Chamberlain, Versailles and Appeasement (Again)

All this talk about the portentious events in Europe of the 30's, you'd think that Asia was an ocean of calm, and that the UK's interests there weren't threatened. How much active interest did the democratic powers show in restraining Japanese ambitions and aggression at the time?

Are we going to blame Britain and France for this too?

 

America's economic efforts against Japan are well known. Great Britain does not seem to do much other than follow America's lead(a full oil embargo is discussed a few times late in 1940 through 1941). I know nothing of French diplomatic efforts concerning Japan prior to the Vichy coming to power.

 

I was thinking of the Tiensin Incident, and a few other earlier incidents.

 

Basically, the British decided that it was not in their best interest to move warships out of the Med, as those ship would dangerously lower the number of ships there, and those ships that would be sent would not pose a much of a threat against the Imperial Japanese Navy.
British discussion in Parliament: http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/Tientsin?year=1939
A lot of correspondence from United States diplomats beginning here: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=simple&submit=Search&rgn=Entire%20work&q1=tientsin&amt=5100&size=more
Scroll down to Undeclared war between Japan and China pp. 124-868

 

So when Britain says it was not in its interest or ability to defend the Czechs its acceptable, yet when America takes the same position, its all our fault. Are you aware that at the first Munich meeting Hitler demanded a vote by the Sudetens over their future, when Chamberlain said agreed, Hitler then changed his tune and said a vote was no longer acceptable and only capitulation was acceptable. Hitler then went into his famous carpet biting shtick to show how insane and ready for war he was. Despite all of Hitler's posturing about going to war, would he really have done so??

 

"FAULT"

Such words are good for the History Channel and for the memoirs of politicians.:no one is blaming the US for what Japan did:not the US but Japan invaded China.But a lot of persons are blaming Britain and France for what Hitler was doing ,although the fact remains that B +F were following an active and even risky policy in Europe (they mobilised in september 1938)while ,OTOH,US policy in the Far East was more passive and circumspect,while its policy towards what happened in Europe,was :not my business .

 

Hitler was the crusader against Communism and Bolshevism so they appeased and tolerated him until he became a threat to European hegemony, and even more important, world economics and commerce. The English Empire couldn't give up the control of world economics to the strongest economic and military power on mainland Europe, especially when Hitler broke off from the world baks and started printing his own currency and went back to bartering with other countries without the use of international currency. A major world power not using the international debt bankers could not fly and that signed his and his regime's death warrant. It also worked out for the Allies that he was a sadistic nut and all of the crimes against humanity committed added more to the cause. After the war Churchill stated in his book the Germany was the biggest economic and commerce threat to the British Empire and they had to beaten.

 

That's one world view. Not one I'd agree with.

For starters, it was the British Empire, not the English Empire.

Germany of the Thirties was not the strongest economic or military power of mainland Europe.

I'm wondering what nation didn't print their own money in this time period.

I suppose you mean the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)? The International bank deliberately set up to facilitate the reparation repayments from Germany? Or what other "world banks" are you referring to?

 

They didn't have the control in the first place. Then consider that in the late 20's and early 30's British policy, such as it was, seemed more condusive to developing Germany's economy rather than throttling it.

There was no "international currency". Germay went to bartering because the Mark was so over valued that few were willing to accept it at anywhere near face value. This was in reality an indicatro of how weak the German economy was.

Hard to comment on that without knowing the exact time and context.

If you are really interested in this I suggest you read Wages of Destruction.

 

Germany's economy was weak, yes, but in terms of industry, manufacturing, technology, and military power they were the top rival for British Hegemony. And I meant systems like the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. Private banks that back the currency of countries. I didn't mean international currency, international debt bankers.

 

What was the Reichsbank then? At least, until it was taken over by the German State in 1937, finally being placed under the direct control oh Hitler in 1939.

 

Were they? France would seem to be the stronger in the early 30's to me. Furthermore from what I can see the British weren't trying to control Europe rather their efforts went into trying to prevent any other single power from doing so. I doubt Germany was considered capable of this until after the fall of France.

Still doesn't make sense. Germany was forced into a bartering system because they had a shortage of foreign exchange in large part due to their failure to devalue the Mark when it was needed. They were in essence forced into that position by the international bankers rather than taking it as a form of opposition. Germany also had a number of loans and paying them back when they came due in the early 40's was going to be a serious issue.

 

http://archive.org/stream/HowHitlerDefiedTheInternationalBankers/HowHitlerDefiedTheBankers_djvu.txt

Here is one link

 

http://rense.com/general77/Hitlersmm.html

Another good one.

 

As a general policy I simply don't go to links with no description of what's there.

 

Don't worry, your not missing anything at all.

The first link, "How Hitler defied the International Bankers" is reproduced on many neo-nazi, white supremacist, anti-semitic, and anti-banking websites. From the Internet Archive description

The quotes at the end do further "this." But, I don't think David Duke or William Joyce were world renowned for the economic knowledge.


The rense.com link is little more than a brief bio on Gottfried Feder, with one pro-nazi comment, and one anti-semitic comment from readers, before it continues to a brief history of the rise of Nazi Germany.

 

If you can't get a copy of Tooze, here is the next best thing, Gunter Reimann's "The Vampire Economy: Doing Business Under Fascism", 1939.
http://mises.org/sites/default/files/The%20Vampire%20Economy.pdf

 

There is also a work by Anthony Sutton, the British historian who is not a pro-Nazi by any means about international finance in relation to the Hitler. And there's more substance in those articles, more about the private international bankers who were the bank of England and the Federal Reserve.

 

Substance?

We don't need no stinking substance.

Apologies to Mel Brooks and B. Traven.