We cannot expect these things to be done with hindsight, however. The idea of France *invading* Germany to stop Germany putting her own troops back in her own territory in a move that was simply seen as watering down the unnecessarily harsh restrictions of Versailles - well, it's unthinkable.
Hitler himself was extremely stressed by the situation and later said that had the French intervened he would have been forced to retreat. What's more, this is Germany's international treaty obligations we are talking about: the Germans had had their Western border guaranteed by France, why therefore should they feel the need to break the treaty regarding the militarization of that border?
It's comparable to say, a nation creating nuclear weapons after signing a non-proliferation treaty.
Similarly, the idea of the United Kingdom seeing Hitler welcomed with rapturous applause on the streets of the Austrian capital and deciding on this basis to declare war... well, that's unthinkable.
I made no reference to the Anschluss as I don't think there was necessarily any realistic prospect to war over Austria. That said, Germany had promised to not annex Austria if Austria declared herself a "German state" which she did, so while I don't think there could be war over Anschluss I don't think it was rightly done.
Similarly, the idea of declaring war over a fairly peacable annexation of a small German-speaking section of Czechoslovakia... as for the Soviet Union - well, all the Allies had to do is actually *try* to make a treaty with it - that they didn't is no result of 'appeasement'.
Peaceable? You don't know what your talking about. The Czechs and Soviet Union would never have allowed there to any annexation, peaceful or otherwise, that is until the British, rightly traumatized by WW1, decided to not guarantee Czechoslovakia's borders. After all, Czechoslovakia was a vibrant democracy, Germans were not oppressed, the same cannot be said for when the Czechs would find themselves part of the Third Reich.
Had there been no surrender at Munich, there would have been no peaceable annexation, Hitler would have declared war on Czechoslovakia and France, Britain and the Soviet Union would have come to her defence.
The alternative, of course, is for the Allies in the late 1930s to have plunged Europe into war on the basis of some small infraction of Versailles or similar - which would have us bemoaning ever after why they were so stupid not to just let Hitler remilitarise the Rhineland.
You misunderstand, appeasement didn't just delay war. It
strengthened Hitler. A war for a demilitarized Rhineland or a war for Czechoslovakia would have been much much more tame than the war of 1939. The only reason WW2 in Europe was dramatic was the fall of France. That was the key issue, if there were to be war in 38, and even more certainly 36, France would not have fallen and it would have been a very limited and self-contained war for central Europe.
You gloss over the fact that appeasement boosted Hitler's prestige (making him internally unassailable), his armed forces (through extra time, Austrian divisions and Czech military equipment and strategic position (by letting him simply grab Czech fortresses).
A stubborn porcupine: heredity & nationhood. Meditate, brother!
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