I
would certainly argue that appeasement was a mistake. I suppose you could argue that it was a
mistake before WWII and not a mistake in
that war. However, it seems hard to say that appeasement was anything but a
mistake.
Appeasement was the process in which the British and the French, in
particular, allowed Hitler to violate the Treat of Versailles and, eventually, to take over
other countries, without resisting him. They allowed Hitler to do so because they did not want
a war. They hoped that Hitler would soon be satisfied and would then stop his aggressive
behavior.
Appeasement was a mistake because it did not prevent war. Instead,
it only postponed the war, which was actually a bad thing. Postponing the war was a bad thing
because all it did was to give Hitler time to increase his power. When Hitler started violating
the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was still rather weak. The French and the British could
easily have invaded Germany at that point and defeated Hitler. If they had done so, the Nazi
government would probably have fallen and the world might have been spared WWII and the
Holocaust. Instead, the allies appeased Hitler and gave him time in which Germany could rearm
and become a real power. Once the Allies decided that they actually had to fight, the German
military was extremely strong and was able to rampage through Western Europe during the
Blitzkrieg. This could have been avoided if the Allies had not appeased Hitler.
There is nothing wrong with avoiding war. However, when you fail to actually avoid war
and, instead, you only postpone it until your enemy is stronger than you, you have made a
terrible mistake.
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