Abdication and Appeasement

1935 General Election

Stanley Baldwin PM 1935-1937

Unemployment

• Demand management?
• Means testing the dole
  • universal vs. means-tested benefits
• Regional Prosperity
• Labour's Caution
• Apathy and Fatalism
• National Unemployed Workers Movement

Oswald Mosley

• British Union of Fascists
• Daily Mail: "Hurrah for the Blackshirts"
• Lord Rothermere

Foreign Affairs

• Fascist aggression
• How to deal with Hitler

Baldwin's goals

• Get along with Germany
• Unite his party behind successor
• Modest re-armament "just in case"

Labour

• Anti-Fascism
• Anti-War/Pacifist
• Collective Security/League of Nations

1936

German Invasion of Rhineland

• Legacy of Versailles
• Royal Air Force/bombing strategy
• Radar

Spanish Civil War

• Disruption of Labour opposition

George V's death 1936

• Brompton Cocktail
• Lord Dawson of Penn
• Times obituary

Edward VIII

• Mrs. Wallis Simpson
• Divorce
• Church of England
• Duke of Windsor

George VI

1937

Baldwin's Resignation

Neville Chamberlain PM 1937-1940

• Re-armament
• Appeasement
• Public Opinion

European Appeasement

• Versailles
  • De-militarization/foreign occupation
• Reaction against war
• Hitler's War Aims?
  • Unify German speaking Europe?
  • Eliminate Jews
  • "Lebensraum"
  • Aryans vs Slavs

1938

• Austria
• Munich
• Partition of Czechoslovakia
• "Peace in Our Time"

 1939

• Invasion of Czechoslovakia
• Nazi-Soviet Pact
• Invasion of Poland

Killing of Civilians

Why did appeasement make sense to so many people in the 1930s?

Why did it make sense to Neville Chamberlain and his associates in the government?

What were the most important constitutional issues surrounding the accession of Edward VIII to the throne?

What do you think of Stanley Baldwin's handling of the crisis?