The Anti-Appeasers

The Anti-Appeasers - a study of the anti-Appeasement movement in the Commons

Appeasement has become a dirty word since the appeasement of Hitler by Chamberlain and his government in the late 1930s. After the war it became known as “something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else's expense." (D.N. Dilks). However, at the time the British public supported the policy of Appeasement, hoping that acceding to some of Hitler's demands would placate him, and avert another World War. The greatest public evidence for this were the cheering crowds that greeted Chamberlain on his return from Germany with the 'Gentleman's Agreement'.

But in the House of Commons there was some opposition to Appeasement, the most famous of which was the opposition of Sir Winston Churchill. But who were the major opposers of Appeasement in the Commons and what were their motivations, and the methods they used to oppose it?

The views of Churchill and his followers (Anthony Eden, Leo Amery, Harold Macmillan et alia) ran contrary to the majority Conservative party opinion that another World War should be avoided at all costs, and the (ironically) former Liberal and Labour view that Germany had genuine grievances that needed to be addressed. However, 'Churchillians' saw the growth of Germany through different eyes. They believed war was an inevitable result of the beginnings of the armaments race that had begun with the rearmament of Germany. 'Churchillians' believed that Hitler did not confront Britain with genuine grievances but that Britain was 'confronted with a programme of aggression, nicely calculated and timed, unfolding stage by stage'. They believed that Britain was heading towards another Great War, and that since this was inevitable, Britain should concentrate on preparing to resists the Germans. They answered critics with estimates of German armed power made by the service chiefs, and sometimes even made by Churchill himself, and often of questionable accuracy.

The 'Churchillians' within the Conservative party (circa thirty) lacked government positions, and had little say in foreign policy. Even without positions of power however 'Churchillians' still had influence. Churchill was often passed information by the Permanent Under-secretary in the Foreign Office Sir Robert Vansittart, until Vansittart was pushed into the meaningless role of Chief Diplomatic Adviser in 1938. This reflects that within the civil service the 'Churchillians' had support. But even with their strong vocal opposition to Appeasement, 'Churchillians' never voted against the Conservatives in the Commons. The 'Churchillians' either voted for Conservative policies or abstained from voting. Some even abstained from the vote to approve the Munich Agreement. They did speak against Conservative policies, but party loyalty and discipline prevented them from using the tools of parliament to oppose Appeasement. As a result, they presented little effective opposition to Appeasement.

Other political parties in the Commons opposed Appeasement as well, and used their votes in parliament to reflect this opposition. Among these the only party of sufficient size to make any impact was the Labour party. The continued decline of the Liberal party, with only twenty-one seats, and the split with the National Liberals, meant they did not have the numbers to make an impact on government. Even the Labour party lacked numbers and held less than half the seats of the Conservatives. However, amongst the parties in the Commons they presented the most united and vocal opposition, but only after 1935.

The Labour party, like the majority of the Conservative party, felt Germany had genuine grievances that needed to be addressed. In the words of A.J.P. Taylor, “They felt, with a puzzled embarrassment, that Germany's demands were just, even though Hitler was not entitled to make them”, and their approach moved towards reflecting this problem in their viewpoint. After the resignation of Lansbury (who was a committed pacifist) in 1935, and the appointment of Clement Attlee as party leader, party policy began a major shift. This was dictated by the resolution of the struggle between competing factions that emerged in the party in the 1930s – the 'Pacifists' (who believed that there should never be violence at any cost); the believers in 'Class War' (who believed that all war was essentially a class war, and that it served the needs of the rich to oppress the poor); and those who believed in 'Collective Security'. With the rise of Hitler, Attlee became convinced that Appeasement should be opposed, and was one of the main reasons that the policy of supporting Collective Security became party policy in the years prior to WW2. This major policy shift from the purely pacifist approach necessitated a new unified approach.

However there remained apparent contradictions in party policy towards armaments. Labour's support for Collective Security appeared to be contradicted by their total opposition to rearmament. The party line was that they opposed the current use of arms for non-Collective Security purposes, and so they voted against rearmament, but their opposition to arms seemed to many to indicate support for Appeasement. This created confusion, and in 1937 the decision was made by the Labour party to abstain in any votes on arms spending and estimates to show their disagreement with the current use of arms, but not with the use of arms for Collective Security.

Then, after the Munich Agreement, Labour split the house on a vote to approve the Munich Agreement. All Labour voted against it, but it was approved by a large majority, despite some thirty 'Churchillian' MPs who abstained from voting. Earlier, when Hitler demanded the Sudetenland, the Labour party voted to resist the takeover. Prior to this Attlee had made a speech in 1937 saying that:

“The policy of this Government throughout, right on from 1931, has always been to try and appease the aggressor by the sacrifice of weaker states, but the more you yield to the aggressor the greater his appetite”

One of the main hopes for those opposing appeasement however, was eventually scuppered by the Labour party itself. The idea of creating a 'Popular Front' from the Labour, Liberal and Conservative opposers of Appeasement was put forward in 1938, based on the idea of Popular Fronts on the continent but without the usual association with socialism. It had a bad start when the 'Churchillians' refused to join. However, Labour and the Liberal party went ahead with the Popular Front idea, voting against Appeasement in the Commons, but with little effect because of their small numbers. The Labour party finally killed the idea when it decided that it would take votes away from the Labour party towards the Liberal party, and so the only united attack against Appeasement in the Commons was broken.

The Liberal party itself, though holding mainly anti-Appeasement views, had little impact on the anti-Appeasement movement. Their dwindling numbers, and the various splits during the 1930s, meant they presented no united front, and indeed their main contribution to the anti-Appeasement movement was their participation in the Popular Front idea.

Opposition to Appeasement ultimately had no effect on the government. The most that was achieved – especially by the 'Churchillians' because they were from the government side – was to produce a focus on, and scrutiny of, the policy of Appeasement. But many who were made prominent by their opposition to Appeasement went on to achieve high political office. With the outbreak of the war Chamberlain and the policy of Appeasement became discredited. Its leading opponent Winston Churchill benefited hugely from the perception that he had great foresight in opposing Appeasement, and became the obvious choice for Prime Minister. Even after the war, and after Churchill's last term in office, he was succeeded as PM by Eden and Macmillan, his leading allies in the late 1930s. With this turnaround against the policy of Appeasement, a full circle had been achieved.