>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.

And why was that? During th 1930s, Hitler built up Germany's military in direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles. What did the world do about it when it had the chance? Nothing.

>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.

And why were the Nazis doing the threatening? Because nobody made them abide buy the treaty they signed.

>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.

And what does that teach us? That appeasement does more harm than good.

>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.

You are making my points for me. 12 years of ignoring 17 U.N. Resolutions has made Saddam confident. Starting with U.N. Resolution 687 in 1991, which banned him from having weapons of mass destruction. He has by all accounts continued to develop these weapons, and the world has done nothing.

>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.

Where did I say I was blaming the French?

Where did you get your information that New Zealand declared war first.

>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.

We have learned from history and are not going to appease a dictator. If France chooses to repeat that mistake, that's their problem.