“England had to choose between dishonor and war. He preferred dishonor and he will have war".
If, of the dozens of sayings attributed to Winston Churchill, you discard half of them as corny or exaggerated, and keep from the rest only those that actually have something to say, then the above quote deserves a place at the top. It is the prophetic statement that came just three days after the Munich Agreement, which was signed on this day in 1938.
The International Conference hastily convened to avoid war between Germany and Czechoslovakia was attended by England, France, Germany and Italy, but not by Czechoslovakia. To the representatives of the country that saw their borders threatened, the result of the conference was simply announced, about which everyone celebrated, except those directly concerned. But before we see what this result was, let's find out what Nazi Germany was asking for.
Hitler had already bloodlessly annexed Austria in March 1938 and had now set his sights on the Sudetenland region, which belonged to the then united Czechoslovakia. In that region lived three million German speakers and under the pretext of being oppressed, he fought to achieve the revival of the once mighty German Empire.
On September 22, Hitler hardened his stance and demanded the immediate cession of the Sudetenland to Germany and its evacuation of the Czechoslovak population by the end of the month. The next day, Czechoslovakia responded with immediate conscription. On September 24, France, which until then had guaranteed the security of Czechoslovakia, also responded by mobilizing its combat units.
In reality, however, the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, as well as the English Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, did not in any way wish to face off militarily with Hitler. They preferred diplomacy and a policy of appeasement, choices for which history would judge them very harshly in the years to come. And so they decided to crawl to the negotiating table.
In the early hours of September 30, in Munich, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and the prime ministers of Great Britain and France signed the Munich Pact through which the Sudetenland was annexed to the Third Reich. According to the agreement, Czechoslovakia was obliged to hand over to Germany within ten days the Sudetenlands, together with all transport, mines, industrial enterprises, and everything that was within the territory.
Chamberlain and Daladier fully yielded to the demands of the German dictator, with the British Prime Minister even having a private meeting with Hitler where they signed a bilateral agreement, the so-called "Chamberlain-Hitler Agreement". According to it they declared the mutual desire to resolve any disputes always through consultations.
Upon returning to his homeland, the British Prime Minister was triumphant, insisting that he had concluded an "honest peace". So did Daladier, although it is said that seeing the crowd cheering, he whispered to his neighbor:"Fools, if only they knew what they were cheering!".
And he would be right. All they succeeded in doing was to whet Adolf Hitler's expansionist appetite. In March 1939, the Führer would invade the rest of the country and a few months later, invade Poland, sparking World War II.
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