Just wanted to say that is a pleasant relief to read comments like this. Not intended to win a "verbal", virtual, imaginary and unilateral sub-war but expresing topics with serenity, documentation, elegancy and stylishness.
Well done.

>Chris
>
>If you are saying that Chamberlain's appeasement has some application to current events... well, lets examine that.
>
>At the time, Germany was the most prepared country in the world for war.
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>Churchill opposed Chamberlain's actions as "complete surrender . . . to the Nazi threat of force". IOW the Nazis were not under threat of force, they were the ones doing the threatening. Chamberlain made a mistake caving in to the threats.
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>Nobody, not even Churchill, proposed a pre-emptive strike on Germany. It was the other way around; the Nazis demanded and received concessions (including the Czech Sudetenland) as a condition for only occupying Austria.
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>Appeasement made the Nazis confident. They thought that the rest of the world had no "bottle" and would not act against a powerful resurgent Germany.
>
>Blame the French all you like, when the germans invaded Poland the French declared war though Germany assured France it had no designs on France. France was far from ready for war as the results proved. But she still did it, as did Britain and a few other countries. FWIW, the first country in the world to declare war on Germany was tiny New Zealand.
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>Many military historians consider that France, Britain and Russia should have banded together and taken Germany on as soon as it began threatening. FWIW, Churchill actually advocated containment and deterrence, exactly as the French are proposing today.
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>Regards
>
>JR