Appeasement — it won't work this time, either

Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that those who don't take the radical Islamist terrorist threat as seriously as the Bush administration does suffer from a "moral and intellectual confusion." He compared them to the British appeasers of Hitler before WWII.

I did a left-wing radio call-in show after the speech in which the callers accused Rumsfeld of calling them pro-Nazi for opposing President Bush on the war. Of course Rumsfeld was suggesting no such thing. But it is worth reviewing the history and meaning of appeasement — both for those who hurl the charge and for those who are charged.

The use of the term appeasement to describe a nation's foreign policy first emerged in the 1930s in England to describe the Ramsey McDonald/Stanley Baldwin/Neville Chamberlain British governments' policy of avoiding military conflict with Hitler's Germany by yielding to his territorial demands.

But it is important to note that prior to then, the term was typically used as a positive description of individual action, such as in the phrase "appeasements of Divine displeasures," (Ralph Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonist, 1678.)

The British had good reason to appease Hitler in 1938 - they only had 6 war-ready divisions available to them. We only had 5! The Germans had 78. By September 1939 when the British declared war on the nazis they had 9 and we had 8. By the time the our own govt was forced to stop appeasing hitler and ignoring what he was doing to our allies, we had 39 divisions ready.

If you have to 'appease' an enemy until your forces are ready to fight, then you do. We did and Britain did.

In 1938 Germany had appreciably fewer than 78 divisions according to this site: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWgermanA.htm

Clearly the issue of when to declare war is a close run thing. However, appeasing Hitler in 1938 was strategically and tactically a gross error: It disarmed the Czechs and allowed for a rapprochement with Stalin.

This is largely beside the point - it is, IMHO, the psychology of appeasement that is at issue. If you are afraid to fight for your liberty when confronted by the likes of the Nazis, Soviets and radical Islam, you will pay a much greater price trying to regain it.

The US didn't appease Hitler. We had no interest in things happening in Europe, nor was a country on our continent being asked to be sacrificed to Germany. We were not involved in the process going on in Europe. England on the other hand had a large interest, was involved, did have a country in their sphere of influence that was being threatened and definitely appeased Hitler in a shameful move when they gave them the sudetenland.

Out big shame came at the end of the war when we teamed up with England and caved in to the USSR to give them most of eastern Europe. I see no difference in that and what Chamberlain did at the start of the war.

"The British had good reason to appease Hitler in 1938 - they only had 6 war-ready divisions available to them. We only had 5! The Germans had 78. By September 1939 when the British declared war on the nazis they had 9 and we had 8. By the time the our own govt was forced to stop appeasing hitler and ignoring what he was doing to our allies, we had 39 divisions ready.

If you have to 'appease' an enemy until your forces are ready to fight, then you do. We did and Britain did."

For heavens sake, that is absurd. The order of battle of what became the allies v the germans in 1938 was overwhelming.

Here is what the players actually had in the summer of 1938:

Germany - 600,000 troops in 36 infantry divisions, 4 panzer divisions (1876 tanks of which ONLY 52 were armed with canon. The rest had machine guns. 920 fighter aircraft of all sort (under 100 Me 109's) and 1466 bombers, mostly short range.

Britain - 409 fighters with 5 squadrons of hurricanes and 1 of spitfires. The army had 4 divisions and 50 light tanks

Now that sounds pretty spooky...what is forgotten are both the czechs and the french and the location of forces on the ground.

Czech forces - 400,000 troops in 40 divisions. 4 tank divisions with 244 modern tanks all with cannon. 566 fighters all built since 1935 BUT all biplanes. 465 bombers.

France - 900,000 regular troops, 5 million reserves. No armor divisions but several hundred CHAR 1B tanks with cannon. 580 modern aircraft both bombers and fighters.

Now look at where the germans were under Case Green...every division and tank in the German army was on the border with Czechoslovakia except 2 reserve infantry divisions on the french border. As the German General staff advised Hitler at the time, if the french march, the germans must surrender.

The french caved.

Before anyone tells me the germans had total Air superiority, one needs know the Germans primier fighter was the Bf-109C. They only built 100 of these planes in total ever...Both the Hurricane and the Spitfire was as good as this version of the 109. The 109D did not go into production till June of 1938.

Now consider what Both sides did between 1938 and sep 1 1939.We hear how the time allowed the british to rearm...yes, but it also allowed the germans to arm. In fact, the germans spent 5 times as much on armor over the period and produced twice as many fighters as the british.

facts are such nasty things. They ruin a lot of perfectly good theories.

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