He also thought that if you are going to pursue a peace policy you do it properly this was especially the case as he had lived through World War One. So for Chamberlain the idea of a Second World War was horrible and he was fiercely determined to prevent it. Whereas Churchill possibly because of his warlike ancestors saw war as something that happened as part of the human experience. Thus Churchill did not have the fear and dread of war that Chamberlain had. Therefore Chamberlain followed a policy of positive appeasement but this was also the view of the majority of the country and he was very popular.
In 1937 there was a Civil War in Spain, Hitler sent planes to Spain partly to help Franco and partly to test the Luffwaffe. But most importantly it made Britain believe that they had very strong armaments. Pictures of the German air force was shown on the British newsreels. Therefore, the public got the impression that Britain was no longer invulnerable as Germany could now mount a huge air attack. Thus Hitler successfully created the atmosphere in Britain that the German rearmament was far ahead and therefore Britain should be careful and pressurized Britain to make some confessions.
In November 1937 Chamberlain sent his foreign secretary Lord Halifax to find out what the German grievances were and what they were after. Halifax met Goering at a hunting meeting and conveyed the British view that if Germany was looking for territorial changes Britain was willing to go along with Germany’s demand provided they conducted it in a peaceful way.
It was probably already known that Hitler wanted to expand into Austria and Czechoslovakia and Hitler said secretly that this blow on Czechoslovakia would happen whenever the opportunity arouse. Two weeks before Halifax arrived Hitler had a meeting with generals sating that they planned to takeover Czechoslovakia. Finally the takeover of Austria came in March 1938. After this Czechoslovakia was clearly the next victim.
In Austria, German pressures made the Austrian Chancellor resign and Britain’s complaints were not heeded. Austria was the first boulder in a massive landslide and when Anchluss was made the Austrians were very happy. The Germans thought that it was their right to be combined with Austria. Thus Czechoslovakia was now in the jaws of Germany and Austria waiting to be sacrificed.
In September 1938 Masaryk died. Masaryk founded the President and founder of Czechoslovakia was generally considered generally considered as the greatest Czech leader ever both domestically and internationally. It was almost like it was the end of era and his death was a like signal for change and a sense of foreboding. His conciliatory attitude to the countries national problem would not be easy to replace. But even if he had lived it is unlikely that he would have changed what ultimately happened.
The new leader was Benes who had succeeded Masaryk in 1935 and he had to deal with new problems but he did not have the prestige of Masaryk. Moreover, he had always had quite justifiably connections with the Austria and the West. His foreign policy was to keep Czechoslovakia options opens by having allies in both the East and the West thus giving them as much support as possible.
Czechoslovakia had already had a long-standing relationship as allies with France and in 1920 Czechoslovakia signed the ‘Little Entente’ with Romania and Yugoslavia. But the key agreement was signed in 1935 with Russia who were looking for allies but it was hard for them to find any. It said that France and Russia would come to Czechoslovakia’s aid in the event of an attack as long as both countries mobilised. Therefore Czechoslovakia was in a strong position.
Although Czechoslovakia was getting stronger Benes still realised that he would have to make concessions with Germans. But he realised that it would be easier to come to a fair agreement with Germany from a position of relative strength rather than from weakness. But the policy was doomed to fail, as Germans were not interested in concessions or negotiations.
The Sudeten German party did well in the 1935 election. Although Henlein said he believed in autonomy for Sudeten Germans, it was not until after the war that it was realised that he was under the control of Hitler. Henlin had to balanced up the different views of the party because some wanted to break away from Czechoslovakia and others wanted for the Sudeten people just to have control over their policies. It seemed that until 1937 Henlin was not entirely sure what directions the party should go in.
It seemed as though the connections with Hitler was right back to 1935 but many people did not realise this until after the war. But after Anchluss Hitler seems to have said to Henlein to talk to Britain and convince them that there was no connection with Germany and that they had no desire for Sudetenland to be part of Germany and only wanted greater autonomy meaning for Sudeten affairs to be controlled by people of the Sudetenland. Thus Henlin visited London from April to May 1938 and convinced the British public that he was not a Nazi. The majority of British officials who met him believed that he only wanted more say for the Sudeten Germans. But he was really under Hitler’s direction.
But in the summer 1938 elections Hitler advised Henlein to demand concessions which could not be satisfied such as asking for Czechoslovakia to be a separate state. These instructions were very different to the ones about the British visit. Therefore, the election campaign began with talks of autonomy but these started becoming more extreme until he was demanding for the return of the Sudetenland to the ‘Fatherland’.
During the election campaign there were reports that German troop movements of the German-Czechoslovakian border. But the troops were not mobilising and were just carrying out manoeuvres but Benes decided that in view of the election campaign there was a possible threat. Therefore he mobilized the Czech army. The Czech people were pleased that the government was taking strong action as it seemed that mobilisation was dealing with the unacceptable actions in the election. Hitler who was not actually attacking Czechoslovakia stated this but it seemed like he was backing down.
Hitler was not planning get involved in Czechoslovakia yet and said so. But it seemed that Benes had won a political battle because it looked like Hitler had backed down. Therefore, Hitler was furious that Benes had gained extra prestige so Hitler wanted to really deal the Czech problem as soon as possible.
Thus Hitler stepped up the army manoeuvres which was previously not his intension and brought them right up to Czechoslovakia border, trying to provoke the Czech people. In 1938 Britain and France were having discussions about the Czechoslovakia situations. As there was a possibly of a crisis the British view was that the French must persuade the Czechs to appease Hitler. Therefore they said to the French to use influence with the Czechs to set up a meeting. The French had to say on the surface that they had an agreement with the Czechs but they were probably quite pleased that Britain’s was advising them not to go to war especially because the French were outnumbered by the Germans and would probably lose. Therefore it was not appeasement it was common sense.
During the summer of 1938 there was a message from London and Paris saying to the Czechoslovakia government that if there is a crisis we would like you to settle it without a conflict and without calling on the Russian-French alliance.
Hitler was still determined to act because he knew that Britain and France were unlikely to oppose him. But when he told his generals about his planned at the Holbach conference some generals were uneasy and unhappy. Certain generals and members of the Foreign Office formed an undercover opposition group and let it be known to the British and French government that they should stand firm and rearm and thus met Hitler with a strong alliance. But this was not in line with Chamberlain’s positive appeasement policy. So a conspiracy had begun among Hitler’s own generals to stop him invading Czechoslovakia.
The tension was building between Germany and Czechoslovakia. The Czech people were mobilizing and people began to make preparations in a calm confident way because they believed that they were in the right and that they had their French and Russia allies. Moreover, they believed that when it came to it Britain would aid them as they thought that Britain would always fight on the side of the right. So there was no way that these powers would allow the democracy of Czechoslovakia to be destroyed. But the reality of the situation was that France did not want to fight and Britain wanted to give Germany the Sudentenland.
During this time in August 1938 Chamberlain decided to send a representative to Czechoslovakia whose brief was to report back to him and to press on Benes the need to give concessions to Germany. This was named the Runciman mission. But when Lord Runciman came to Czechoslovakia he spent a great deal of time with the aristocratic members of Czechoslovakia many of whom where Sudeten Germans. Thus when he return to Chamberlain he said that there was no problem and as it could be resolved by a few concessions. But this was very misleading as it was not what the majority of Czechs wanted to do, as they wanted to stand firm and fight. This mission was a very peculiar thing for Chamberlain to do as it was sending an uninvited representative into another country to make a deal between it and one of the country’s citizens, Henlein.
Stalin was also Czechoslovakia’s ally in the East. He seemed to offer more guaranteed support. The strong Soviet army was mobilised in autumn and units were brought near to the border. Therefore, it looked as though the Russians may have been willing to fight had the French also mobilised. But this may not necessarily have been the case because in the middle of 1938 Stalin had begun mass purges and ninety percent of his commanders were jailed or dead. So Stalin had metaphorically and literally beheaded the army. So Stalin knew that the Red Army was in no shape to take on Hitler. Moreover, the Russians were only able to fly in their troops as they did not share a common boarder with Czechoslovakia and they were not allowed to pass through Polish or Romanian territory. Therefore, Russia was in a good position to lie by saying that they would have come if French had mobilised. So even if the French had mobilised there is doubt whether the Russians would have come and how effective they would have been.
During September 1938 tensions were slowly building up and it was generally believed that Hitler was going to attack soon. At the Nuremberg Rally Hitler spoke about the return of Czechoslovakia to the Fatherland and the German guards on the boarder put their radios out of their windows on full volume so the Czechs could hear the speech. That night there were many fights and violent incidences in the Sudetenland in which there were a number of Czechoslovakian casualties. From this the government saw that things were getting out of hand with Germans defying the government so Marshall law was imposed in which the Sudetenland was ruled by the army.
The demands from Henlein for Marshall law to be removed were ignored and his party was disbanded. Thus Henlein, his supports and other Germans left Czechoslovakia. The refugees were welcomed by the Germans and were used a lot in the propaganda machine. They were then formed into Freicorps to be used in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. So it looked as though a conflict was imminent.
However, the Czechs stilled believed that they were in the right and would have the support of their allies France and Russia and when it came to it, Britain. But they were to realise that Chamberlain always seemed to be talking about concessions to Hitler. So the centre of this crisis was actually in London where Jan Masaryk the ambassador of Czechoslovakia spoke out to rally world opinion. He explained that Czechoslovakia wanted peace and was prepared to pay a price for it but not any price. So they believed in peace but not in capitulation.
But acquiring peace in the Sudetenland was at no cost to Chamberlain and it went with his policy so he went to visit Hitler by airplane, flying for the first time. Chamberlain flew off on 15th September 1938 for the first of three meetings with Hitler in a fortnight. He met Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s holiday retreat in Southern Bavaria. Chamberlain has received much criticism over this visit as people said that it was not Chamberlain’s job to mediate between Czechoslovakia and Hitler as he did not have any authority over the situation. Moreover, when the agreement was reached who was he to agree that another country should give up its territory to a foreign aggressor? But Chamberlain believed that he was the leader of a great power and was able to avert another war.
However, Chamberlain approached Hitler not as a tough negotiator but to find out what Hitler wanted and if it was reasonable to give it to him. So there was littler negotiation. According to the Private Secretary at the time, Lord Hume, Chamberlain did not like or trust Hitler but he was locked into a positive appeasement policy and thus had to listen and agree to Hitler’s demands. So when Hitler demanded the German speaking part of Czechoslovakia Chamberlain agreed.
Hitler agreed not to take any action against Czechoslovakia while Chamberlain went to get the support of his cabinet. Hitler agreed this because he was not yet ready to take action on 15th September. So Chamberlain promised to get back in contact with Hitler at a latter stage.
For thirty-six hours the French were kept in the dark about this meeting. However, when they were told they were uneasily realistic because they did not really want to fulfil their agreement with Czechoslovakia and go to war especially without Britain. Moreover, in France public opinion towards war was similar to that in Britain. However, on the other hand if they did not fight they would be letting down an ally.
Thus when the French had agreed this left Czechoslovakia with not a lot of options. The Czechs only hope had been if France had stood firm meaning that Russia had to fight and if Britain had helped. When the news reached Prague on 21st September the Czech government could almost not believe it and initially when the cabinet met, Benes rejected Chamberlain’s proposal saying that if necessary they would fight on their own. But the British envoy immediately put more pressure on, saying that if Czechoslovakia refused this Britain would no long show any interest in their affairs. So when the Cabinet met again they had had time to realise that the reality of the situation was that there was no hope. Thus in the end the Czech government agreed very reluctantly.
In Prague there were mass spontaneous demonstrations which demanded the government to give then weapons to defend their homeland. The bitter shout of the protestors was, “Give us the weapons. We paid for them”.
On the 22nd September Chamberlain flew to Germany for his second meeting with the Fuhrer to tell him that the Czechs had agreed. However, Hitler was the sort of man whom if you gave him an inch he would take a mile. But at the time there was a huge amount of support for Chamberlain as most of the British people did not want to go to war. Especially when they thought that Hitler was just trying to bring German people under German control. So there was a feeling that although they did not really like Hitler it was all right as long as this was only what he was after.
Therefore when Chamberlain met Hitler in Godesberg, the Fuhrer gave a classic example of wanting more and more. Chamberlain actually went to the meeting planning to discuss the mechanics of the transfer of the Sudetenland thinking in terms of months or weeks. But Hitler suddenly made an abrupt change saying that he wanted the Sudetenland immediately. He explained that if he did not get this within a week he would march. Chamberlain rejected this as this was not what they had agreed and they had a massive argument. On the second day of the conference (23rd September) there was no further progress. Chamberlain was annoyed because he was a gentleman and thus thought it was ‘not cricket’ how Hitler had given his word at Berchtesgaden and was now making further demands.
So this meeting was a disaster as no agreement was reached and Chamberlain went home thinking that a war was now likely in which Britain may well now struggle to stay out. He communicated the contents of the meeting to the French and the Czechs who were very pleased with the break down in the talks.
This was the greatest moment of that September for the Czech people. Although the British government did not advise them to mobilise they said that they could no longer tell them not to mobilise. So on hearing this news Benes immediately ordered the mobilization of the Czech forces. The Czechs thought that war was now imminent and most showed a huge willingness to fight and die for Czechoslovakia. The Czech army was moved into the underground tunnels in the fortified areas of the Sudetenland which the Nazi generals had informed Hitler would pose some problems militarily. The Czechs had forty divisions there and estimated that they could hold for about six weeks until their French, Russian and British allies arrived.
Thus the Czechs believed that they had been proved right and now would certainly have the support of their allies. The atmosphere in Czechoslovakia had totally changed as they now had been given the chance to defend their country.
Although most of Czechoslovakia was under the control of the Czech army there were some towns or villages in the Sudetenland in which the majority of occupants were Sudeten Germans and they took control and ordered the Czechs and others such as Jews to leave.
In Britain another side of opinion was beginning to develop. There was now some opposition, who were concerned that Britain might be prepared to do sell out Czechoslovakia to Hitler. But still the overwhelming majority were concerned about war. Chamberlain explained this feeling saying the British public did not really understand why, “we are digging trenches and putting on gas masks, over a tiny little country of whom we know nothing”. Also the public were still very aware that with Hitler’s new Luftwaffe as displayed in Italy, Britain could be attacked at any time.
Therefore, during the weeks following 22nd and 23rd September Chamberlain tried to think of ways to prevent war. With the benefits of reflection he began to think of the massive consequences of his rejection to Hitler. In a speech he explained how he did not think it was right to go to war over an issue which had already been agreed and they were only annoyed at how it was being implemented. As Chamberlain still believed that he could be the peacemaker he sent a message to Hitler requesting a final meeting.
Thus when Chamberlain met with Parliament to discuss Hitler’s proposals he had already sent the message. It was actually when he was speaking in the House of Commons when a message came back accepting the invitation. When Chamberlain received Hitler’s reply he announced it to Parliament and the vast majority of MPs cheered and clapped because now there was a chance that war could be avoided. But there were still a few who did not agree with this view and thought that Chamberlain was acting in a shameful manner.
However, Chamberlain’s motto was, “If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try again” and so he went to meet with Hitler at Munich which took place from 29th to 30th September. When Chamberlain left he was cheered off by crowds of people who saw him as the saviour of the peace and he was equally well received in Germany showing that almost all ordinary people did not want to go to war.
Britain, France, Italy and Germany were present in Munich but although there was a Czech delegation in the city they were ironically not allowed to attend the meeting which decided their own fate. Hitler stated his demands through Mussolini but there was little to be actually decided at the meeting, as it had already been agreed that Germany could have the Sudetenland. Thus only the precise arrangements of how this was going to happen needed to be agreed but this could have happed at Godesberg. The French representative by Daladier barely said a word and had basically given up any intensions of fighting.
The next day Chamberlain asked Hitler to sign a piece of paper to show that Hitler had agreed that this event was an important symbol of peace between the two countries. Hitler did not think that this peace of paper was important at all.
When Chamberlain got back to Britain he was greeted with even more enthusiasm and read out the document he had got Hitler to sign which said, “We regard the agreement signed last night as symbolic of the desire of our two people never to go to war with each other again”. However, Chamberlain was according to Lord Hume not convinced that Hitler would keep to this but as he was pursuing a peace policy he had to attempt to reason with Hitler. But Chamberlain did not convey these views to the British people giving the impression that now everything would be all right, which was very misleading. There was concern at the foreign office because they knew that Chamberlain had signed a very dubious agreement with Hitler but now he was giving the impression that everything would be all right.
Nevertheless there were still mass crowds at the airport and MPs cheered as he got to Number 10 as if Chamberlain was a victor but really he had been defeated. The scene outside Downing Street was watched from the Foreign Office by the Royal Sergeant who said that you might think Britain had won a minor war rather than betrayed a small country by making her give up its own land. He also said that he could just about watch the scene if Chamberlain did not talk about “peace with honour” but sure enough Chamberlain did used the phrase coined by Disraeli in 1878. But in that case the peace had indeed been honourable.
The French had suffered an even greater diplomatic defeat and Daladier was apprehensive about the reception he would get from the French people for letting down their ally Czechoslovakia in an inglorious episode of French history that certainly was not, “peace with honour”. Thus when they were flying over the airport the pilot pointed out the huge crowds and Daladier accepted that he would have to face them. However, when he got off the plane at the same time Chamberlain was being cheered in England, he was greeted by a massive applaud because the French people were so pleased that there was going to be no war.
In Germany the small opposition to the Nazis attempted to present this episode as some sort of small defeat for Hitler. This was because Hitler was slightly disappointed that he had worked himself up for war and now ‘the little man with an umbrella’ had stopped him. This was partly true as Hitler did not like the Munich agreement because he wanted to try out army but instead it the Sudetenland had been handed to him.
For the Czechs all this was the bitterest tragedy. They had experienced the height of euphoria a few days before and this was an awful pill to swallow. When they expressed their desire to fight they were threatened by their so-called allies that if they did this they would be starting a war. Hitler in a radio statement informed the world that the German army would begin to occupy the Sudetenland on October 1st.
Many of the Czech soldiers wept and even when the army was retreating they still hoped that it was possible for them to fight. But confusion and revolt began to spread within the army. The consternation that their allies had sacrificed them to Hitler’s aggression was so great the poets wrote poems saying, “the bulk of treason is totalling whose friends made it swing, sweet France, proud England and we love them.
Jan Masaryk explain that if his country had been butchered up to preserve the peace of Europe, then he could accept it but if it does not prevent war then they have made a disastrous mistake. Less than six months later Hitler tore up the “piece of paper” and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia resulting in the Polish guarantee which led to World War Two.