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The study of ‘appeasement’ and the study of international relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

R. J. Barry Jones
R. J. Barry Jones
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Extract

The works on the topic of ‘appeasement’ to be discussed in this article have been widely reviewed elsewhere as works of historical analysis. The emphasis has been placed on the quality of their historical scholarship or the contribution made to the historiography of ‘appeasement’. The aim of this discussion will be to examine the relevance, if any, of such writings to a theoretical understanding of international relations.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1975 , pp. 68 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1975

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References

page 68 note 1. Aster, Primarily S., 1939: The Making of the Second World War, 1973Google Scholar; Roskill, S., Hankey: Man of Secrets, Vol. III, 1931–1963, 1974Google Scholar; and Thorne, Christopher, The Limits of Foreign Policy: the West, the League and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1931–1933, 1972CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 68 note 2. Stated at its simplest: any explanation that involved no generalization, implicitly or explicitly, would reduce to the following, rather trivial, form:

B followed from A because B followed from the occurrence of A! An informative, and valid, explanation involves generalization and assumes the following form:

B followed from A, because things like B tend to (or always) follow upon the occurrence of things like A.

page 68 note 3. Christopher Thorne explicitly acknowledges such shortcomings of conventional historical studies. See, The Limits of Foreign Policy, pp. xiii–xiv.

page 69 note 1. Middlemas, K., Diplomacyof Illusion: The British Government and Germany, 1937–39, 1972Google Scholar, n. to p. 8.

page 69 note 2. The term ‘power’ is here used in a manner which differs from that of common usage, in which power is conceived as an autonomous attribute of a state, and equatable with material strength. Here ‘power’ is seen as an attribute of a relationship, which is primarily psychological in character. On such points, see James, A., Polities’, Tower, Political Studies, xii, 1964, pp. 307–26Google Scholar.

page 69 note 3. The 1926 Foreign Office Memorandum of Britain's Foreign Policy stating the cardinal principles to be:

‘(i) to seek peace and ensure it;

(2) to preserve the status quo and the balance of power; and

(3) to protect and develop British interests in foreign countries.’

Memorandum on the Foreign Policy of His Majesty's Government, with a list of British commitments in order of importance. F.O. 10 Apr. 1926, Documents on British Foreign Policy, Series I.A, i, Appendix.

page 69 note 4. It will be seen that it is difficult to preserve the status quo and the balance of power, if power and influence is progressively surrendered to a revisionist and militaristic state.

page 70 note 1. In particular CATO (Pseud.), Guilty Men, 1940Google Scholar.

page 70 note 2. See, for instance, Gilbert, M. and Gott, R. W., The Appeasers, 1963Google Scholar.

page 70 note 3. The outstanding example of such a view being, Taylor, A. J. P.. The Origins of the Second World War, 1961Google Scholar.

page 70 note 4. See especially Robbins, K., Munich 1938Google Scholar, 1968; and Thome, Christopher. The Approach of War, 1938–39, 1967Google Scholar.

page 71 note 1. Howard, M., The Continental Commitment: the dilemma of British defence policy in the era of the two world wars, 1972Google Scholar.

page 71 note 2. Gannon, F. R., The British Press and Germany, 1936–1939, 1971Google Scholar.

page 71 note 3. Granzow, Brigitte, A. Mirror of Nazism: British Opinion and the Emergence of Hitler, 1929–1933, 1964.Google Scholar

page 71 note 4. Baer, G. W., The Coming of the Italian–Ethiopian War, 1967CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 71 note 5. Louis, R., British Strategy in the Far East, 1919–1939, 1971Google Scholar.

page 71 note 6. Thorne, The Limits of Foreign Policy, op. cit,

page 71 note 7. Waites, N. (ed.), Troubled Neighbours: Franco–British Relations in the Twentieth Century, 1971Google Scholar; and Gatske, H. W. (ed.) European Diplomacy Between the Wars, 1919–39, 1972Google Scholar.

page 71 note 8. Middlemas, Especially R. K. and Barnes, A. J. L., Baldwin, 1969Google Scholar; and RosktlL op. cit.

page 71 note 9. This is particularly true of Middlemas and Barnes's Baldwin.

page 72 note 1. Roskill, esp. note to pp. 237–8; and p. 383.

page 72 note 2. Ibid. pp. 186–9.

page 72 note 3. Ibid. p. 289.

page 72 note 4. Ibid. pp. 306–7.

page 72 note 5. Middlemas, Diplomacy of Illusion, op. cit.

page 73 note 1. Aster, op. cit., esp. pp. 76, 92–93, 176–7, 180 and 260.

page 73 note 2. Examples of such essays are those by Charles Bloch, Henderson Braddick and John Cairns in Gatzke (ed.), European Diplomacy Between Tivo Wars, op. cit,; and that by Maurice Baumont in Waites (ed.), Troubled Neighbours, op. cit.

page 73 note 3. Aster, esp. pp. 44, 148 and 151.

page 73 note 4. Howard, op. cit. pp. 110–12.

page 74 note 1. Ibid. p. ii2.

page 74 note 2. See Roskill, op. cit. p. 290.

page 00 note 1. Thome, The Limits of Foreign Policy, op. cit. pp. 62 and 126.

page 75 note 2. Ibid. pp. 82 and 139.

page 75 note 3. Ibid. pp. 199, 270 and 368.

page 75 note 4. Ibid, pp, 92, 163 and 269.

page 75 note 5. Ibid. p. 303.

page 76 note 1. Sec Cornford, J. P., ‘Review Article: The Illusion of Decision’, British Journal of Political Science, iv, part 2 (Apr. 1974), pp. 231–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 76 note 2. Allison, G. T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1971Google Scholar.