chile-Japón

2016 ◽  
pp. 95
Author(s):  
Pedro Iacobelli Delpiano
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
World War ◽  
International History ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
The Us ◽  
Second World

ResumenLa literatura sobre la historia internacional de Chile durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial ha centrado el debate en torno al juego de presiones ejercidas por los Estados Unidos hacia los gobiernos radicales de Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia y Juan Antonio Ríos Morales para conseguir que Chile se sumara a la política continental contra las fuerzas del Eje. La neutralidad chilena fue interpretada como una actitud traicionera por los estadounidenses y en un triunfo por los países del Eje durante 1941 a 1943. Este artículo introduce el debate y busca presentar las posibilidades historiográficas al incluir a Japón, tanto como actor relevante en la política chilena como receptor de la “neutralidad” chilena en el periodo.Palabras clave: Chile, Japón, Segunda Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos, historiografíaThe Chilean “Neutrality” in World War II (1939-1943): A historiographical analysis focused on the literature of the diplomatic relations between Chile and JapanAbstractThe literature about Chile´s international history during World War II has heavily laid on the power dynamics between the US and the Chilean radical governments of vice-president (interim) Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia and president Juan Antonio Rios Morales. Since the Roosevelt administration sought to secure the rupture of diplomatic relations between Chile and the Axis powers, Santiago´s refusal to break relations was understood as treason by the US and as a diplomatic success by the Axis powers during 1941-1943.This paper delves into the historiographical possibilities in including Japan, either as a relevant actor in the Chilean politics and as receptor of the newsabout Chile´s neutrality.Keywords: Chile, Japan, Second World War, United States, historiographyA “neutralidade” chilena na segunda guerra mundial(1939-1943): uma análise historiográfica, com ênfase naliteratura sobre as relações Chile-JapãoResumoA literatura sobre a história internacional do Chile durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial tem-se centrado no debate em torno ao jogo de pressões exercidas pelos Estados Unidos aos governos radicais de Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia e Juan Antonio Rios Morales, para conseguir que o Chile pudesse se somar a política continental contra as forças do Eixo. A neutralidade chilena foi interpretada como uma atitude traiçoeira pelos norte-americanos e uma vitória para os países do Eixo durante 1941 a 1943. Este artigo introduz o debate e procura a presentar as possibilidades historiográficas ao incluir ao Japão, tanto como um ator relevante na política chilena como o destinatário da “neutralidade” chilena no período.Palavras-chave: Chile, Japão, Segunda Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos, historiografia

The ‘Northern Dominator’ and the Mare Nostrum: Fascist Italy's ‘Cultural War’ in Malta

Modern Italy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Baldoli
Keyword(s):  
Air Force ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Cultural Conflict ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Italian Government ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Military Activity ◽  
Second World

Within the wider attempt to transform Italian communities abroad into Fascist colonies, the Italian Fasci Abroad sought to build nationalist propaganda in the Mediterranean. The irredentist activities and the propaganda of the Fasci in Malta alarmed the British governors on the island, the British government and MI5. This article analyses the cultural conflict organised in Maltese schools, bookshops and universities by the Italian nationalists against the British protectorate–a conflict the British suspected could be followed by military activity, in particular when Italy began building its empire in Ethiopia. The nationalist offensive was supported in the 1920s and, more vigorously, in the 1930s by the Fasci, the Italian consulate on the island and, ultimately, the Italian government. Not even the Second World War and the bombing of Malta by the Italian air force concluded the conflict between Italian and British imperialism on the island.

Vichy Specificities: Repositioning the French Past

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. H. Adler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Second World War ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
World War ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
Northern France ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
Second World ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Michèle and Jean-Paul Cointet, eds., Dictionnaire historique de la France sous l'Occupation (Paris: Tallandier, 2000), 732pp., FF 290, ISBN 2-235-02234-0. Hanna Diamond, Women and the Second World War in France 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints (Harlow: Longman, 1999), 231pp., £45.00 (hb), £14.99 (pb), ISBN 0-582-29909-8. Sarah Fishman, Laura Lee Downs, Ioannis Sinanoglou, Leonard V. Smith, Robert Zaretsky, eds., France at War: Vichy and the Historians (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2000), 336pp., £45.00, ISBN 1-859-73299-2. Bertram M. Gordon, ed., Historical Dictionary of World War II France: The Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938–1946 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998), 433pp., £73.95, ISBN 0-313-29421-6. Miranda Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 285pp., £31.50 (hb), £14.00 (pb), ISBN 0-226-67349-9 and 0-226-67350-2. Lynne Taylor, Between Resistance and Collaboration: Popular Protest in Northern France, 1940–45 (Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), 195pp., £40.00, ISBN 0-333-73640-0.

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