NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN –by: sora & kevin

"It is better to jaw jaw than war war." This quote was said by Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1937 to 1940, who, contrary to his intentions, gradually brought about the World War II. He was born on the eighteenth of March, 1869 in Birmingham and died on the eighth of November, 1940. In general, he, his father, Joseph Chamberlain, and his half-brother, Sir Austen Chamberlain were all politicians. Neville Chamberlain was educated at a public school called Rugby School and earned his degree at Mason Science College. He had a lot of political careers, but his policy of appeasement was what made him worldwide known for. He is an important person, who used the policy of appeasement to try to ignore war by settling arguments in discussion, which actually made the country, Germany much more powerful than ever.

Neville Chamberlain was assigned many political careers such as being chairman of Town Planning Committee, the mayor of Birmingham, Director of National Service, member of the parliament, minister of health, and chancellor. However, that was not everything he has done in his life, he was elected as the British Prime Minister. During the 1930s, there were some serious economic problems like the Great Depression in Great Britain and France where the governments had to cut their spending, lower taxes, and struggle not to get into any war since they could not spend huge amounts of money necessary to improve their weapons and expand their forces. In addition, people disliked war after experiencing World War I and seeing that many soldiers have lost their lives. Furthermore, many people believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh on Germany and that one day, there would be a new outbreak of war. Therefore, Neville Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier introduced the policy of appeasement, which helped prevent war but encourage Germany and Italy to regain power to expand. The British and French Prime Minister had a discussion with the President Edward Benes of Czechoslovakia to give away Sudetenland to Germany so that Germany would be persuaded not to declare another world war. Hence, in 1938, Neville Chamberlain, Edouard Daladier and Adolf Hitler attended the Munich conference, where Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler signed an agreement that Britain and Germany would never to go war again. However, this agreement was considered a weak sign of the Western Europe to Adolf Hitler, which encouraged him and Mussolini more to expand their land. This conference was the sign that showed that other surrounding countries were scared of Germany. However, in Great Britain, Chamberlain was welcomed as a hero’s welcome where many people supported and thanked him. Neville Chamberlain believed he had saved Europe from war and proclaimed that he had achieved “peace for our time.” In March 1939, Adolf Hitler broke the Munich Agreement which he signed. He invaded the entire of Czechoslovakia and later to Poland, Netherlands, then France and Belgium. Hence, the Munich Agreement was a total failure that made people frightened and panicked since that was the start of the outbreak of World War II.

Neville Chamberlain gave all his efforts in to try maintain the world at peace, but his policy of appeasement was kind of a huge mistake that he made because the policy of appeasement just helped improve Britain’s economic problems not the world wide problem. The policy of appeasement showed Germany that Great Britain and France were too weak to fight and thought that it was the right time to expand their territories and pay back their enemies. Chamberlain’s goal was to prevent war, but the more Germany demanded something that was forbidden in the Treaty of Versailles, Britain and France just gave Germany want they wanted, which gave them strength and courage. In my opinion, Chamberlain’s creative idea was brilliant, but there is no possible way to ever prevent war because any country can declare war on another country anytime. Therefore, I admire his effort in trying to protect and help his country bur just couldn’t take under control everything like World War II.

Works Cited:

"Neville Chamberlain." Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia.. Wikipedia. 14 Jan 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain.
Kelly, Shutter, Nigel ,Paul . The 20th Century: As It Was Lived. Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd , 2000.