Appeasement policy

Having won the First World War , the former allies of the Entente Great Britain, France and Italy had complete freedom of action in Europe. The geopolitical picture of Europe was mainly created during the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919. The treaty imposed severe restrictions on Germany, led to the rejection of a number of German lands, the economic weakening of the country, which caused social and political tension within Germany, the formation of ideas of revanchism and the popularization of radical political parties.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist, being divided into several relatively small independent states.
In one of the member countries of the Entente, the Russian Empire , a revolution occurred during the First World War, and the Bolsheviks came to power. The capitalist countries considered the Bolsheviks ideologically hostile, which was used as an excuse not to regard the Soviet leadership as an equal and full-fledged partner in the conduct of European politics. Having concluded a separate peace with Germany , Russia also lost the opportunity to participate in the sharing of military booty.
In Italy, the prevailing opinion was the lack of compensation received by this country for participating in hostilities on the side of the Entente.

Thus, three of the five leading European powers were dissatisfied with the outcome of the Treaty of Versailles. Among other things, in Europe a lot of conflict issues arose among small states related to mutual territorial claims, economic, political, social and ideological differences.

Adopting a "policy of appeasement" before the Second World War, Western states (in particular, Great Britain and France ) counted on the fact that by means of concessions and compromises it was possible to stop the aggressor. Thus, Great Britain and France, turning a blind eye to Nazi aggression (blaming them only in words), hoped that the ambitions of fascism would be satisfied at the expense of weaker states (Austria and Czechoslovakia, for example). Also at the turn of 1937-1938. British government circles discussed the issue of colonial compensation for Germany by dividing the possessions of Belgium and Portugal (the return of territories taken under the Treaty of Versailles was recognized by the Plymouth Committee in 1936 as “undesirable,” and faced with opposition from the mandate dominions), but a prerequisite was to give Britain maximum Hitler was not happy with the colonial concessions in these territories and making maximum concessions in European politics, and he refused the project with such doubts real benefits.

After the signing of the Munich agreement, Soviet intelligence reported that Hitler's pacification policy did not work, and concessions only spur the aggressor ^[1] .

In March 1939, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia , turning the Czech Republic into a "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia," and Slovakia into its satellite, a formally independent state. Hitler then makes a complaint to Poland - first on the provision of an extraterritorial land road to East Prussia, and then on a referendum on the belonging of the "Polish corridor". According to Hitler, people who lived in this territory in 1918 were to take part in the referendum. After providing Poland with guarantees of its independence from the UK and France, it becomes clear that Germany’s war with these states is very likely.

• Political realism
• The territorial and political expansion of the Third Reich