From Carroll Quigley’s history of the 20th century, Tragedy and Hope:

British motivations for appeasement are divided into four groups, listed from most to least influential:

1.  Anti-Soviet (and anti-French/pro-German)

2.  Atlantic bloc supporters

3.  Appeasers

4.  Those wanting “peace at any price”

The first group was led by Lord Curzon after World War 1 and worked to end Germany’s reparations payments and to allow German re-armament.  They also worked against French militarism as the strongest obstacle to Germany in Western Europe.

The second group was led by the Round Table Group, which controlled the Rhodes Trust, the Beit Trust, several British newspapers and policy journals, and Chatham House, among others.  They differed from the first group in that they sought to contain the Soviet Union between a Europe dominated by Germany in the west, Japan in the east, and an Atlantic bloc consisting of the British Commonwealth and the United States.  The first group simply wished to destroy the Soviets.

The anti-Soviet group was determined to tear France down as a potential rival to Germany, and sought secret cooperation, led by Lord d’Abernon, between Britain and German military leaders against the Soviets.  As British ambassador to Germany from 1920 to 1926, D’Abernon blocked inspections of German re-armament.

These two groups worked together in the mid-1920s to craft the Dawes Plan, which called for an end to the Allied occupation of the Ruhr Valley and an easier system of reparations, and the Locarno pacts, which sought to normalize relations with Germany.  The moderate wing of the Round Table Group, led by Lords Lothian, Brand, and Astor, aimed to weaken the League of Nations as a collective security organization, which would allow Germany more freedom of movement in its re-armament and increased ability to stand against both the Soviets and the French.  With Europe turned over to German control, the British would be able to focus on the creation of the Atlantic bloc.

The Atlantic-German-Soviet three bloc world idea was predicated on the belief that Germany would be forced to keep the peace, after taking over much of Europe, as it would be between the Alantic bloc and the Soviets, who would in turn be checked by Japan on one side and Germany on the other.  In this way it was hoped that the balance of international power could be maintained to the satisfaction of all parties.

The anti-Soviet group and the Round Table Group cooperated on this goal and dominated the British government from 1937-1939.  The two groups split, however, in late 1939/early 1940 when Lords Halifax and Lothian turned against Germany, which they came to view as insatiable.  Neville Chamberlain and others remained committed to using Germany for their anti-Soviet plans.

Wielding far less power than the first two groups were the appeasers and the peace at any price group.  The appeasers focused on Germany’s poor treatment by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles, and believed that if Germany were allowed to regain military parity, re-militarization of the Rhineland, and union with Austria, then European stability and peace could be maintained.  When Germany remained unsatisfied after achieving these aims, the appeasers realized that Germany could only be controlled by allowing it to move east, at the expense of Czechoslovakia and Poland, thereby coming into contact with the Soviet Union.  Many appeasers moved to the anti-Soviet group at this point.

The peace at any price group was easily manipulated by government propaganda exaggerating German military strength and playing down British strength.  A sense of panic was instilled by hyping the threat of a German air attack and by fitting all citizens for gas masks.  The panic this created pushed the British population to accept the German destruction of Czechoslovakia in 1938, in exchange for which Chamberlain received from Hitler a letter allowing Chamberlain to proclaim the achievement of peace “in our time.”

When this peace proved short-lived, British public opinion turned against Germany in 1939-1940, but Chamberlain could not publicly espouse the anti-Soviet or three bloc rationale for appeasing Germany.  Instead, he acted as if Britain was resisting, but still worked to bring Germany up to the Soviet border behind the scenes.