Łukasiewicz also told Bonnet that Poland would oppose any attempt by Soviet forces to defend Czechoslovakia against Germany. Daladier told Jakob Surits, the Soviet ambassador to France: “Not only can we not count on Polish support, but we also have no confidence that Poland will not stab us in the back.” [19] However, the Polish government has indicated on several occasions (in March 1936 and may, June and August 1938) that it was ready to fight against Germany if the Frenchman decided to help Czechoslovakia: “Beck`s proposal to Bonnet, his statements to Ambassador Drexel Biddle and the statement noted by Vansittart show that the Polish Foreign Minister was indeed prepared to: to make a radical change of policy if the Western powers decided on a war with Germany. However, these proposals and statements did not trigger a reaction from the British and French governments, which intended to avoid war by appeasing Germany. [20] In mid-September, Chamberlain offered to go to Hitler`s retreat to Berchtesgaden to discuss the situation personally with the Führer. Hitler agreed not to take military action without further discussion, and Chamberlain agreed to try to convince his cabinet and the Frenchman to accept the results of a referendum in the Sudetenland. Daladier and his foreign minister, Georges-Étienne Bonnet, then traveled to London, where a joint proposal was drawn up that all regions with a population of more than 50% Sudeten Germans should be handed over to Germany. The Czechoslovaks were not consulted. The Czechoslovak government initially rejected the proposal, but had to accept it on 21 September. Winston Churchill, who denounced the agreement in the House of Commons on 5 October 1938,[98] declared: Adolf Hitler welcomed Neville Chamberlain on the arrival of the British Prime Minister in Munich on 29 September 1938.
Chamberlain (1869–1940), British Prime Minister from May 1937 to May 1940, was the leading British representative of the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park The slogan “About us, without us!” (Czech: O nás bez nás!) summarizes the feelings of the Czechoslovak people (now Slovakia and the Czech Republic) towards the agreement. [Citation needed] With the transition from the Sudetenland to Germany, Czechoslovakia (as the state was renamed) lost its defensible border with Germany and its fortifications. Without it, its independence became more nominal than real. Czechoslovakia also lost 70% of its steel industry, 70% of its electrical energy and 3.5 million citizens to Germany as a result of unification. [61] Sudeten Germans celebrated what they saw as their liberation. The impending war, it seems, had been averted. Daladier believed that Hitler`s ultimate goals were a threat. He told the British at a meeting in late April 1938 that Hitler`s true long-term goal was to “secure domination over the continent at which Napoleon`s ambitions were low compared to.” He continued: “Today it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has the oil and wheat it needs, it will turn against the West. Certainly, we must multiply our efforts to avoid wars.
But this will not be possible if Britain and France do not stick together and intervene in Prague for new concessions, but at the same time declare that they will protect czechoslovakia`s independence. If, on the contrary, the Western powers capitulate again, they will only start the war they want to avoid. [65] Perhaps discouraged by the arguments of the French government`s military and civilians about their precarious military and financial situation, and traumatized by the First World War bloodbath in France, which he had personally witnessed, Daladier eventually let Chamberlain go. [Citation needed] On his return to Paris, Daladier, who had expected a hostile crowd, was celebrated. [Citation needed] On the 30th. In September 1938, Germany, Britain, France and Italy reached an agreement that allowed the German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. The area included about three million people of German origin and in May 1938 it was learned that Hitler and his generals planned to occupy the country. 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. .