British and French Weakness
Throughout much of the inter-war period British diplomacy was seriously constrained by knowledge of the country’s economic weakness and an obsessive fear of the revolutionary threat posed by the Soviet Union. The lack of military capabilities meant that the Axis powers were not deterred by British diplomacy. The inability to work with the Soviet Union further undermined collective security. Although France had a substantially larger army than Britain the French did not consider taking action to stop Germany and France without British support (Brendon, 2000 p. 53).
The Consequences of the Great Depression
The Great Depression, which greatly assisted Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany also, had consequences for the conduct of British foreign policy during the 1930s. Defence spending had already been greatly reduced during the 1920s, ironically enough when Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer and before he became the most vocal opponent of appeasement. When faced with the Great Depression the Labour government and later the National government introduced austerity measures to balance the national budget. Further cutting the defence budget and rather more controversially at the time, by cutting unemployment benefits saved money. Such disarmament would not have had as much diplomatic impact if it had not coincided with the emergence of Germany, Japan, and to a lesser extent Italy as military threats to international peace and British national interests. The Great Depression distracted British governments with domestic social, economic, and political problems. At the same time it lessened their capabilities of dealing with an increasingly hostile diplomatic and international set of situations (James, 2003 p. 123).
Buying time or loss of nerve?
Instead of resisting aggression British diplomacy sought to appease or simply ignore acts of aggression. The government assumed that the British public did not particularly care about what the Japanese did in Manchuria, what the Italians did in Ethiopia, or for that matter what the Germans did to Austria and Czechoslovakia. There was only public disquiet in Britain once it emerged that the British government had all but given Mussolini a free hand in Ethiopia, despite publicly stating its support for collective security and economic sanctions (Brendon, 2000 p. 271). In 1936 the Royal Navy still had enough power to sink or blockade any Italian ship that was destined for Ethiopia, as Winston Churchill for one said it should be allowed to do. Neither the British nor the French used their joint control of the Suez Canal to stop Italian ships using it (Kennedy, 1976 p. 289).
However, no military or naval action was taken at all to stop the Italian invasion, even though they used poison gas. Military action was not taken to prevent Italy joining an alliance with Germany. However, the ineffective economic sanctions that the League of Nations applied did nothing to save Ethiopia and merely ensured an alliance between Italy and Germany (Hobsbawm, 1994 p. 37).
The Nazi regime, it could be argued, used elements of Public Diplomacy to promote itself to foreign audiences. Hitler had a gift for propaganda and the ability to conceal his real motives. The Nazi regime had successfully presented itself as being responsible for German economic recovery and a return to great power status. The Nuremberg rallies, the autobahns, and the Berlin Olympics symbolised Germany’s renewed sense of purpose (Hobsbawm, 1994 p 38).
Bibliography
Brendon P, the Dark Valley – A Panorama of the 1930s (2000) Jonathan Cape, London
Hobsbawm, E (1994) Age of Extremes, the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London
James, H (2003) Europe Reborn – A History, 1914 – 2000, Pearson Longman, Harlow
Kennedy P, (1976) The Rise and fall of British Naval Mastery, Penguin, London
