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When I was growing up in the Sixties and Seventies the common opinion was that Neville Chamberlain was almost as much to blame for WWII as Hitler - because of Appeasement.

With the benefit of greater hindsight, how could Britain and France have done better, given a POD after Hitler's rise to power?

Could they conceivably have stopped him in Czechoslovakia? How could they have guaranteed its security? Austria? The Ruhr? Will of the people innit? Spain? The Condor Legion were volunteers (so it could be argued) and on the side of the "good guys", or at least the not-so-bad guys. And if you object to them, what are you going to do about Italy, which was even more heavily involved?

The whole sorry mess seems to start with Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. Britain and France more or less turned a blind eye to that (apparently) because they wanted Mussolini's continued opposition to Nazi designs on Austria. Which of course they did not get, and I don't see a way to change that.

So maybe the problem is not so much stopping Hitler as stopping Benny from setting a bad example. IT seems he had planned a surprise attack on France and Yugoslavia in August 1933, only to call it off when it became clear that the French had broken his military codes. So at that time France considered Italy to be a military threat, but an insignificant one, and even less so by the start of the Spanish Civil War. Germany at that time would have seemed an even lesser one, though increasing. I'm finding it hard, even with hindsight, do see a point before Poland when they could, would, and should have said "Oi! Adolph! NO!"

WI the French had not broken the Italian codes, and Mussolini had carried out his plans? Presumably he gets beaten eventually, Abyssinia is safe, and French are more ready for the wee man with the moustache to try the same trick. But what happens to Spain, and what lessons does Germany learn?
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