this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2025
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This is unfair to chamberlain tbh, history obviously given him a bad reputation, but it was less than 20 years since the the first world War, the bloodiest conflict in history, where 750,000 Brits died. The people wanted any possible alternative to going through that again. As well as Britain desperately needing more time to re-arm, as it had to cover the possibility (eventuality) of a global war on 3 fronts, that Britain could not realistically afford to do after the great slump.
He's also the one that gave hitler the ultimatum over Poland and in the end declaring war against Hitler.
If anything Chamberlain's legacy should be the reamerment of Britain and specifically hid commitment to the RAF who's budget he increased from £16m at the start of his Premiership to £105m by the start of the war. Without which we would have almost certainly lost the battle of Britain and, ironically enough, had him labelled as a war monger in Britain at the time.
It wasn't even just that he was committed to the RAF. He also resisted the entreaties of Britain's own version of the "bomber mafia", a group of RAF officers and industrialists who felt that the key to winning a future war was to build enormous fleets of bombers and take the war to Germany, and to hell with producing defensive fighters. Chamberlain instead made sure that Britain had enough modern fighters (Hurricanes and Spitfires) to beat off Germany's bombers during the Battle of Britain. Whether or not Hitler ever could have invaded England is debatable, but it was completely impossible without the air supremacy that British fighters successfully prevented Germany from ever achieving.