A. Hitler and Appeasement.
Even now around the world, “appeasement” is seen as the argument againstdisarmament and world peace. People vaguely see disarmament as the cause of War. The world now understands militarism through the supposed lesson of how World War Two started which is spelt out as follows:- You will always get people like Hitler. If you try to appease them by not arming, they will take advantage of you and rule the world. So, always be strong and arm against the next Hitler. The lesson of the 1930s is do not disarm. Stay strong, or another Hitler will get you. Being soft and disarming is not an option. The problem is clear. The arms companies are the good guys. They prevent war rather than cause it. They are always on our side. Be strong and arm and then we will all be safe.
This chapter is pure intense anger because the appeasement lie has become the “truth” and disarmament has been rubbished all our lifetimes. Here we look again at militarism between the wars and see that, as weapons caused WW1, so they caused WW2. More than that, real historical “Appeasement” is the opposite of the lesson above. It was the militarists acting together to arm and it brought on WW2.
B. WW1 Militarism carries on.
As we have seen, WW1 was caused by the build-up of arms and four arms races. It involved four years of horrific fighting, but war does not end with Armistice. It has consequences for decades. Marching soldiers carried on, traumatized, poor, looking for an income and believing myths. In Italy Mussolini formed Fascist Blackshirts, the Squadristi, who warred against Communists and anyone they did not like. There were some 200,000 of them. In October 1922 about 30,000 led the coup that made Mussolini the first Fascist dictator and later Hitler’s ally. In Russia the defeat and cruel occupation by Germany led to the Bolshevik Revolution and a long internal Civil War between White and Red forces. Churchill as British Minister for War contributed support to it. It lasted until 1923 and Poland also continued warring against the new USSR. Thus, Russia faced nine years of raw, devastating war, followed by famine. No-one can understand Russia who does not take that in. In Germany Hitler’s Brownshirts, the Sturmabteilung, were largely ex-soldiers recruited into a thug army. Other traumatized military units carried on war against Socialists in Germany, murdering Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg the socialist leaders. Hitler and his thugs tried the Munich Putsch in 1923, which failed and landed Hitler in prison. Later, as we know, Hitler and his militias dominated Germany and directly caused WW2. In France the Croix de Feu and Action Française mobilised ex-military personnel and the same Fascist style into demonstrations of more than 50,000. There were a million injured soldiers in France, life spoiled by war, looking for redress. Others states copied military Fascism. In Britain Oswald Moseley marched his blackshirts around the East End spouting antisemitism with wide support. In Japan the World War One militarists moved into permanent dominance through to World War Two. Spain and Portugal had Fascist revolutions through to 1939. So, World War One and its militarism carried through to World War Two in many parts of the world. As so often, War causes War and only peace can heal it.
C. Reviving the Arms Trade.
The Arms Trade is quite precarious, and the most difficult time is after a war. Weapons have been produced on a vast scale to win, or lose, the War and then the War ends with no further conflict in sight and demand for arms drops to zero. This happened in 1918. Because everybody had fought in the World War, war ended for everybody. Actually, conflict did carry on in Russia and elsewhere, but that was with the vast surplus of weapons after 1918. The common-sense understanding was that no war or substantial armaments sales were thinkable for a decade. And die the arms trade did. Of course, they had vast, stored profits from the War. In Germany the end of arms production was required of Krupp and the others. In France and Britain demand dived and the industry suffered. Armstrong-Whitworth and Vickers merged with Government help. Schneider linked with Skoda in Czechoslovakia in a deal to keep going. In the States Du Pont, Singer, Remington and others were very rich, but suddenly without demand. Of course, they could buy up other companies (as Du Pont did General Motors), diversify or recreate a demand for arms. Groups of shareholders, politicians and militarists tried the latter, but with difficulty. Throughout the 1920s the arms trade was low.
But the arms companies found their ways. One was bribery. Another was through scares. Another was through pressure on governments either from inside or though agents. One agent, employed to scupper the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference for $25,000, was William Shearer. He was largely successful and then tried to get $250,000 from his Naval Employers and went to court, so everyone then knew what was going on. Another was through exploiting tensions; even in 1919 the French were arming the Turks fighting the Greeks armed by the British. Lloyd George and Sir Basil Zacharoff helped set that one up. Another was through patriotic groups and pressure from the press, often part owned by military interests.
However, the real bonanza came with Japan. It was both into the business of equipping the Chinese warlords and then invading China through the Manchuria Incident. From about 1929 it was taking all the arms it could from British and French yards. Ships went almost daily from Hamburg, poorly disguised with weapons and ammunition. Exports from Britain, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Norway went to Japan. British arms exports were £12m officially between 1929-1931 but really more. Given these big sales, neither the French or British Governments were really going to sanction Japan for its invasion. Already before the Geneva Disarmament Conference the arms industry was off its leash and the arms trade was booming.[i]
D. Why? Money of Course.
We have already looked at the way the Disarmament Conference was defeated in 1932 just as the arms trade took off again. If you read the speeches and literature of the period, these were statesmen who on the whole came down in one overall political position, although they often disagreed and dithered. So, for example, in the Oxford Union debate of 9/2/1933 where it voted 64% for the motion: “This House would not in any circumstances fight for king and country.” They were not being unpatriotic, but were angry that the Government had made such a mess of Disarmament. By that stage they had let Hitler in and a lot of them would die in WW2. There was disagreement and mixed motives. Simon tried, not very hard, to stop the weapons supply to Japan and China and they agonized over peace, but the militarists and arms traders were really in charge.
Shortly we see a lot of them in Britain seeing some kind of link both with Germany and the Nazis. It included a lot of the British Establishment – the Dukes of Westminster, Buccleuch, Hamilton, Lord Rothermere, the Mitfords, John Amery, Archibald Ramsey, Lord Londonderry, Viscount Halifax, the Editor of the Times, Neville Chamberlain, Quentin Hogg and many more of the rich and landed. Often people focus on this as though it were some kind of wicked conspiracy, which occasionally it became with Sir Oswald Mosley, Lord Haw Haw and even Edward VIII, but usually it was merely a broader political position which we need to understand. The Conservative Right in Britain and elsewhere were rich with land, estates, town houses in London, servants, businesses, factories, banks and trade and a rich lifestyle which they considered necessary and normal. But it began to be threatened. The Communist Revolution had occurred in Russia in 1918 with the shock killing and fleeing of the royal family and aristocracy. Presumably it could happen elsewhere. In Britain the vote had been extended in 1918 to all men over 21 without a property qualification and all women over 30 where either they or their husband met a property qualification (two thirds of them). Suddenly the old governing class were outnumbered by the workers. Then in 1928 all men and women over 21 got the vote. The change was enormous. Previously property had ruled. Now it was universal suffrage. Even in 1923 the Labour Party was the strongest party. The fake Zinoviev Telegram, a wicked electoral fix, kept Labour out of power in the late 20s and the National Government of 1931 gave the Tories a massive majority of MPs and effective Government when they should have been in a minority. They were in power, but really Socialist reform was threatening much of their wealth and property.
Nationally, Tories looked to fight it, for example, in the General Strike of 1926 with the police, army and volunteer constables, sergeants, inspectors and commanders, or, later with Mosley’s Blackshirts. The Great Depression, caused by Wall Street Crash of 1929 and especially hitting the poor made the rich even more jumpy. Throughout Europe and the world the army and Fascist militias were seen as the answer for the rich to militant labour marchers and strikers. Hitler was funded from the beginning by a lot of rich people, like the mega industrialist Thyssen. They wanted property protecting. Thus, worldwide the link between the aristocracies and the industrial rich and Fascism and the Nazis was not conspiratorial at first but the mere business of protecting their money. Of course, it was dangerous, because Hitler the Servant become Hitler the Master, and the rich were very slow spotting that. In addition, the arms industry became in the Great War one of the chief ways of making money so it had its own momentum, but mainly the rich were worried about their money. Always money was there. The Apostle Paul said the love of money is the root of all evil. It is exactly correct in relation to militarism. In the 18th and 19th centuries European militarism centred around making money through world-wide colonialism. In the 20th century Fascist and Nazi militarism arose to defend money against socialism. Always the love of money lurked behind militarism and War.
E. The United States Fascist Coup Attempt.
The rich across the world with Fascist and Nazi militarism to protect wealth. Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Greece and other European states had similar movements. We can see it in Japan, where the rich Zaibatsu companies destroyed democracy and set that great state on the warpath. In China the warlords were similarly rich and buying weapons. Fascism was present in Brazil, Argentina and throughout most of the world in Fascist parties and movements, but perhaps the most neglected is the United States, becoming now the dominant world economy.
In January 1933 Roosevelt became US President to address the Great Depression caused by the Wall Street Crash. In his inaugural address Roosevelt made reference to Jesus chasing the money-changers from the Temple. He was seen as a dangerous Socialist, especially by war-rich industrialists like the Du Ponts and J.P.Morgan. They therefore tried to arrange a Fascist Coup attempt. It involved marshalling half a million war veterans. They had earlier been on strike outside the White House in July 1932. There would be a march on Washington, taking over the White House using the veterans of the American Legion. It was modelled on Mussolini. Roosevelt would be declared too ill to govern and a dictator appointed to run the economy their way. Unfortunately, they chose General Smedley Butler to lead this and he turned out to be a principled democrat and blew the whistle to a Congressional Committee. Because many of the Wall Street backers controlled the Press, the news was downplayed but the Committee was convinced it was true. The Du Ponts then tried a different tack to bring down Roosevelt with the Liberty League. So Fascism, involving a military coup attempt, was also strong in the United States linking big money to marching veterans.
F. US Arms sales to the USSR and Nazi Germany.
The United States was also linked with a massive pattern of arms sales both to the USSR and Germany in the 1930s. Notice that this was not strongly ideological, otherwise US companies would not sell to the USSR. Chase Manhattan, the Caterpillar Tractor Company, Ford, Gulf and Western, Honeywell, Martin, Douglas, Pratt and Whitney, Du Pont and other US companies provided the USSR with the most up to date weapons factories on the planet, fortunately, because they were to defeat the Nazis. The USSR could pay in gold and the arms factories and equipment were sold and began production in the late 1930s.
Even stronger were the links to the Nazis in selling weapons. Again, given the false meaning of “appeasement”, you can hardly believe how this is ignored. The arms and manufacturing industry in the United States funded and armed Hitler. Listen to this. It is the US Ambassador, William Dodd, in Berlin writing to Roosevelt in October 1936.
But what can you do? At the present moment more than a hundred American corporations have subsidiaries here or co-operative understandings. The Du Ponts have three allies in Germany which are aiding in the armament business. Their chief ally is the I. G. Farben Company, a part of the Government which gives 200,000 marks a year to one propaganda organisation operating on American opinion. Standard Oil Company (New York sub company) sent $2,000,000 here in December 1933 and has made $500,000 a year helping Germans make Ersatz gas for war purposes; but Standard Oil cannot take any of its earnings out of the country except in goods…The International Harvester Company president told me their business here rose 33% a year (arms manufacture, I believe), but they could take nothing out. Even our airplanes people have secret arrangement with Krupps. General Motor Company and Ford do enourmous businesses [sic] here through their subsidiaries and take no profits out. I mention these facts because they complicate things and add to war dangers.[ii]
In other words big investment funds were going to Germany (through the Harriman Bank especially and Prescott Bush), to fund US arms firms producing for the Nazis and the money had to stay in Germany. The US was helping bankroll and arm the Nazis big time through to and even after the start of the World War. Ironically, both the USSR and Nazi Germany were using the weapons which had come from the United States’ sales of arms factories in the Spanish Civil War from July 1936 to April 1939. By this stage the arms companies throughout Europe were doing whatever they wanted and expanding like crazy, which of course, all wars were. Militarisation had taken over and was unchecked.
G. Munich and Peace in our Time.
As this commitment to the arms industry and to world-wide militarisation gathered in the 1930s once again the calculations like those before World War One emerged. Stalin knew his danger from Hitler and tried to ally with Britain and France, but the Tories were not going to line up with the Soviets. Although the USSR, France and Britain together could have stopped the Nazis, the Tory leaders, the ones who had destroyed the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932, now backed Hitler as their best ally. Appeasement was Right Wing militarist Tories in the UK lining up with the Nazis in a supposed alliance. They hoped for, as Neville Chamberlain stated when returning from Munich, “Peace in our Time.” Hitler of course ignored peace, and occupied Czechoslovakia. It gave him the kit for War. As he pointed out in a speech, Germany gained 2,175 field guns and cannons, 469 tanks, 500 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 43,000 machine guns, 1,090,000 military rifles, 114,000 pistols, about a billion rounds of small-arms ammunition, and 3 million rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition.[iii] It armed about half the Wehrmacht. He also gained the giant Skoda works, the biggest arms factory complex in Europe. Munich merely completed the Nazi capacity to wage World War. Appeasement was the militarists miscalculating on one of their own kind.
H. Appeasement is the world’s biggest lie.
The idea that appeasement is not arming and caused the Greatest War is thus complete fiction. It is worse than fiction. It is like having a complex murder whodunit on stage with multiple conspirators who contribute to the foul crime, and then right at the end the murdered corpse stands up and says, “I done it.” The ancient prophets realised thousands of years back that politicians can say “Peace, peace” when there is no peace, but they did not see that politicians could blame peace for war. When people disappeared into the vortex that was World War Two for a decade or so of horrors, there were sufficient militarists around at the end to assert that appeasement caused war and to suggest we needed a Cold War. That is why it is the world’s biggest lie. It has shaped our lives for fear, destruction and war for another eight decades. It has destroyed and wasted quadrillions of dollars.
The cause of both World Wars was the same – the expansion of armaments. The appeasement “lesson” is pure moonshine. The Second World War happened because the arms companies, the Merchants of Death, were once again let off the leash and the killing industry was dominant. Now we all do the sensible thing and close it down.
[i] H.C.Englebrecht and F.C. Hanighen The Merchants of Death (NY:Dodd,Mead and Company, 1934) 228-234
[ii] Edgar B. Nixon, ed., Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign Affairs, Vol. III: September 1935-January 1937 (Cambridge:Belknap Press, 1969) p 456 quoted in Anthony Sutton Wall Street and the Rise of the Nazis Introduction
[iii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement#German_invasion_of_rump_Czechoslovakia