prepared to go to war. Britain did not fight Germany in 1939 to save Poland, but to preserve the international system of which the British Empire benefited most. (Overy, Road, 62-104)The victory of France in 1918 gave her the opportunity to reverse the decline of her international power, and to find a permanent security to the revival of the German threat. For the next 20 years France became obsessed with the fear that this opportunity had been lost, and with a fear of a repeat of history. In 1923, out of frustration with the minimal amounts of German reparations payments, France occupied the Ruhr. This effort, instead of helping France, severely harmed her international reputation and alienated the U.S, and Britain. This forced her into making several alliances with the new states in Eastern Europe, which would later put her in conflict with a revisionist Germany – the one thing France was trying to avoid. The economic and cultural boom of the late 20’s was ended by the crash of 1929, which created a financial crisis, and severe social and political divisions. The crisis in France and the attempts to get reparations fuelled a crisis in Germany, which in turn produced what France feared most: a revisionist Germany. When Hitler’s Germany reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, France could do very little because of a weak government, a weak military, and a fear of a repetition of the Ruhr incident. France’s severe economic, social, and political problems continued into the late 30’s, and as a result of this, foreign policy did not have any coherence or sense of purpose. The appeasement tactics used by France after the Austrian and Czechoslovakian episodes were a realistic assessment in the face of all the problems France was facing at the time. In early 1939, France faced a choice similar to Britain’s: accept the prospect of another war with Germany, or accept German domination. Daladier greatly...
