What If Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier Had Stood Up To Hitler At Munich in 1938?

I'm not one of Churchill's biggest fans, but he summed up the situation nicely, speaking to Chamberlain shortly afterwards;

"You had to choose between war and dishonour, you will have both."

You have to look at the character of the main players; Chamberlain was decent and honourable - his flaw was believing that Hitler was as trustworthy as he was, while Hitler was an inveterate gambler - he was bluffing on an empty hand, but his opponents never came close to realising it. Daladier simply wanted to avoid another war at any cost - it's easy to see why.

Britain and France together might have dealt with Germany if they'd been able to mobilise quickly enough (history shows that they probably wouldn't have been able to), and while the Poles and Czechs may've been able to open a second front, what would Stalin have been doing at this time?

I can just imagine him rubbing his hands in glee as his enemies start kicking lumps out of each other and, as they start to keel over, mounting a massive drive to Paris, smashing everything in his path.

German or Russian ?

The Ace said:

Chamberlain was decent and honourable - his flaw was believing that Hitler was as trustworthy as he was,

Click to expand...

Or perhaps he didn't believe Hitler at all but wanted to buy time?
Winston Churchill was banned from speaking on BBC during 1930s because of his confrontational undiplomatic rants. (Some were anti muslim too, in similar vein to Enoch Powell). The fact that probably Churchill was right about most of it is a separate issue.

Churchill, Paisley and Powell might have been right about lots of things, but all had in common an ability to say what they thought in an antagonistis & Confrontational style and hang the consequences.

UK was already gearing up for war before Chamberlain went but wasn't ready. Perhaps Chamberlain was an idiot for how he waved the paper and the speeches he made.

The Ace said:

I'm not one of Churchill's biggest fans, but he summed up the situation nicely, speaking to Chamberlain shortly afterwards;

"You had to choose between war and dishonour, you will have both."

You have to look at the character of the main players; Chamberlain was decent and honourable - his flaw was believing that Hitler was as trustworthy as he was, while Hitler was an inveterate gambler - he was bluffing on an empty hand, but his opponents never came close to realising it. Daladier simply wanted to avoid another war at any cost - it's easy to see why.

Britain and France together might have dealt with Germany if they'd been able to mobilise quickly enough (history shows that they probably wouldn't have been able to), and while the Poles and Czechs may've been able to open a second front, what would Stalin have been doing at this time?

I can just imagine him rubbing his hands in glee as his enemies start kicking lumps out of each other and, as they start to keel over, mounting a massive drive to Paris, smashing everything in his path.

German or Russian ?

Click to expand...

What if Churchill at been at Munich instead of Chamberlain? Wouldn't circumstances have forced him down the same road as Chamberlain?

Ray McCarthy said:

Or perhaps he didn't believe Hitler at all but wanted to buy time?
Winston Churchill was banned from speaking on BBC during 1930s because of his confrontational undiplomatic rants. (Some were anti muslim too, in similar vein to Enoch Powell). The fact that probably Churchill was right about most of it is a separate issue.

Churchill, Paisley and Powell might have been right about lots of things, but all had in common an ability to say what they thought in an antagonistis & Confrontational style and hang the consequences.

UK was already gearing up for war before Chamberlain went but wasn't ready. Perhaps Chamberlain was an idiot for how he waved the paper and the speeches he made.

Click to expand...

Here's another question, what if Churchill had been at Munich instead of Chamberlin? How would he have handled things?

I've had a think about this. I think Waylander is right, Hitler was bluffing with with a 9 High, Chamberlain thought Hitler had aces. I think Churchill might have called Hitler's bluff, the result would still have been war in 39 but Hitler wouldn't have had the Sudetenland.

The real time to stop Hitler in his tracks was when he remilitarized the Rhineland in (33? 34? Can't remember now)...

Narkalui said:

I've had a think about this. I think Waylander is right, Hitler was bluffing with with a 9 High, Chamberlain thought Hitler had aces. I think Churchill might have called Hitler's bluff, the result would still have been war in 39 but Hitler wouldn't have had the Sudetenland.

The real time to stop Hitler in his tracks was when he remilitarized the Rhineland in (33? 34? Can't remember now)...

Click to expand...

If the French had sent Troops into the Rhineland, that might have slowed Hitler down a bit,maybe enough to embolden his Generals to overthrow him.

BAYLOR said:

Back then what Chamberlain did looked very bad in the eyes of the media .

Click to expand...

AnyaKimlin said:

It did but what he did actually won the war.

Click to expand...

BAYLOR said:

He did but the whole thing effectively ended his political career and on top of that, he was dying and knew it.

Click to expand...

AnyaKimlin said:

I guess. But I don't know too many people who were taught history even in the 70s who were taught he did the wrong thing.

Click to expand...

Just a small point, and quite late I know, but I've been reading the memoirs of Captain William Armstrong, the pilot (and a cousin of my grandmother) who flew Dr. Eduardo Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, to his meeting with Stalin in Russia in 1943. While he has the greatest sympathy for Czechoslovakia, and he thinks how they were treated was atrocious, he believes that Britiain needed those two years to rearm. He actually discussed this with Benes while they were waiting for the bad weather to change. So, the idea is not something dreamed up by history teachers in later years, and this argument was taking place even during the war itself.

Also, it was clear, even in 1943, that after the war Czechoslovakia and Poland were going to fall under communist influence and there was little that the West could do. The idea that this only became apparent after the Yalta conference is also wrong. We were too slow to open up a second front in Europe through Italy and probably made too many costly mistakes there. If we had done that we could have liberated parts of eastern Europe before the Russians.

Dave said:

Also, it was clear, even in 1943, that after the war Czechoslovakia and Poland were going to fall under communist influence and there was little that the West could do.

Click to expand...

From what I've read, Stalin was astounded when the Western leaders just let him keep half of Europe after the end of the war. He was ready to back down if they forced the issue, because we had nukes, and he did not.

Edward M. Grant said:

From what I've read, Stalin was astounded when the Western leaders just let him keep half of Europe after the end of the war. He was ready to back down if they forced the issue, because we had nukes, and he did not.

Click to expand...

If that's the case then, we were pretty damned stupid.

I suspect it's more than Stalin was better at spying on the West than the West was at spying on Stalin.

First, he would have to surmount the tremendous anti-war sentiment.

Second, he would have had to send a woefully underprepared military.

Even when the UK did mobilize, it still had to flee the German war machine (Dunkirk).

Too, afaik, the US did not have even the foundation of lend-lease set up to send the UK materiel.

Until Germany ran into the Soviet buzz saw, I don't see how a Western victory would have been remotely possible.

My hunch is that we would still malign Chamberlain, albeit for different reasons.

I do not think the British would be speaking German. The channel was too great an obstacle for the Germans to surmount, imho.

Edward M. Grant said:

I suspect it's more than Stalin was better at spying on the West than the West was at spying on Stalin.

Click to expand...

Ironically for Stalin, he refused to believe his spy network when they told him Germany was going to attack the Thew Soviet Union.

There is something that Chamberlain and Daladier might have down which would have been risky but, could perhaps have forced Hitler to back down .

Before the conference , Daladier should have mobilized France's Army and massed it at the Germany's border . Now , what Chamberlain might have considered doing is take Royal Navy and bring it to within firing range of Germany's coast , And place whatever units of the RAF that they had on Frances airfields and have them and the French Air force fly sorties over Germany. And then both men should then have told the Czech's to mobilize their entire military for an all out assault on Germany souther flank Then go to the Munich Conference. In the face of a potential attack from three directions , Land ,sea and Air , Hitler would have backed down, he would had no choice but to do so and very likely , his Gmerals would have removed him from office and probably prevent WWII and all the horrors and loss of lives.

Would never have happened. No one wanted war. They had had a world war that had only finished 20 years earlier. It had removed a whole generation of men from the country and caused huge changes to society. Women couldn't marry. Women had to take the jobs of men. Whole villages lost the men. Schools lost their boys. Families lost sons, brothers and fathers. It was meant to be the war to end all wars. It had achieved little politically for all the human cost. They also knew that any new war would be fought with explosives and gas that could be dropped from the air on civilians, and tanks and other machines. So, you had anti-war demonstrations and politicians were aware that there were no votes in warmongering. They were trying everything they could to prevent a war, under the genuine belief that it could be avoided. It is easy from hindsight to say that was futile, but what if it had not been?

Dave said:

Would never have happened. No one wanted war. They had had a world war that had only finished 20 years earlier. It had removed a whole generation of men from the country and caused huge changes to society. Women couldn't marry. Women had to take the jobs of men. It was meant to be the war to end all wars. It had achieved little politically for all the human cost. They also knew that any new war would be fought with explosives and gas that could be dropped from the air on civilians, and tanks and other machines. So, you had anti-war demonstrations and politicians were aware that there were no votes in warmongering. They were trying everything they could to prevent a war, under the genuine belief that it could be avoided. It is easy from hindsight to say that was futile, but what if it had not been?

Click to expand...

Dave , I know it would have not happened for all of those reasons but, if that approach had been taken, I think Hitler with that many dagger pointed at him, would have blinked.

Another flight fancy, what would have been equally interesting to contemplate is , what Churchill had been the Prime Minter instead of Chamberlain at that time? yes I know that would happened because Churchill at tha time was on the outs with his now political party was relegated to the back bench Churchill and Hitler face to face , not would have been something witness . Hitler could not have intimidated or pushed around Churchill like he did Chamberlain. Churchill would hasten him for lunch.

This speculation is pointless. Hitler was well aware that no one wanted another war. He used the appeasement to let them give an inch and then take a mile, because he knew that he could. Churchill was sitting on the backbenches of the UK Parliament precisely because he was the isolated voice warning of the need to rearm against Germany when no one else wanted to hear that. Even if a time traveller came back from the future and told them what would happen, I expect that it would all be played out in exactly the same way again.

I think Chamberlain was one of the first to suffer from a bad Photo-Op.
That speech on the steps of the plane was designed to go in to news-reels that day and over the next couple of weeks to try and calm a nation afraid of what a new war might bring.
So a lot of people had that image and his words in their head when everything fell apart and Britain went to war.
Politically I think he did what he had to do to buy time. The visual and the public memory ruined him a year later...

He probably had a plan B. I don't think he would build a basic strategy on the belief of 'they won't see my bluff for sure' at that level. Not because he is Hitler, because he is a soldier, more than that a militarist. He probably had already prepared for a war, but played the bluff -if it was a bluff- to get stronger under a set of circumstances noone wanted a war. It's win/win. But may be looking back, he looks unprepared at that moment in that time compared to what was to come, because looking back, we know the story today from the other end. It's been digged deep, written and written on it and that makes the general look more myopic in a sense.

But generally, the idea that an enormous event like WWII would have turned a different way or that may be wouldn't even have happened if one or two people acted differently at some point -inlcuding Adolf Hitler- sounds pretty naive to me.

I understand that this is naturally very important for Europeans and Americans, but from outside, it looks like this war is often treated as something happened because of some 'evil powers rising' rather than the simple circumstances that caused it which can be found in almost every period in some way. We are living it today in different terms. And there is this huge culture built on it as if it is something different over all in the end.

The way people talk about it, sometimes it feels like most people believe that it wouldn't have happened, if Adolf Hitler hadn't been born. That's ridiculous.

Forget about the immediate reasons and circumstances, after hundreds of years of colonialism and modern state established on top of that is it really surprising these wars have happened, if not something worse? There is this 'race' that has started around 15th century, Reformation/Counter Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, French Revolutions, Industrialism...and with the establishment of modern state through that process Nationalism was born.

Almost every text written about the WWII points to some 'Fascism' rising as if it is something alien, dropped from the sky. It's the rise of Nationalism. Nationalism is not some, natural modern phase of tribalism, it is the religion of modern state invented by the standards it brought.

National languages, national armies, national histories...they don't exist until 200 years ago. The unification of language especially, I think played a big role because of its unique quality in cultural processes. And the region we call Germany today has the least unified language culture in the history of Europe in Early Modern Europe. Think of student movements in the beginning of the 20th century, how they started but then what they have become. Of course there are countless variables and factors. It's just an example related to Germany.

Unfortunately, the human culture we produced depends on wars to get ahead in every period. The techonological and scientific acheivements depend on wars. With stones or nukes or cyber weapons.

Well, you all know this. In short, World Wars were inevitable with or without Adolf Hitler or Nazis. And we got off cheap actually. But the WWII being treated as some extraordinary event happened because nobody stopped a group of 'evil' people is doing a disservice to human history in my opinion. This is us. This is humans and their culture. The States, governments do not run on some individual human morality or any set of ethics. A historical figure being seen as 'decent' has no hold on any historical event. The agreements, unions...they are all delusions. The concept of power does not have a room for anything but itself. Right wing politics. It's the only thing that is same from every angle.

If we survive long enough as species, it's going to happen over and over again. On this or some other planet. What do you think is likely to happen some time after colonisation of Mars is completed?

olive said:

He probably had a plan B. I don't think he would build a basic strategy on the belief of 'they won't see my bluff for sure' at that level. Not because he is Hitler, because he is a soldier, more than that a militarist. He probably had already prepared for a war, but played the bluff -if it was a bluff- to get stronger under a set of circumstances noone wanted a war. It's win/win. But may be looking back, he looks unprepared at that moment in that time compared to what was to come, because looking back, we know the story today from the other end. It's been digged deep, written and written on it and that makes the general look more myopic in a sense.

Click to expand...

Disagree with you. He had been a corporal not a trained officer, although he was not as crazy and stupid as the German generals would have us believe as they tried to justify their actions in WW2, but I really think he didn't have a plan B. Or, to put it another way, if the allies had responded with declarations of war, I'm sure he'd have (been forced to) accept it and WW2 would have began. (Although I guess the war would have probably been more-or-less the same, UK blockading, French and BEF waiting on the border for German attack. Hitler making a pact with the USSR, dissemble Poland etc.) It was the politician Hitler that was running the show. He'd 'bluffed' a lot earlier and got what he wanted and his hubris was growing and would build to a crescendo in years to come. That was a huge factor in his decisions.

The German military was clear it was not ready for war against France and the UK, hence the muscial chairs with OKW / OKH in 1938 when they criticised his political approach.

This was a political calculation not a military decision. There was feeling from a substantial quarter of the allies that Versaille had been far too harsh and that it should be dialled down - especially with the UK, see the Navy treaties and response to Rhineland and Austria. Also there was little appetite for another war, the Munich agreement was celebrated at the time amongst many. He was banking on that, he liked the odds and made the bet. You do make this point, however as there was no plan B, an aggressive France and UK could have made WW2 play out very differently.

Fundamentally he was an opportunist who always preferred the radical solution. He made the same bet the year afterwards when the next 'opportunity' came up with Danzig and Poland. He lost it.

olive said:

But generally, the idea that an enormous event like WWII would have turned a different way or that may be wouldn't even have happened if one or two people acted differently at some point -inlcuding Adolf Hitler- sounds pretty naive to me.

Click to expand...

I see you ascribe to the Tolstoyian 'calculus of history' school!

I think in some(most? nearly all??) senses you are correct, but I do think on occassion individuals do have an enormous impact on how events unfurl. So yes, changing a few decisions in 1938 would likely have done little to change the course of events...but Hitler being killed on the Western Front in 1918, would have surely led to a different Germany in 1934. Or would 'history' have churned out a cookie-cutter, mesmeric, 'let's expand East, boo to world Jewry' dictator? There might be an argument that there would always have still been conflict in Europe at some point - after all Germany was still rife with Prussian militarism and the German Army was a huge part of German society at the time - but who knows how radically different such conflicts might have been.

olive said:

there is this huge culture built on it as if it is something different over all in the end.

Click to expand...

This is probably a whole discussion, but in simplistic terms I think you can argue it was a major 'Good War' for the allies and that is different from many other conflicts in the past. Not all, but many. If you delve deeper into what happened on both sides this moral question becomes murkier and less black and white, but I still think it necessary that the allies won.

olive said:

The way people talk about it, sometimes it feels like most people believe that it wouldn't have happened, if Adolf Hitler hadn't been born. That's ridiculous.

Click to expand...

This is a good point - very reminiscent of Von Manstein or Guderian writing after the war that he and his men were fine, it was Hitler and the evil SS that did everything bad. However I'd contend that if Hitler hadn't been around, the conflict or whatever happened in it's place could have been profoundly different.

olive said:

National languages, national armies, national histories...they don't exist until 200 years ago.

Click to expand...

Okay, big topic. Don't really agree with you - there are plenty of nations that are thousands of years old that have all of the above. Yes many of them are different from the modern definition of national states, but they are definitely there. I'm sure the Chinese would vigoursly argue against you!

olive said:

Unfortunately, the human culture we produced depends on wars to get ahead in every period. The techonological and scientific acheivements depend on wars. With stones or nukes or cyber weapons.

Click to expand...

This is interesting. Unfortunately we are a warlike, aggressive species more-or-less, so it is impossible for us to know if science and technology would have fared better in a world dominated by peace. Also it seems to be an argument perfectly made for the military industrial complex! My first guess is actually no, (purely to start a discussion ), we'd have done just as well in a peaceful world - maybe even better, but would have focussed on different areas of science and tech.

olive said:

But the WWII being treated as some extraordinary event happened because nobody stopped a group of 'evil' people is doing a disservice to human history in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Not quite sure what you're trying to say here. But I'll say WW2 is extraordinary in the following senses: The greatest loss of human life due to one conflict, the amount of destruction and the geographical extent of it. We've not had a war like it in the past at all - it's unique and hopefully it stays that way. That's what makes it extraordinary. That the bad guys were beaten is a huge plus (I don't see how you can put the word evil in quotation marks when talking about Nazis or the Japanese military circa 1930/40)

BAYLOR said:

We all know how both men gave into Hitlers demand to surrender The Sudetenland section of Czechoslovakia to German and the Nazis at at Munich in 1938 to forestal war and as Chamberlain said "Guarantee Peace in our Time " after the agreement. Both men knew that their countries were not ready for war and doing what they did would buy them more time. Germany wasn't ready for war at that time either. The territory contained all the Czechs critical border defenses with which they were render defenseless. not long after Hitler took what was left of country not long after.
What if Chamberlain and Daladier stood up to Hitler and told him point blank the they would go to war with Germany over Czechoslovakia? How would Hitler have reacted if faced with such opposition? Would it have emboldened opposition to Hitler at home? What WWII had started in 1938? Would there have even been a world war at all?
Thoughts?

Click to expand...

There is a really good book [which I can't remember the name of] which takes at its premise that WWII started with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931-32. After that point Japanese expansionism was set on a collision course with the USA and the UK as they expanded further west and south in to colonial [or near colonial] territories. It was only a matter of time before the shooting started.
It also took the position that WWII was won by the Allies in 1939 when the Soviet forces beat Japanese forces in the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. Their success meant that they didn't need any significant actions in the far east again [until the very end of the war] and could focus completely on the Nazi attacks in the west. If even 10-20% of the Red army had been fighting the Japanese, Would Moscow have fallen? Would Operation Barbarossa got to the oil fields? Who knows.
Now I think it is as [im]plausible as any other timeline, but I work with Chinese and they view WWII fighting in Europe as almost a sideshow to what was happening in the East. They have the war running from the early 30s to 1945 [or even later if they are particularly patriotic].