Seeds of Appeasement – Road to Munich

On September 18, 1938 leading members of the British and French cabinets met to discuss the fate of the Sudetenland a province of Czechoslovakia albeit one with a high percentage of ethnic Germans who had been agitating for their “independence” since April. Hitler began making noises regarding the Sudetenland as early as May of 1938 after consolidating his hold on Austria and there was widespread expectation that this would be his next demand. Hitler made a formal demand for cession of the Sudetenland to Germany on September 1, 1938.

While France initiated a partial mobilization of her army on September 7th, Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler at Hitler’s mountain retreat of Berchtesgaden on September 15th. There he indicated his willingness to work with Hitler to satisfy his demands by proposing a plebescite on the fate of the Sudetenland which, it was tacitly understood, the ethnic Germans there were likely to win. Beyond that, Chamberlain and Hitler agreed to no military action until Chamberlain had the opportunity to raise his possible solution to the crisis with his own government and with the French. Thus the Anglo-French meeting on the 18th.

Telford Taylor in his book “Munich: The Price of Peace” superbly captures the dreary banality of government officials in service of a cause both dishonorable and distasteful. The entire morning was spent with each national contingent trying to get the other to be the first to explicitly propose giving in to Hitler’s demands. Gradually the meeting got around to defining the issue as plebescite or treaty. all of this took so long that it was 10:30 that night before a joint Anglo – French message was sent to the Czech government saying that Czechoslovakia was on its own if it chose to resist ceding the Sudetenland to Germany. Czechoslovakia could of course “ask” for security guarantees for its remaining territory – such guarantees to come from the countries that were selling them out today i.e. Britain, France and of course Germany.

A frequent commenter to this blog has noted the war weariness, aggravated by depression economics, of the victorious western allies of World War I. The resulting desire for peace coupled with an overestimation of Germany’s military power led to the message to Czechoslovakia. More on the results of the message and how events played out soon.