appease

  • verb placate (someone) by agreeing to their demands.

  — DERIVATIVES appeasement noun appeaser noun.

  — ORIGIN Old French apaisier, from pais ‘peace’.

Appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. Usually it means giving into demands of an aggressor in order to avoid war. Since World War II, the term has gained a negative connotation in the British government, in politics and in general, of weakness, cowardice and self-deception. A famous example is Neville Chamberlain's foreign policy during the inter-war period 1919-1939 when he used a policy of appeasement in order to prevent (in vain) another general European war.

Different views on Appeasement

The meaning of the term "appeasement" has changed throughout the years. According to Paul Kennedy in his Strategy and Diplomacy, 1983, appeasement is "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be, expensive, bloody and possibly dangerous." It gained its negative reputation for its use in the build up to World War II. It had previously been employed by the British government successfully, see The Treaty with Ireland 1921.

Further quotations:

"At bottom, the old appeasement was a mood of hope, Victorian in its optimism, Burkean in its belief that societies evolved from bad to good and that progress could only be for the better. The new appeasement was a mood of fear, Hobbesian in its insistence upon swallowing the bad in order to preserve some remnant of the good, pessimistic in its belief that Nazism was there to stay and, however horrible it might be, should be accepted as a way of life with which Britain ought to deal." Martin Gilbert, The Roots of Appeasement, 1968.

"Each course brought its share of disadvantages: there was only a choice of evils. The crisis in the British global position by this time was such that it was, in the last resort, insoluble, in the sense that there was no good or proper solution." Paul Kennedy, Strategy and Diplomacy, 1983.

"The word in its normal meaning connotes the Pacific settlement of disputes; in the meaning usually applied to the period of Chamberlain's premiership, it has come to indicate something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else's expense." D.N. DIlks, Appeasement Revisited, Journal of Contemporary History, 1972.

The majority of the Conservative party in Britain in the late thirties were in favour of appeasement. This was mainly because they considered that Hitler would be satisfied with gaining control of parts of Central Europe. Churchill was relatively isolated in believing that Germany could be a threat for the British Empire.

However, appeasement has also been deemed successful by many historians, as with the 'bought' year of 1938-39, Britain rapidly increased military production and with the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia allowed the protection of the British Isles. It must, however, also be pointed out, that in turn, Nazi Germany was able to significantly boost its military power in the time thus granted, and quite possibly to a greater extent than the Allies, particularly since the annexation of Czechoslovakia gave the third Reich access to well-developed Czech industrial resources and significantly improved its strategic standing, avoiding a conflict through the unfavorable terrain of the Czech-German border (even where this was unfortified) in comparison to Poland, which also suffered afterwards from a lengthened border with Germany.

As said by Winston Churchill:

appease Definition

appease

verb:   make peace with
verb:   overcome or allay
verb:   cause to be more favorably inclined; gain the good will of