Academics, politicians, and diplomats have intensely debated the 1930s appeasement policies for more than seventy years. The historians' assessments have ranged from condemnation for allowing Hitler's Germany to grow too strong, to the judgment that Germany was so strong that it might well win a war and that postponement of a showdown was in their country's best interests. Historian Andrew Roberts argued in 2019: "Indeed, it is the generally accepted view in Britain today that they were right at least to have tried... Britain would not enter hostilities for many more months, admitting unreadiness to directly oppose Germany in combat. She sat and watched the invasion of France, acting only four years later." (Compare the British role in the Battle of France in 1940.)