Preemptive British Militarism
- Thread starter MatthewB
- Start date
The peace talks had begun while the queen was alive, and the abandonment of the Dutch was the result of the long-held minimal-intervention policies of the queen. But you are right, she was already dead by the time the actual treaty was signed.
They started in June 1603 ( James I had called a Ceasefire at Sea in May but that was unilateral), she died in March. It was James I that wanted to end the fighting partly due to his beliefs and partly because fighting a war one of whose causes was the Spanish support for his mothers claim to the English Throne was a bit silly, him having become King of England
.Garrison
Donor
Sorry but this is based on the false assumption that Germany was ready for war in 1938 when it simply wasn't. It wasn't Chamberlain's selling out the Czech's that prevented war in 1938, it was the fact that pretty much every military and economic leader in the Reich bar Hitler, was dead set against it because they knew it would mean catastrophe for Germany. They were serious enough about this to begin planning a coup, and yet by September 1939 those same leaders were sanguine about the invasion of Poland because of the substantial improvements made in the year since Munich. Sure the British gained from the delay, but it is nothing compared to the gains made by the Germans. Czech weaponry, and gold, made a huge contribution to the German military machine, the willingness to throw the Czech's under the bus led to Stalin concluding the western powers were unreliable and concluding the M-R pact. It allowed the Germans to apply pressure to countries like Romania to supply them with resources on favourable terms, especially oil. Munich was a hideous mistake based either on a complete misapprehension of the strength of Nazi Germany or the belief that if there was another European war the only real winners would be the USA and USSR.
Anyway regardless of which side of the appeasement debate you come down on the OP's idea of 'pre-emptive British militarism' is wildly implausible.
Arguable. Admittedly, while the the British weren't ready for war, neither were the Germans. It took a year of using the Czech arms manufactories to get enough tanks to take on Poland and France.
Then again, the British and French populace were, quite frankly, not ready for war, and it would take the fall of France to shock the British enough to get into a war mentality. And yes, the Czechs surrendered when it was obvious neither France nor Britain was going to help them. Poland was working with Germany to take Czech territory, and nobody wanted the Soviets' help when it was offered (on the mistaken belief that the Soviets were a worse choice than the Nazis).