The Origins of World War II in Europe: British Deterrence Failure and German Expansionism

Summary

Explanations of the origins of World War II tend to emphasize either deliberate, if failed, choices or inexorable processes. The first view indicts Adolf Hitler's aggrandizing choices and preference for violence, and questions the judgment and strategy of the appeasers, personified, correctly or not, by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. The second view broadens the focus, pointing to secular changes in relative power between states; to the relation between states' commitments and their ability to uphold and protect them; and to domestic, economic, and cultural dynamics that individually, or in combination, predisposed the situation to conflict. Attention to both dimensions is necessary to appreciate Britain's strategy as the central axis of diplomacy and rivalry with Germany in the 1930s and to distill the “lessons” of the origins of the war.

In the 1930s, Britain took over the mantle of maintaining the status quo vis-à-vis Germany. Chamberlain and his associates faced the classic issue of judging the nature of its adversary's ambitions. Morgenthau captured the dilemma for Britain in this period: “While it would be fatal to counter imperialistic designs with measures appropriate to a policy of the status quo, it would be only a little less risky to deal with a policy [of an adversary] seeking adjustments within the status quo as though it were imperialistic.”