Appeasement: Right or Wrong?

[Capt Dizle]

Ned, normally I have respect for what you say but in this thread almost every statement and conclusion is totally wrong, baseless, and illogical. I do not have the time now, but I am going to attempt to rebut it all as soon as I do.

Are you being serious or just trolling us?

[GePap]

Oh yes there was, just no one that we'd easily recognize. Consider first that at one time the whole area was united under one king, Lothair. Also remember that the Holy Roman Emperor held the Crown of the Kingdom of German, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Lotharingia, and several others.

Do I have to get out my sources on this? i really don;t want to have to quote several chapters of History books: The Kingdom of Bohemia (what we were talking about) was independent, much like the Kingdoms of Hungary, and Poland. I still say you are wrong on a Kingdom of Germany, but even if you were right, bohemia was not part of it. When Lothar was King, the nds of Bohemia were not in German hands, period.

Neither were the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and many other Central European kingdoms, including Bohemia. BTW, I'm not completely sure Bohemia was a full Kingdom.

while other kings were lected by nobles, the Emperor did not have the powers of taxation and so forth- his power was shown to be higly ceremonial going into the thirty years war, by which time the Emperor still held his seat, but was even incapable of forcing a state religion on all the duchies under him.

Bohemia was hardly independent. It was subject to the rulings of the imperial diet. When Otto of Bohemia tried to take over huge swaths of Germany (and reconsolidate the Kingdom of Germany), he was removed from his position and Austria and Styria were handed over to a minor family, the Hapsburgs.

You made me bring out the history books:

When Frederich babenberg, Duke of Austria died, both Ottokar, King of Bohemia, and Bela IV, king of Hungary, vied to get control, since the Emperor at the time was very weak. Ottokar also undertook crusades against the Baltic lands with the teutonic Knights, all in an aim to get himself made emperor, specially after he defeated the Hungarians in Austria also. Then Rudolph of Habsburg got himself elected emperor, and undertook to challenge Ottokars aims of making himself lord of central europe. In fact, ottokars defeat came in the battlefield, at Marchfeld field, where his army was defeated by th army of the Emperor Rudolph of habsburg. After the battle and Ottokars death during it did the Emperor make the disputed lands of the Babenbergs his and his families.

See all the neat things you learn while scripting events for Europa-Universalis.

see all one learns form going to Vienna to study Central european History, that and buying goo history books?

[chequita guevara]

He invaded the Czechs. They just didn't fight back.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Arrian


This bizzaro-history of yours is incredible. Germany was no innocent victim, even if Versailles was unduly harsh. The fighting broke out because Hitler kept invading other countries. Bloody hell.

As for the original topic of the thread: it's not really a stance on the morality of appeasement, but I do think that appeasement is a losing strategy. It's just not very smart.

Appeasement pre-WWII led to a long and bloody world war. Many people believe that had France and the UK come down on Germany hard when Hitler ordered his army into the Rhineland, it all couldhave been avoided. No way to know for sure, though.

What do you think of that famous line often used to describe the Holocaust, DF? You know "first they came for the jews, but I was not a jew, so I did nothing..." etc.

-Arrian

Arrian, As far as I can recall, Hitler invaded only one country before 9/2/39 and that was Poland on 9/1/39. The reason Hitler invaded is that the Poles refused to negotiate because of its pact with Britain and France.

What happened after that was, of course, the kind of thing that happens in wars. Hitler invaded a lot of countries in an effort to win the war. However, he seems to have bit off more than he could chew when he attacked the USSR.

Arrian, just to make my position clear, it is my position that Britain and France should not have been interfering in Eastern Europe because they had no legal obligation to do so and did not have the power to win the military confrontation they provoked. What they should have done if they wanted Poland and its other client states to remain independent is to call for a European conference that would include the USSR and the United States. If the USSR, the US and England and France had all been guarantors of the results of such a conference, I believe there would have been peace in Europe.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GePap
There never was such a thing as a kingdom of Germany!

Oh yes there was, just no one that we'd easily recognize. Consider first that at one time the whole area was united under one king, Lothair. Also remember that the Holy Roman Emperor held the Crown of the Kingdom of German, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Lotharingia, and several others.

The Holy Roman Emperor was not a hereditary king, he was elected by 12 electors.

Neither were the leaders of Poland, Hungary, and many other Central European kingdoms, including Bohemia. BTW, I'm not completely sure Bohemia was a full Kingdom.

in fact, bohemia was an independent Kingdom under the suzereinity of the Emperor (much like Kings in Bavaria, saxony, hesse, Brandenburg and so forth)

Bohemia was hardly independent. It was subject to the rulings of the imperial diet. When Otto of Bohemia tried to take over huge swaths of Germany (and reconsolidate the Kingdom of Germany), he was removed from his position and Austria and Styria were handed over to a minor family, the Hapsburgs.

until by marriage the habsburgs became Kings of Bohemia and Moravia and then made these imperial lands, and kept them as part fo the Archduchy of Austria once they lost their title of Holy Roman Emperors and then they caled themselves the Emperors of Austria:

Actually, it was the death of Lajos King of Hungary and Bohemia that handed Bohemia over to the Hapsburgs, and the Bohemian diet still had to approve that after Lajos' death. It was only after a fire in Prague castle destroyed the records that Ferdinand could demand to be made a hereditary king of Bohemia, rather than an elected king. And 90 years later, Bohemia elected the Prince of Pfalz as king, setting off the thrity years war.

I expect better form you Che...making such elemental historical mistakes

See all the neat things you learn while scripting events for Europa-Universalis.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by Sava
Saddam is stuck in his little sh!t country... the US should lift the sanctions and only attack if Iraq so much as fires a pellet gun at anyone.

So then you are in favor of atacking Iraq since they constantly fire upon US and British aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone

Originally posted by Sava

An estimated 500,000 Iraqi civilians have died because of sanctions. The US has killed more innocent Iraqi's than Saddam.

Again another argument for regime change. Saddam would prefer to let his citizens starve than abide by the ceasefire agreement he signed. The ceasefire agreement were the precondition for the end of the Gulf War. When he broke them, he basically put his country in a state of war with the US. Therefore, we should win the war he started for the second time.

Sanctions are foolish because they don't work. My quarrel is not with the Iraqi people and they should not be punished. Saddam should be removed with least amount of collateral damge possible

[Myrddin]

What is often forgotten in all the talk about appeasement is that the Western allies were rebuilding their military strength in the late 1930's, so that if Hitler went too far, they would have something to back up their words

[St Leo]

Erm, the World isn't appeasing Iraq. The World is appeasing Bush who wants to turn Iraq into his own personal Czechoslovakia.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Arrian

What do you think of that famous line often used to describe the Holocaust, DF? You know "first they came for the jews, but I was not a jew, so I did nothing..." etc.

-Arrian

Minor correction: the actual quote, said by Martin Niemoeller was:

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist-so i did nothing. Then they came for the Social democracts, but I was not a SD- so I did nothing. then they came for the trade unionists, but i was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a jew-so i did little. then they came for me, there was no one left who could sdtand up for me."

I always am annoyed when things ae so badly misquoted for political reasons.

[Ramo]

Oh God, not another national sovereignty argument.

[Ned]

Sandman, Since Chamberlain in his infinite wisdom had concluded that negotiations would have been fruitless, I agree, they never should have been attempted.

Hah!

[Arrian]

Man, this really gets circular, doesn't it? The Allies dismember Germany and Austria at the end of WWI. But, when their victim wants its land and people back, the victim, not the Allies, is labelled the aggressor.

The fighting broke out because Britain chose the path of armed confrontation by ringing Germany with defensive alliances and encouraing Poland to refuse to negotiate any further.

This bizzaro-history of yours is incredible. Germany was no innocent victim, even if Versailles was unduly harsh. The fighting broke out because Hitler kept invading other countries. Bloody hell.

As for the original topic of the thread: it's not really a stance on the morality of appeasement, but I do think that appeasement is a losing strategy. It's just not very smart.

Appeasement pre-WWII led to a long and bloody world war. Many people believe that had France and the UK come down on Germany hard when Hitler ordered his army into the Rhineland, it all couldhave been avoided. No way to know for sure, though.

What do you think of that famous line often used to describe the Holocaust, DF? You know "first they came for the jews, but I was not a jew, so I did nothing..." etc.

-Arrian

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


Gepap, you seem to ignore that Hitler was Austrian and that Czechoslovakia was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

At the end of WWI, Poland, Konisgburg, Byelorussia and the Ukraine were German territory. Undoing Versailles, all of it, would have Germany have these lands restored to the Reich. Again, the fall of Czechoslovakia did alert every independent country to the East of Germany of Hitler's aims. This is why they united against him.

Yes, these land were of the Habsburg Empire, not the Hohenzollern one. A different peace treaty was signed by the allies and the habsburg government than signed by the allies and the Hohenzollern one. As I said, the only excuse for demanding Austria and the Sudetenland to become part of Germany was if you claim that the treaties specifically singled out Germans for discrimination in terms of self-determination, since germans were not allowed ot vote to join germany after the war.

The moment germany lost the first world war, it treaties with the Soviet government were no longer valid, and thus Germany had no legal claim to any of those lands, and it surely had little if any actual control of them by late 1918.

[GePap]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


That's not true. Bohemia and Moravia had been part of the Kingdom of Germany since the Carolingian Kingdom was split into three, and they were inherited by Lothair the German. Only when Nappy abolished the Holy Roman Empire did they cease to be part of the Kingdom of Germany, although they were part of the Austrian empire at the time (from 1526 to 1918).

Slovakia was never part of Germany.

There never was such a thing as a kingdom of Germany!

The Holy Roman Emperor was not a hereditary king, he was elected by 12 electors. in fact, bohemia was an independent Kingdom under the suzereinity of the Emperor (much like Kings in Bavaria, saxony, hesse, Brandenburg and so forth) until by marriage the habsburgs became Kings of Bohemia and Moravia and then made these imperial lands, and kept them as part fo the Archduchy of Austria once they lost their title of Holy Roman Emperors and then they caled themselves the Emperors of Austria:

I expect better form you Che...making such elemental historical mistakes

[Ned]

Originally posted by GePap


As you said above, Bohemia and Morovia had never been part fo the German reich, and thus, germany could make no claim to them whatsoever under the pretext of undoing Versailles. The aquisitions of the sudetenland and Austria by Germany would fall under undoing the limitations on 'German' self-determination as outlined in the treary. Anything beyond the Sudentenland, Austria, Sud tyrol, or the Polish Corredor would be aims by the German government to go beyond anyhting that could be justified with 'versailles'

Overall Ned, you don't give enough attention whatsoever to Nazi aims. The war in the west was not what Hitler wanted, speaiclly a prolonged war with britain, but a huge campaign against all of Poland, and the Soviet union was always in the work. There is nothing anyone could have done, beside overthrowing the Nazi regime, that would have prevented a general war in europe in the 1940's with Hitler and the National Socialist in power.

Gepap, you seem to ignore that Hitler was Austrian and that Czechoslovakia was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

At the end of WWI, Poland, Konisgburg, Byelorussia and the Ukraine were German territory. Undoing Versailles, all of it, would have Germany have these lands restored to the Reich. Again, the fall of Czechoslovakia did alert every independent country to the East of Germany of Hitler's aims. This is why they united against him.