‘Appeasement Was Politically Popular But Thoroughly Misconceived.’ Discuss

Appeasement is the policy of making concessions to dictatorial powers to avoid conflict, which is what the British government, in particular, Neville Chamberlain, hoped to do in the 1930s. He and his generation had witnessed after witnessing the horrors that war can bring. There are two parts to this question because it suggests that appeasement was both politically popular and misconceived, both of which can be disputed. However there is not too much conflict over its popularity at the time because most people believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh and that another war was inconceivable after WW1 with a general feeling of ‘peace at any price.’ Whether it was misconceived or not has been argued by traditionalist and revisionist historians ever since.
It is plausible to argue that Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was naïve because, by giving in to Hitler’s demands, Britain would seem weak and make Hitler just want to push for more. Indeed this is exactly what happened at the Munich conference. Chamberlain was acting on the assumption that Hitler would honour his commitments and act in good faith. In this way Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, Foreign Secretary, showed that they came from a very different political and social background to Hitler and so were poorly equipped to make clear judgements on Hitler’s likely behaviour. Halifax wanted to believe that Hitler was a thoroughly changed man from the hot-headed author of ‘Mein Kampf.’ Chamberlain had little experience in foreign affairs, and his overbearing approach to his former foreign secretary Anthony Eden resulted in Eden’s resignation and so the loss of a cautionary voice in the government.
Also, traditionalist historians would argue that, strategically, appeasement was misconceived because it allowed Hitler to take the