87 years ago, a terrible dictator took over a neighbouring country. It was betrayed by the Allies, because they were too afraid of war. In the end, they got both war and dishonour. How Europe failed the test by Czechoslovakia

On the evening of September 30, 1938, a huge crowd gathered at Heston Airport in the suburbs of London. Everyone was waiting for Prime Minister Chamberlain to return from Munich, where he seemed to have prevented another major war in Europe.

As he stepped off the plane, Chamberlain briefly said that “the Czechoslovak problem is solved”. Then he triumphantly added that this was “only a prelude to a wider agreement that will bring peace to all of Europe”. He showed the audience a piece of paper that he had slipped to Hitler that morning without consulting his diplomats.

It stated in a few sentences that Germany and Great Britain would never go to war with each other. The Führer signed it without reading it. What was more important to him was that Britain and France had allowed him to occupy the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, without even asking Prague’s opinion.

Later that day, Chamberlain again addressed the crowd gathered outside the prime ministerʼs residence in Downing Street: "My dear friends, this is the second time in our history that an honourable peace has come from Germany. I believe this is a peace for our time. So now you can go home and sleep peacefully in your beds."

But the people did not disperse for a long time, singing songs in honor of the prime minister. And they welcomed his diplomatic policy of reconciliation with Nazi Germany, thanks to which war was averted.

Chamberlain later told British parliamentarians: "Hitler assured me that this [the occupation of the Sudetenland] was his last territorial claim."

To which Winston Churchill muttered: "You have been given the choice between war and dishonour. You have chosen dishonour, and you will have war."

His words became prophetic. Hitler, of course, did not rest on his laurels. In the spring of 1939, he occupied the rest of Bohemia, then made territorial demands on the Poles. And finally, in September, he attacked Poland.

Thus began the World War II, which resulted in enormous casualties for both the French and the British. And the then policy of appeasement, culminating in the Munich Agreement, is now considered perhaps the most shameful failure of Western diplomacy.

British appeasement in response to Hitlerʼs armaments and aggression

Upon coming to power in 1933, Hitler set about rapidly increasing Germanyʼs armaments. He established a military industry and began a secret mobilization. This was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles following the World War I, which had limited Germanyʼs economy and, most importantly, its military power.

That same year, Germany effectively disrupted a disarmament conference organized by the League of Nations and eventually withdrew from the organization.

However, at the beginning, Hitler justified everything from the position of a peacemaker. He said that the Treaty of Versailles was too unfair for Germany. Therefore, the country simply had no choice but to militarize in violation of the agreements. And all this, of course, was solely to protect national interests, in particular, to counter the communist threat.

“Germany is doing everything possible to ensure peace throughout the world. If war comes to Europe again, it will only be as a result of communist chaos,” the Fuhrer assured.

After the World War I, Britain became the “next” in the line of keeping peace in Europe. But by the early 1930s, the British had their own problems, even more so than the dams. The economic downturn caused by the Great Depression led to mass unemployment, which resulted in street protests. The British colonies demanded greater autonomy.

There was an openly anti-war sentiment in society, and it was supported by the British elites, in particular the royal family, and influential media outlets, such as the BBC and The Times.

So during the first half of the 1930s, the British government, led by either Labor’s Ramsay MacDonald or Conservative Stanley Baldwin, instead of containing Germany, resorted to a policy of appeasement. In essence, concessions to avoid war at all costs.

Unemployed workersʼ strike in London, 1939.

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March "For World Peace" in London, May 24, 1936.

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In March 1935, Hitler declared the creation of an air force and officially reinstated conscription. In response, Britain, without consulting its French allies, signed a naval agreement with Germany. It was supposed to set a limit on the size of the German navy. In reality, it simply legitimized further Nazi rearmament.

There were also opponents of the policy of appeasement with the Nazis among British high-ranking officials, such as Winston Churchill. In mid-February 1936, his fellow Conservative, then British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, declared:

"The aggressor has been identified — there is no longer any doubt about him in Europe. The only chance of containing him is that the collective strength of the potential victims must be twice as great in reality, and not only on paper... We are weaker than Germany in most weapons and everything necessary... Germany will inevitably be ready for aggression long before we are ready for defense."

Within a few weeks, in early March 1936, Hitler decided to commit another violation of the Treaty of Versailles: he brought troops into the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland (a region in western Germany bordering France, Belgium and the Netherlands). Britain and France limited themselves to condemnation instead of real action.

They agreed that "the Germans had simply entered their own backyard". But Hitler, just in case, tried to whitewash his reputation as a "peacemaker" that same year. He organized a pompous Olympic Games in Berlin, for the sake of which he even softened his racist policy for a while.

View from the Hindenburg airship at the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics, August 1, 1936.

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Pigeons are released into the sky over the stadium during the opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics, August 1, 1936.

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Hitler surrounded by associates and guests at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at the stadium in Berlin, August 1, 1936.

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By early 1938, Germany’s military power was so powerful that Hitler finally became bold. In February, he made a passionate public speech stating that “the Reich will no longer tolerate the oppression of millions of Germans living beyond its borders”. The Führer was clearly referring to his closest neighbours, the Austrians and the Sudeten Germans who lived in Czechoslovakia.

Already in March, Hitler “closed the Austrian question” — he occupied the country and held a “referendum” there that turned Austria into an eastern province of Germany.

The Western powers, primarily Britain and France, simply accepted the annexation, called it a “German family affair”, and decided that Hitler would stop there. But that was only the beginning.

The Sudetenland Crisis, directed by Germany

After the World War I, the victorious powers set about establishing a new order that would protect the world from another large-scale war. The United States, led by President Woodrow Wilson, played a key role in this. Wilson brought his “14 Points” to the negotiations in Europe, which, among other things, proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination.

According to this principle, in the center of Europe, on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, an exemplary multinational state, the Czechoslovak Republic, was created. In addition to Czechs and Slovaks, there were Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Poles.

But the largest minority, which made up almost a quarter of the population, were about three million Germans, who lived compactly in the Sudetenland region in the north and west of the country.

Czechoslovakia inherited about 70% of all Austro-Hungarian industry, including military industry. A significant part of it was in the Sudetenland region and belonged to the Germans. Of course, this was a great incentive for Hitler to seize these territories.

Despite its multinationality, Czechoslovakia was more democratic than its neighbours in the Central European region. There was no oppression on the basis of nationality or religion, basic rights and freedoms were observed, including freedom of speech.

The government was elected in free democratic elections, and more than ten different parties sat in parliament. Among them was a branch of the Nazi Party — the Sudeten German Party, led by a local school gymnastics teacher Konrad Henlein.

Henlein at a Sudeten German Party rally, 1936.

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Henlein (far left) with Hitler at a rally, 1938.

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After the annexation of Austria, Henlein was summoned to Berlin to meet with the Führer himself. There he received instructions on how to destabilize the situation in Czechoslovakia so that Germany could invade under the pretext of “protecting the German population from oppression”.

Hitler instructed the Sudeten Germans to demand the impossible from the Czechoslovak authorities, led by President Edvard Beneš: “Make demands that they will never agree to.”

At the end of April 1938, Henlein declared the “Carlsbad Program” with demands for Prague. It included autonomy for the Sudetenland with full self-government, payment of compensation to the Sudeten Germans for the damage caused during the formation of Czechoslovakia, and even complete freedom to “adhere to the German worldview”. That is, to establish any relations with Hitler’s Germany, without taking into account the opinion of Prague.

In turn, Nazi propaganda began to talk about the “atrocities of Czechoslovak nationalists” in order to create the illusion among the rest of Europe that it was Beneš and his government who were to blame for inciting hostilities.

Meanwhile, as early as May 1938, Hitler ordered the development of a secret plan for the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which was to begin no later than October 1. But after several months of intense negotiations mediated by Britain, the Czechoslovak president unexpectedly met almost all the demands of the “Carlsbad Program” in early September.

An irritated Hitler summoned Henlein again and ordered the negotiations to be disrupted at all costs. The Sudeten German Party organized mass rallies with provocations against the Czech police, who eventually arrested two party members of parliament. Henlein used this incident to withdraw from the negotiations.

And Nazi propaganda again launched its record about the “atrocities against the Sudeten Germans”. And it even added to the “atrocities” the arrest of local smugglers who were smuggling German weapons into the Sudetenland for the preparation of sabotage and rebellion.

On September 12, 1938, Hitler, during a speech in Nuremberg, announced the Sudetenland Crisis, which was provoked by the Czechoslovak government, violating the international right of nations to self-determination. That same night, armed uprisings by "self-defense units" broke out in the Sudetenland border region of Czechoslovakia, which included both locals and those who arrived from Nazi Germany.

To suppress the uprisings, Prague had to send troops, which defeated the rebels in a few days. Henlein fled to Germany, publicly declared that "Sudeten Germans will not live with Czechs in the same country", and called on Hitler to send troops into the Sudetenland.

The Fuhrer shouted with enthusiasm at military meetings that he was ready to crush the Czechs with almost one tank battalion, which stunned his generals. In Prague, German air strikes were expected from day to day. President Beneš hoped to the last for the support of the European allies.

Europe was one step away from a new great war.

The West failed to unite in the face of the Nazi threat

The Versailles system of collective world security went awry from the very beginning. One of its main ideologists — American President Wilson — suffered a stroke in the fall of 1919 and became almost incapacitated. His opponents took advantage of this and convinced Congress not to join the newly created League of Nations.

In the end, the United States returned to a policy of isolationism, which it adhered to until 1941.

The great powers in Europe focused on their own "national interests", shifting responsibility for security on the continent to each other. The British, like the United States, closed in on their island. They made no clear military commitments to the continental powers, believing that they would somehow sort things out themselves.

A telling example was the radio address by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at the height of the Sudetenland Crisis in September 1938:

"How terrible it is that we have to dig trenches and try on gas masks here [in Britain] because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people we know nothing about."

France, observing the passivity of its main potential ally, Britain, tried to enlist the military support of as wide a range of European countries as possible. Among other things, back in 1924-1925, it concluded several agreements on friendship and mutual assistance with Czechoslovakia.

There was no unity between the “small states” of Europe either. Here is how the Polish historian Piotr Majewski describes their relations:

“The Poles did not like and did not understand the Czechs, who (in their opinion) were petty and plebeian, but they were fond of the Hungarians, seeing in them a fraternal noble nation that had been wronged by their predatory neighbours. However, this did not prevent the Poles from remaining in alliance with the Romanians. [...] The Hungarians reciprocated the warm feelings of their Polish brothers, but even more than they loved them, the Hungarians hated the Czechs. They despised the Romanians infinitely. […] The Czechs considered both the Poles and the Hungarians to be pitiful poseurs who pretended to be great lords, but were mentally stuck in the era of feudalism that had long passed. In addition, there were also Slovaks, whom the Czechs considered part of their nation, the Hungarians — part of their historical state, and the Poles — part of their sphere of influence.”

In the mid-1930s, all European powers feared the growing power of Germany. However, they failed to form any truly effective alliance to contain Hitler. There was distrust, suspicion, and even contempt between the British and the French at the highest political and military levels.

It got to the point that, against the backdrop of Nazi militarization, the French even concluded a military assistance agreement with the Soviet Union in 1935, despite the fact that the communists were considered the main threat to the West.

Of course, this did not please London.

The Kremlin was also alarmed by Hitlerʼs growing ambitions. The best option for Stalin would have been for the "European capitalists" to quarrel and fight among themselves. And then he would finish off the bloodied victors. But fearing that Britain and France would push Hitler to advance to the east of Europe, Stalin made a military agreement with France.

And soon after, he made a similar "mirror" agreement with Czechoslovakia. However, all these agreements remained on paper.

One of the factors that prompted Britain and France to make concessions to Hitler was the belief that Germany had already surpassed them both in military power by 1936.

The British General Staff report contained fantastic figures — supposedly the number of deaths in London alone in the first week of German bombing could reach 150 000 people.

Military parade in Germany, 1936.

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Tank column during a military parade in Bavaria, 1936.

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In fact, Hitler took a huge risk by bringing troops into the demilitarized Rhineland that year.

“The 48 hours after the invasion were the most nerve-wracking of my life. If the French had entered the Rhineland at that time, we would have had to retreat with our tails up, because the military resources at our disposal were not enough even for moderate resistance,” he later recalled.

But realizing that the British and French were not ready for decisive action, Hitler decided first to occupy Austria and then to make territorial claims to Czechoslovakia.

Neville Chamberlain became British Prime Minister in May 1937. He continued the appeasement policy of his predecessors towards Germany and sought to concentrate more on domestic issues. It was easy to turn a blind eye to the occupation of Austria.

After all, Vienna was at that time in diplomatic isolation. On the other hand, Czechoslovakia had a military alliance with France, which at the height of the Sudetenland crisis the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier no longer knew how to get rid of.

In September 1938, Chamberlain, who had previously kept himself in the shadows and limited himself to consultations, finally decided to take matters into his own hands.

The fate of Czechoslovakia was decided without it

On the morning of September 15, 1938, Chamberlain flew in a specially chartered plane to meet Hitler at his residence in Berchtesgaden in the Alps. This was perhaps the first time in history that a head of state had gone on a diplomatic mission by plane. There was simply no time for travel by ship or train.

Upon learning of the prime ministerʼs visit, the Czechoslovak ambassador to Britain, Jan Masaryk, reported to Prague:

"I fear that Chamberlainʼs senile ambitions to become the peacemaker of Europe will push him to succeed at any cost. And such success is possible only at our expense."

Anxious, Beneš contacted the French and secretly offered them an alternative plan. Czechoslovakia was ready to hand over certain border areas of the Sudetenland to Germany if this would satisfy Hitlerʼs “appetites” and help prevent war.

Hitler met Chamberlain rather coolly. The Führer was sure that the Prime Minister had come to threaten war. But the Prime Minister declared that he personally had no objection to handing over the Sudetenland to the Germans on the principle of self-determination of nations.

He only needed to consult with his ministers and "European friends", and then they could meet again to discuss minor details. Of course, Chamberlain had in mind the French. He did not even mention the Czechoslovak government.

Hitler readily agreed to this proposal.

The next day, a satisfied Chamberlain returned to London and summoned a French delegation headed by Prime Minister Daladier.

Daladier arrived extremely nervous. He said that on the one hand, "no Frenchman would commit such a crime as to abandon an ally in the event of a German attack on Czechoslovakia". On the other hand, it was still necessary to find a solution that would save the French from the need to enter the war, but at the same time preserve their honour.

And here Benešʼs secret plan played against him. Chamberlain and Daladier decided that since Czechoslovakia was ready to cede part of its territory, it could agree to a "great sacrifice for the sake of peace" — to hand over the entire Sudetenland along with all military facilities and fortifications.

It was enough to push Beneš to do this with the help of "friendly pressure". Now the joyful Daladier fervently promised that he would exert “the strongest friendly pressure” on the Czechoslovak president. He did not even consider the option of refusal.

But Beneš at first categorically rejected such an offer. On the night of September 21, the British and French ambassadors came to persuade him. In essence, they issued an ultimatum: if Beneš refused the offer, it would mean that he did not respect the international right of nations to self-determination.

In that case, he would be the main culprit in the war, so he could not count on military assistance from France and, of course, on diplomatic support from Britain.

By the morning of September 21, they had put pressure on the president.

The next day, a satisfied Chamberlain flew to Hitler to discuss what he thought were formalities. Moreover, the Führer went to meet him and agreed to meet somewhere closer to London — in the resort town of Bad Godesberg, a suburb of Bonn in western Germany.

But Hitler unexpectedly decided to raise the stakes. He declared that the previous agreements were no longer valid. And in general, Czechoslovakia was an artificially created state that had neither history nor traditions.

Therefore, its territories should be divided between Germany, Hungary and Poland (of course, based on the right of nations to self-determination). Finally, the Führer declared that he would occupy the Sudetenland by October 1, with or without international consent.

Chamberlain had no choice but to return to London and advise President Beneš to immediately begin mobilization. In the shortest possible time, Czechoslovakia managed to mobilize more than 1.5 million men. Prime Minister Daladier, in a bellicose fervor, swore that in the event of a German attack, France would immediately launch a major offensive.

A group of British politicians, led by Churchill, was preparing a statement calling for Britain to immediately enter the war in the event of a Hitlerite attack on Czechoslovakia.

Even the Kremlin promised to provide assistance if Poland and Romania agreed to let Soviet troops pass through their territory. The Poles and Romanians, of course, immediately rejected this option, because they feared Stalin no less than Hitler. To which the then head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry Maxim Litvinov boastfully declared:

"If there is a will, we will find a way."

But Hitler had already realized that he had gone too far, and was ready to reduce his appetites a little. Chamberlain also did not lose hope of avoiding war at all costs. Both were ready to grab the last straw. And this straw was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

In response to letters from British, German and French diplomats, on September 28 he gladly agreed to mediate at a meeting scheduled for the next day in Munich.

And then, at the international conference, everything happened quite quickly. Mussolini presented his own plan, which was actually written by the Nazis. It provided for the gradual transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany by October 10, along with all its industrial resources, military equipment, and fortifications. Neither the British nor the French objected.

“This was a group of mortally frightened people who felt no remorse for quartering their ally,” was how British diplomat Yvonne Kirkpatrick, who was part of the delegation, described the course of events in Munich.

After that, the delegates went to their hotels to formally familiarize themselves with the document. In the end, the leaders of Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France signed it without changes at about 1:30 a.m. on September 30.

The representatives of Czechoslovakia who came to Munich were not invited to the conference itself. They spent the entire time in a hotel under the protection of the Gestapo. In the morning they were given the text of the agreement and a map with the territories that their country was to hand over to Hitler.

The diplomats were informed that the approval of the Munich Agreement by the Czechoslovak government was not expected. The signatures of four leaders were enough. If Prague did not like something, it could try to resolve all issues with Germany on its own.

French Prime Minister Daladier signs the Munich Agreement, September 30, 1938.

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British Prime Minister Chamberlain signs the Munich Agreement, September 30, 1938.

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President Beneš also tried to grab the last straw. On the eve of the conference, he turned to Moscow with a request for help. But they quickly changed their minds and shifted the blame to Poland and Romania, which did not allow the transit of Soviet troops through their territory.

So the Kremlin ironically advised Beneš to "apply to the League of Nations and look for states that would be ready to resist Hitler".

Beneš understood that he was now facing a war on three fronts. After all, having learned about the Munich conference, Poland and Hungary declared claims to the Czechoslovak territories.

In the end, on September 30, the president accepted the terms of the Munich Agreement, and five days later he resigned.

"We betrayed no one, but everyone betrayed us. It was not Hitler who defeated us. It was our friends who defeated us," this phrase of Beneš went down in history.

Czechoslovakia was doomed to dismemberment. In addition to the loss of the Sudetenland, on September 30 Poland annexed the Cieszyn region in Silesia in northern Bohemia, and on November 2 Hungary received the southern regions of Slovakia.

In March 1939, Slovakia, with the support of Germany, declared independence. And what remained of the Czech Republic was occupied by Hitler and turned into the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Beneš later headed the Czechoslovak government in exile, and after the World War II he again became president of the restored Czechoslovakia. But in 1948 he was forced to resign under pressure from another dictator Stalin.