Introduction: 1919–35

Abstract

The term appeasement, a good honest word which made its way into modern English from the Old French, means the act of soothing or satisfying, but in the political history of the twentieth century it will always have a more specific definition. That is, of course, the policy of the so-called National Government in Great Britain in the 1930s to reach a peaceful accommodation with the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. From that time, it has come to mean conciliation through concession — the policy of giving in to the threat of force. As a result, as Keith Robbins has recently noted, it ‘has had a bad press for a long time.’¹