[silent] An agreement signed at the Munich Conference in September 1938 ceded the German-speaking Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany. The agreement was concluded between Germany, Italy, Great Britain and France. Czechoslovakia was not allowed to participate in the conference. In March 1939, six months after the munich accords were signed, Hitler violated the agreement and destroyed the Czech state. UCLA Film and Television Archive When Chamberlain returned from Munich, he told an excited crowd at Heston Airport, “This is peace for our time,” waving the deal he had signed with Hitler. This was the culmination of the policy of appeasement. Six months later, Hitler broke his promises and ordered his armies to invade Prague. In less than a year, Britain and France were at war with Germany. The American historian William L.
Shirer argued in his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) that although Hitler did not bluff about his intention to invade, Czechoslovakia could have provided considerable resistance. In the meantime, I`ll explore what can be done to fix the problem. [40] Hitler received Mussolini`s message during a conversation with the French ambassador. Hitler told the ambassador: “My good friend, Benito Mussolini, asked me to postpone the marching orders of the German army by twenty-four hours, and I agreed. Of course, this was not a concession, as the date of the invasion was set for October 1, 1938. [41] Addressing Chamberlain, Lord Perth Chamberlain thanked Mussolini and Chamberlain for Mussolini`s grant on September 29. September to participate in a conference of the four powers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy in Munich to solve the Sudetenland problem before the 2:00 p.m. deadline. Mussolini agreed. [41] Hitler`s only demand was to ensure that Mussolini was included in the conference negotiations.
[41] When U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned that the conference was scheduled, he telegraphed Chamberlain: “Good Man.” [42] The British people expected war to come, and Chamberlain`s “statesman gesture” was initially greeted with applause. He was greeted as a hero by the royal family and invited to the balcony of Buckingham Palace before presenting the deal to the British Parliament. The generally positive reaction quickly deteriorated, despite the royal patronage. However, there was resistance from the beginning. Clement Attlee and the Labour Party rejected the deal, in alliance with two Conservative MPs, Duff Cooper and Vyvyan Adams, who until then had been seen as a hardened and reactionary element of the Conservative Party. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria with annexation. It was generally expected that the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, with its large German population, led by Nazi politician Konrad Henlein, would be Hitler`s next claim. Indeed, as Hitler delivered increasingly inflammatory speeches calling for the reunification of the German minority in Czechoslovakia with his homeland, war seemed increasingly likely.
Many thought that war was inevitable and that a peace agreement that would satisfy everyone would be impossible to achieve. As threats from Germany and a European war became more and more apparent, opinions changed. Chamberlain has been criticized for his role as one of the “men of Munich” in books such as The Guilty Men of 1940. A rare defence of the deal came in 1944 from Viscount Maugham, who had been Lord Chancellor. Maugham regarded the decision to establish a Czechoslovak state with significant German and Hungarian minorities as a “dangerous experiment” in light of previous disputes and largely attributed the agreement to the need for the France to free itself from its contractual obligations since it was not prepared for war. [63] After the war, Churchill`s memoirs of the time, The Gathering Storm (1948), claimed that Chamberlain`s appeasement of Hitler in Munich had been wrong, and recorded Churchill`s warnings about war before Hitler`s plan of attack and the madness that Britain insisted on disarmament after Germany had achieved air parity with Britain. Although Churchill acknowledged that Chamberlain was acting for noble motives, he argued that Hitler should have been fought because of Czechoslovakia and that efforts should have been made to include the Soviet Union. At 11:45 p.m.m .m. On September 30, 11 hours after the Czechoslovak government agreed to the Munich terms, Poland issued an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. [78] He demanded the immediate evacuation of Czechoslovak troops and police and gave Prague until noon the next day. At 11:45 a.m.m on October 1, the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have anything it wanted, but then asked for a 24-hour delay. On October 2, the Polish Army under the command of General Władysław Bortnowski annexed an area of 801.5 km² with a population of 227,399 people.
Administratively, the annexed area was divided between Frysztat County and Cieszyn County. [79] At the same time, Slovakia lost 10,390 km² to Hungary with 854,277 inhabitants. . The solution to the Czechoslovak problem, which has just been found, is, in my opinion, only the prelude to a broader settlement in which the whole of Europe can find peace. This morning I had another conversation with the German Chancellor, Mr Hitler, and here is the newspaper that bears his name, as well as mine. Some of you may have heard what`s in it, but I just want to read it to you: “. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as a symbol of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with each other again. [96] After discussing the issue with the British cabinet, Chamberlain received the green light for Germany`s annexation of the Sudetenland, with the France also agreeing. They met with representatives of the Czech government on 19 September to recommend approval of the plan, and Czechoslovakia, which was almost isolated, had no choice but to accept its fate.
Chamberlain returned to Germany for a follow-up meeting with Hitler and was shocked when he received further requests from the German leader. Czechoslovakia was informed by Britain and France that it could either resist Nazi Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexations. The Czechoslovak government, recognizing the desperation of the struggle against the Nazis alone, reluctantly capitulated (September 30) and agreed to abide by the agreement. The colony gave Germany the Sudetenland from October 10 and de facto control of the rest of Czechoslovakia, as long as Hitler promised not to go any further. On September 30, after a break, Chamberlain went to Hitler`s house and asked him to sign a peace treaty between the United Kingdom and Germany. After Hitler`s interpreter translated it for him, he happily accepted. The agreement that allowed the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany was signed on September 29, 1938. Chamberlain was still determined to prevent war, and he and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier accepted the proposal. .