Nice analysis and presentation.

One quibble, after reading Stephen Kotkin’s second volume of his biography of Stalin, came away with an entirely different view of Chamberlain. When Chamberlain flew, three times, to surrender, what was then Czechoslovakia, to Hitler, it was not appeasement. Rather, he stumped Hitler, by offering him, everything he wanted, and he was forced to accept this.

This stopped Hitler from starting the war in 1938 as he wanted, and could never really figure out how Chamberlain had managed to do that to him. Chamberlain, then came back to the U.K., proclaimed “Peace in our Time”, and with no real publicity, devoted 50% of the U.K.’s GDP to creating factories, munitions, and plans for the upcoming war.

That is hardly appeasement, it is buying time, though at other people’s great expense.