Churchill On Appeasement Quotes

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

is clear now that appeasement rested more on self-delusion than on rational calculation, because it necessarily required faith in Hitler’s sanity and trustworthiness.

I agree with Winston Churchill, who said an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. “If

Churchill, too, offered Roosevelt a name for the war; it summed up in three words the entire legacy of the appeasers and isolationists: “The Unnecessary War.

Our difficulties and dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.

Churchill’s prescience about Communism had mirrored what he had said about Nazism, but this time he was able to halt the appeasement that might otherwise have once again become the West’s default mechanism.

Military history is just as often the tangential story of an appeasement that fails to head off warmongering as it is of an aggressive chest-thumping that prompts conflict. The destructive military careers of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler all would have ended earlier had any of their numerous enemies united when the odds favored them, had any listened to a Demosthenes, a Cato the Younger, or a Churchill.

There is a fascinating dichotomy in that, although the appeasement movement was intended to prevent another war breaking out, most of its leaders had not seen action in the Great War, whereas most of the anti-appeasers had.

Churchill replied, ‘Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.

Churchill did approve breaking the monopoly on broadcasting held by the BBC, which he had long regarded as institutionally left wing and which had also kept him off the airwaves in his struggle against appeasement in the 1930s. The commercial company ITV began broadcasting in September 1955.

careful reconstruction of the British war-cabinet meetings between Friday, 24 May and Tuesday, 28 May, five days that could have changed the world. Lukac’s conclusion is inescapable: never was Hitler as close to total control over Western Europe as he was during that last week of May 1940. Britain almost presented him with a peace agreement which he would probably have accepted, and only one man was finally able to stand in the way: Churchill. Besides Churchill, the British war cabinet in those days had four other members, at least two of whom could be counted among the ‘appeasers’: Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. The other two, Clement Atlee and Arthur Greenwood (representing Labour), had no experience in government at that time. On

Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge, inspired by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations of personal power than were many other British prime ministers, and he sought to preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned. Yet his policies helped to make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring untold miseries to millions of men. Sir Winston Churchill's motives, on the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much more narrowly directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies that sprang from these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and political quality to those pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his motives, Robespierre was one of the most virtuous men who ever lived. Yet it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that made him kill those less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold, and destroyed the revolution of which he was a leader.

To borrow from Budd Schulberg’s description of a media manipulator in his classic novel The Harder They Fall, I was “indulging myself in the illusions that we can deal in filth without becoming the thing we touch.” I no longer have those illusions. Winston Churchill wrote of the appeasers of his age that “each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.” I was even more delusional. I thought I could skip being devoured entirely. It would never turn on me. I was in control. I was the expert. But I was wrong.

Thus it is wrong to think that the British Establishment wholeheartedly supported Churchill’s premiership in the darkest days of the Second World War: it tolerated him for the lack of a viable alternative and because he was still popular with the public. It also refused to acknowledge that many of the defeats for which he was being blamed were directly attributable to the failure to heed his warnings and adopt his rearmament proposals in the 1930s. At a deeper level, he could not be forgiven for having been proved right about their flagship policy of those years: appeasement.

For the first time it was clear to those who listened to Churchill’s speech—and the whole country listened carefully—that all of the easy presumptions that had shored up appeasement, among them belief in the French Army, the legendary strength of the Maginot Line, the fighting qualities of the BEF, above all the hope that a deal of some kind might be made with Hitler at the last moment, were all swept away by his stark realism, and by the fact, now suddenly clear, that across the Channel a huge, historic battle was being fought—and would very likely be lost. It is no accident that J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings took on its length and dense sweep as an epic in that year, with its central vision of the Dark Lord Sauron’s legions attacking an idyllic land not unlike Britain, as the apparently invincible armies of Hitler swept over one European country after another, taking familiar places that the British, the Belgians, and the French had fought and died for in the 1914–1918 war, ports that were well known to anyone who had ever traveled to “the Continent,” and approached the English Channel itself, advancing swiftly toward the port city of Boulogne, where Napoleon himself had once stood, waiting for the moment to launch 200,000 men at England.

In 1945, Churchill admitted privately, ‘The biggest blunder of my life was the return to the Gold Standard.’131 The almost total unanimity of the financial experts in favour of it, when set alongside the views of the admirals about the convoy system, and those of the generals about how to fight both the Boer War and Great War, led Churchill seriously to doubt the wisdom of experts. His willingness to attack the views of the entire Establishment over appeasement might not have been so complete had he not seen its experts proved wrong time and again, and had he not, in the case of the Gold Standard, been forced to take ultimate responsibility.

...Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he'd rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits—not animals." And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness...

The appeasers had been powerful; they had controlled The Times and The BBC; they had been largely drawn from the upper classes, and their betrayal of England's greatness would be neither forgotten nor forgiven by those who, gulled by the mystique of England's class system, had believed as Englishmen had believed for generations that public school boys governed best. The appeasers destroyed oligarchic rule which, though levelers may protest, had long governed well. If ever men betrayed their class, these were they. Because their possessions were great, the appeasers had much to lose should the Red flag fly over Westminster. That was why they had felt threatened by the hunger riots of 1932. It was also the driving force behind their exorbitant fear and distrust of the new Russia. They had seen a strong Germany as a buffer against bolshevism, had thought their security would be strengthened if they sidled up to the fierce, virile Third Reich. Nazi coarseness, Anti-Semitism, the Reich's darker underside, were rationalized; time, they assured one another, would blur the jagged edges of Nazi Germany. So, with their eyes open, they sought accommodation with a criminal regime, turned a blind eye to its iniquities, ignored its frequent resort to murder and torture, submitted to extortion, humiliation, and abuse until, having sold out all who had sought to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain and keep the bridge against the new barbarism, they led England herself into the cold damp shadow of the gallows, friendless save for the demoralized republic across the Channel. Their end came when the House of Commons, in a revolt of conscience, wrenched power from them and summoned to the colors the one man who had foretold all that had passed, who had tried, year after year, alone and mocked, to prevent the war by urging the only policy which would have done the job. And now, in the desperate spring of 1940, he resolved to lead Britain and her fading empire in one last great struggle worthy of all they had been and meant, to arm the nation, not only with weapons but also with the mace of honor, creating in every English breast a soul beneath the ribs of death.

Munich has become a symbol, in Europe and beyond, of how vulnerable liberal democracies are if they succumb to the illusion that they can save themselves and their values without confronting the expansionism of a totalitarian power at their doorstep. Munich was a defining moment for Europe: it sacrificed its principles and commitments to preserve "peace in our time", as the appeasers understood it. It has suffered dishonour to avoid war, but in the end it has suffered "dishonour and war", as Churchill aptly said in his speech in the House of Commons.

The British amateur diplomats came from across the political spectrum and acted from a variety of motives. They were, however, united by a number of beliefs, the most important of which was that Nazism, whatever their personal view of it, should not preclude friendly relations between Britain and Germany. On the contrary, the majority saw Nazism as the natural, if violent, reaction to legitimate grievances stemming from Versailles. From both a moral and political point of view, it was, therefore, imperative that the Treaty should be altered and Germany allowed to regain that place and status to which her size and history entitled her.

Today’s liberal foreign policy, to adapt Churchill, is appeasement wrapped in realism inside moral equivalency.

By this time next year we shall know whether the Prime Minister’s view of Herr Hitler and the German Nazi Party is right or wrong. By this time next year we shall know whether the policy of appeasement has appeased, or whether it has only stimulated a more ferocious appetite.

Here is a parallel to the Left’s anti-Trump psychosis: In the 1930s, Churchill was out of power, out of office, demeaned as a warmonger, a fool, an unstable has-been, a lunatic, and so on. The interwar British press and the oligarchy were largely in favor of appeasement, and their influence spread to a populace legitimately unwilling to engage in another war. The British air force was flying World War I planes, the army was minuscule, and many members of the nobility (and monarchy) were actively pro-Fascist. Hitler saw that Churchill was unafraid, and it was he to whom the Brits in extremity would have to appeal. And Hitler was afraid of Churchill, because Churchill was unfazed by rhetoric, or chicanery, or threats. We cannot hate something unless we fear it. The Left’s loathing of President Trump was, finally, terror of one who was not afraid of them. * Predecessors include the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and Wilson’s Alien Enemy Proclamations of World War I, the public support of the latter demonstrated not only through applauding the deportation of German American citizens but through the shooting of dachshunds.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last. Sir Winston Churchill

Churchill is still warning his people that “Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping it will eat you last,” and imploring that “Nothing can save England if she will not save herself.

I want to make it clear, however, that although I am deeply opposed to war, I am not advocating appeasement. It is often necessary to take a strong stand to counter unjust aggression. For instance, it is plain to all of us that the Second World War was entirely justified. It "saved civilization" from the tyranny of Nazi Germany, as Winston Churchill so aptly put it. In my view, the Korean War was also just, since it gave South Korea the chance of gradually developing democracy. But we can only judge whether or not a conflict was vindicated on moral grounds with hindsight. For example, we can now see that during the Cold War, the principle of nuclear deterrence had a certain value. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to assess such matters with any degree of accuracy. War is violence and violence is unpredictable. Therefore, it is better to avoid it if possible, and never to presume that we know beforehand whether the outcome of a particular war will be beneficial or not.

Good morning,” he said amicably. “How are you?” “Not very well. The Czech Army is mobilizing.” “I say! Why are they doing that?” “They think the German Army’s coming across the frontier.” “I say! Are you sure?” “I’m sure the Czechs are mobilizing.” “I say! Fancy that. That is news.”43

our hearts went out to the “gallant Abyssinians” (our oil, of course, went out to Mussolini).

there is no evil worse than submitting to wrong and violence for fear of war. Once you take the position of not being able in any circumstances to defend your rights against the aggression of some particular set of people, there is no end to the demands that will be made or to the humiliations that must be accepted.’ This was the essence of Churchill’s criticism of appeasement from weakness.

There is a six-forked path ahead of us. Each path represents a possible future and a major paradigm shift for humanity. But we must act now. In 1924, Winston Churchill said, ‘The prevention of the supreme catastrophe ought to be the paramount object of all endeavor.’ History shows us what happens when we avoid, appease, and procrastinate while the seeds of that epic catastrophe grow stronger by the day.

was Churchill’s “exceptional openness” to intense emotion that explains how he was able to sense dangers that more conventional minds failed to see. “For most of the politicians and opinion-makers who wanted to appease Hitler, the Nazis were not much more than

[The notion of "Peace through Strength"] I think is an indirect or implied reference to the sellout of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938. So this is the reaction of von der Leyen and other Europeans that what Mr Trump proposes is appeasement of Russia. But as Churchill pointed out, there are some circumstances in which appeasement is appropriate. And in fact I would say I I could give a good wonderful set of examples of how Great Britain appeased the United States, as we rose the world power, and benefited from that. (Excerpt from interview "Amb. Chas Freeman: Europeans FURIOUS Over JD Vance’s SHOCKING Comment!")