This event of March 1936, by which Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland, was the most
crucial event in the whole history of appeasement. So long as the territory west of the
Rhine and a strip fifty kilometers wide on the east bank of the river were demilitarized, as
provided in the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pacts, Hitler would never have
dared to move against Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. He would not have dared
because, with western Germany unfortified and denuded of German soldiers, France
could have easily driven into the Ruhr industrial area and crippled Germany so that it
would be impossible to go eastward. And by this date, certain members of the Milner
Group and of the British Conservative government had reached the fantastic idea that
they could kill two birds with one stone by setting Germany and Russia against one
another in Eastern Europe. In this way they felt that the two enemies would stalemate one
another, or that Germany would become satisfied with the oil of Rumania and the wheat
of the Ukraine. It never occurred to anyone in a responsible position that Germany and
Russia might make common cause, even temporarily, against the West. Even less did it
occur to them that Russia might beat Germany and thus open all Central Europe to
Bolshevism.
This idea of bringing Germany into a collision with Russia was not to be found, so far
as the evidence shows, among any members of the inner circle of the Milner Group.
Rather it was to be found among the personal associates of Neville Chamberlain,
including several members of the second circle of the Milner Group. The two policies
followed parallel courses until March 1939. After that date the Milner Group's
disintegration became very evident, and part of it took the form of the movement of
several persons (like Hoare and Simon) from the second circle of the Milner Group to the
inner circle of the new group rotating around Chamberlain. This process was concealed
by the fact that this new group was following, in public at least, the policy desired by the
Milner Group; their own policy, which was really the continuation of appeasement for
another year after March 1939, was necessarily secret, so that the contrast between the
Chamberlain group and the inner circle of the Milner Group in the period after March
1939 was not as obvious as it might have been.
In order to carry out this plan of allowing Germany to drive eastward against Russia, it
was necessary to do three things: (1) to liquidate all the countries standing between
Germany and Russia; (2) to prevent France from honoring her alliances with these
countries; and (3) to hoodwink the English people into accepting this as a necessary,
indeed, the only solution to the international problem. The Chamberlain group were so
successful in all three of these things that they came within an ace of succeeding, and
failed only because of the obstinacy of the Poles, the unseemly haste of Hitler, and the
fact that at the eleventh hour the Milner Group realized the implications of their policy
and tried to reverse it.
The program of appeasement can be divided into three stages: the first from 1920 to
1934, the second from 1934 to 1937, and the third from 1937 to 1940. The story of the
first period we have almost completed, except for the evacuation of the Rhineland in
1930, five years ahead of the date set in the Treaty of Versailles. It would be too
complicated a story to narrate here the methods by which France was persuaded to yield
on this point. It is enough to point out that France was persuaded to withdraw her troops
in 1930 rather than 1935 as a result of what she believed to be concessions made to her in
the Young Plan. That the Milner Group approved this evacuation goes without saying.
We have already mentioned
be evacuated. A similar desire will be found in a letter from John Dove to Brand in
October 1927.
The second period of appeasement began with Smuts's famous speech of 13
November 1934, delivered before the RIIA. The whole of this significant speech deserves
to be quoted here, but we must content ourselves with a few extracts:
“With all the emphasis at my command, I would call a halt to this war talk as
mischievous and dangerous war propaganda. The expectation of war tomorrow or in the
near future is sheer nonsense, and all those who are conversant with affairs know it....
The remedy for this fear complex is ... bringing it into the open and exposing it to the
light of day.... And this is exactly the method of the League of Nations . . . it is an open
forum for discussion among the nations, it is a round table for the statesmen around
which they can ventilate and debate their grievances and viewpoints.... There are those
who say that this is not enough—that as long as the League remains merely a talking
shop or debating society, and is not furnished with "teeth" and proper sanctions, the sense