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Leaving aside for a second the more odious points of this comment, this is preposterous. Britain had no justification for attempting to stop Germany attempting to make itself the pre-eminent power in Europe by conquest? Almost as if it was the guiding principle of the British to prevent such a state of affairs emerging for centuries prior. This was precisely the argument Napoleon tried to give at various - Britain had no need to meddle in continental affairs rather than attending to its overseas possessions and trading activities and had ruined itself for the sake of a conflict it had no interest in. It was preposterous then and equally so in 1939. And indeed the conduct of Hitler and the and the Nazi government before and during the war proved that they could never be tolerated as a major element of the European order.
This is the Revisionist position. And no I do not think it had a justification to do so with the threat of the Soviet Union and the human and cultural cost of destroying Old Europe in a war of unconditional surrender. And ultimately Britain lost its own Empire. But yes Britain did start WWII in order to prevent Germany from becoming the pre-eminent power in Europe. That's the real reason WWII started and Britain allied with the Soviet Union to make it happen. It wasn't over Danzig, all of Poland was conquered by Britain's ally at the end of the day.
The Treaty of Versailles was an attempt to make sure Germany never become the pre-eminent power in Europe. But it was unenforceable. So they waged war ostensibly over Danzig, but then retconned it ultimately to be about the Holocaust narrative to try to post-hoc justify the war and solely blame Germany for the utter destruction and death.
Very funny that Britain makes the claim Germany wanted to "make itself the pre-eminent power in Europe by conquest" over Danzig. Germany offered to fully evacuate from Western Europe for peace and England said no.
But yes, the real reason for the war was Britain didn't want Germany to become the largest power in Europe. No that is not at all a justification for their alliance with the Soviet Union, the demand for unconditional surrender, and mass death and destruction of Europe to realize that objective. Germany is today arguably the largest power on the European Continent anyway. No it was not justified.
As @johnfabian said, you must think we're complete fucking mongoloids if you expect us to buy that.
Contemporary articles have Sir John Simon and Anthony Eden both drawing parallels to Napoleon and the 30 years war in thier opposition to appeasement, and you can find speechs from Churchill about the German/Nazi Menace going back the early 30s. There's also the 390 years of observable foriegn policy between the end of the English Civil War and the start of World War Two.
The idea that the war was justified because contemporary articles compared Hitler to Napoleon is just absurd, as absurd as all the contemporary articles you can point to which endlessly compare X with Hitler to justify some war, whether it's Ukraine (with both Zelensky and Putin invoking Hitler to justify the war effort on the other) or Iraq or Iran. Britain lost its Empire, Europe was destroyed, tens of millions dead, half of Europe gifted to the Soviet Union including Poland.... oh but contemporary articles said it had to be done because of Napoleon, right.
That wasn't the claim, the claim was that the British having a long-standing foriegn policy of countering any individual continental power that got too big was a "Revisionist position".
That it is relatively easy to find examples of the British government and it's officials citing this policy and acting upon it prior to 1939 is proof to the contrary.
It is a Revisionist position, because nobody says "WWII was started because the British wanted to stop Germany from getting too powerful, even though Germany did not want war with Britain." But that's the truth. The official position is that Germany wanted and intentionally started war with Britain and France, proving that in international "court" was one of the primary purposes of the Nuremberg Trial even though it fell flat on that front, the mountains of documents and testimony proved that it was not planned for or expected or desired. Nothing forced the British to wage a war of unconditional surrender on Germany. Citing "long-standing policy" is wrong as the policy position of "appeasement" did not fail, what failed was shifting from 0-100, appeasement to "no negotiations ever, only unconditional surrender after we destroy Europe." That was nonsensical and unpredictable, Germany did not expect it and it was an unpredictable departure from British policy to catastrophic consequences.
The Treaty of Versailles failed because it was an unenforceable attempt to forever keep Germany weak. They had no choice but to negotiate, what people call "appeasement" was the correct solution to the quagmire. The British were going to, what declare war on Germany because they mobilized within their own territory? Ok, so you send in the French and they back down. Then the French leave and they do it again... It was never going to work as a long-term steady state.
No, they entered the war because they had signed a mutual defence pact with Poland.
A mutual defense pact that was motivated in large part by Britian's long-standing policy (since the 1600s) of "containing" any continental power they felt was getting too big/powerful too quickly.
If Hitler didn’t want a war with Britain he could have simply Abided by the terms of Munich, not repudiated the Anglo German Naval Agreement, and most importantly not invaded Poland.
Ok then be honest about who started WWII. Britain did because they apparently had a "long-standing policy" of destroying Europe and handing half of it to the Soviet Union before allowing Germany to become too powerful- and I guess Danzig is the tipping point on that question??? No, a pretext. Britain was already engaging in diplomacy due to the unreasonable terms of the Treaty of Versailles- which caused Germany's conflict with Poland in the first place, and then Britain took an unpredictable turn of "no negotiations, only unconditional surrender" even after Germany offered eminently reasonable terms for peace.
You keep citing "Britain's policy since the 1600s" but you emphasize this argument in defense of the mainstream view that Germany started WWII? Total nonsense. It was British aggression that caused WWII, their insistence that the balance of power in Europe remained according to their own wishes, they could and should have accepted peace especially after Germany conquered France and Dunkirk, and offered to evacuate from essentially everywhere except for Poland in exchange for peace... even offering a guarantee on the British colonies. Churchill refused any negotiation, you can't place primary responsibility on the party that offered reasonable terms for peace rather than the side that rejected all negotiation on a murderous demand for unconditional surrender.
If Germany declared war on Britain instead of the other way around, Churchill offered the deal to Hitler that Hitler offered to Churchill, and instead it was Hitler that demanded nothing short of unconditional surrender from Britain with a policy of no negotiations, you would surely point to that as evidence of German warmongering. But the prevailing narrative is in pure contradiction with reality.
Patton, arguably the greatest WWII General, was relieved of command for stating publicly that America had been fighting the wrong enemy- Germany instead of Russia. It isn't as absurd as we all believe it to be, given the historical and cultural context that has influenced us. It's more ambiguous than mainstream history would have us believe. Stage left- "gas chambers where millions were tricked into their own execution on the pretext of taking a shower." That helps remove the ambiguity, although the problem is that it isn't true either.
Edit: Relevant Hitler edit just dropped on X
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Might makes right, i dont think the historical semantics really matter. Who ever won the conflict would have gone down in history as the "justifed" one.
That's the bone of contention isn’t it?
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