The Chamberlain Myth

 

One of the most persistent World War 2 Myths is the Chamberlain Myth, or Chamberlain falsehood. You've heard it, we all have. This is the idea that WW2 effectively happened because Chamberlain appeased Hitler. Appeasers are the problem, is the lesson we are told.

This is false. In fact it is perniciously so and it's not an accident that this falsehood is wheeled out whenever the US, or Europe and Britain, want to go to war. This narrative was created to justify a continued war-footing of Western democracies and to cover over warmongering and pretend our countries only fight because we have to... that we have no choice. And most people have just taken it as gospel truth.

I once believed this myth myself, and like many other people in our society, I would use it to make points from time to time, here is an example from 2021, during the Covid crisis,

“Nevilles - my new name for the silly Christian conservatives who say they don't want to be a part of a Culture War.

Derived from Neville Chamberlain - the guy who thought you could appease Nazi's and Communists and avoid war. He was wrong.

Christians have no choice but to recognize the world is at war with the followers of Jesus. Hiding from it, refusing to engage with it, just makes you a Neville. Our weapons are not of flesh and blood, but of the spirit, the word and truth of God and we wage it peacefully as advocates of the truth. But we have no choice but to engage, the king of this world has declared war.

Rev. 12:17 - "17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus."

My overall point in this statement still holds, conservative Christians are foolish for thinking you can avoid the culture wars forever. But I would never use Chamberlain as this kind of example again, like so many of us do.

What people forget is that it was Chamberlain's government that gave a war guarantee to Poland. And Chamberlain who declared war against Germany. It was THAT guarantee to Poland that made sure that a war in eastern Europe would become a world war. Foreign entanglements are the real cause of WW2.

If Chamberlain had never have given that guarantee, Poland would have given in to Germany's demands to return German speaking regions (that were only recently taken off them). War in Eastern Europe still would have happened, as both Hitler and Stalin were eyeing off taking the same land, Hitler looked to the East, Stalin looked to the West. But instead of being an Eastern European war, Britain made sure it was a World War. They guaranteed it.

You might say, but they had to guarantee Poland, no one else would fight for them. But Britain's guarantee destroyed Poland. 100%. It gave Poland a false sense of security. Britain was a Naval power, with a relatively inconsequential land army (compared to France, Germany or the USSR). It never could have protected Poland. But the guarantee gave Poland the false idea that if they refused to relinquish disputed lands (that had been German for centuries) they would be protected. Instead, they were ravished first by the Germans, and then by the USSR. Britain hanged them out to dry. It wrote cheques it could not and never intended to cash, and the Polish people suffered dearly for this false assurance. They would have been better off taking their chances negotiating with Germany.

War was inevitable in eastern Europe. Hitler, the madman, and Stalin, the wannabe world conqueror, were both eyeing off the same land. What made it a World War was foreign entanglements.

The kind of foreign entanglements that George Washington warned about, and Europe specialises in. European powers did it unceasingly. Major powers guaranteeing minor powers military backing are what caused the war to escalate, and it they are what caused WW1, and they are behind the Ukrainian conflict, and virtually every other major European war. Ukraine never would have increased its shelling in the Donbass, which provoked Russia, if it did not have military equipment and assurances from the United States and Europe. Foreign entanglements are one of the great causes of war. Look at assurances from the US give Israel the confidence to go to war with virtually all their neighbours.

Foreign entanglements are the real cause of World War 2. War mongers love them. That's why you've been lied to about the cause of the biggest war in history. So, the warmongers can paint themselves as just reluctant fighters who would prefer peace. But foreign entanglements are part of their game to keep the war chain rolling. It's big business, it's also the European way.