Chamberlain was a fool, appeasement was a mistake.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler relentlessly took over territories in Europe because he wanted to fulfill his foreign policy of gaining lebensraum and building a Greater Germany. The foreign minister of Britain, Chamberlain, wanted to avoid war at all costs so he created the appeasement policy. Appeasement means to give into an aggressor, in this case Hitler, in hopes of preventing war. There were many views of appeasement, some viewed it as a mistake, and others didn't. Was Chamberlain's policy of appeasement cowardly? Or was it quite reasonable?.
With hindsight it is easy to look back and criticize Chamberlain and the policy of appeasement, but considering the position Chamberlain was in, it was conducted with very good judgment.
Chamberlain said "war wins nothing, cures nothing, ends nothing" even before he became Prime Minister. He passionately believed in a world of peace and that other leaders were also honest. He greatly believed in the power of talk and negotiations. He thought he could negotiate things through with Hitler. The British people thought the same way and very well wanted to avoid war. Even if Chamberlain wanted to go to war, he would not have had enough public support to go to war.
The First World War was, to many people "the war to end all wars" because of the death and destruction it had brought to Europe. In the First World War, Europe suffered massive death and destruction and nothing truly was achieved with the war. Everyone feared war. They wanted to avoid war, and were willing to give in to Hitler's demands as long as they were not too outrageous.
Many British people considered the Treaty of Versailles unfair and too harsh on Germany. In particular, it was seen to be unfair that many Germans had to live outside their country and did not have self-determination. It was thought that Hitler would never go as far as his Lebensraum idea, so giving in to Hitler a few times was not too extreme.
