Q of the Week: The Munich Agreement?

[Leon]

This week's question:

With hindsight, we can see that the Munich Agreement was a mistake, and that a harder line should have been taken.  But when Chamberlain signed this Agreement, did he have any reason to not trust Hitler?  And any reason to not believe that it was the right decision?

[lentulus]

... a harder line should have been taken...

In 1914 everyone knew that a hard line is worth taking, because while a war of the great powers might be nasty everyone knew it would only last a few months line 1866 and 1870.  In 1938 everyone knew that a war would be a real disaster and might end up with the world down another couple of empires; as the proprietor of one of the ones at risk Chamberlain did have to exercise some caution.

Trust?  Did they stop building Spitfires and radar stations?

[Dazza]

This week's question:

With hindsight, we can see that the Munich Agreement was a mistake, and that a harder line should have been taken.  But when Chamberlain signed this Agreement, did he have any reason to not trust Hitler?  And any reason to not believe that it was the right decision?

Turn up every year and drink BEER until you drop, I think us brits too a hard line    MUNICH ftw

[Leon]

In 1914 everyone knew that a hard line is worth taking, because while a war of the great powers might be nasty everyone knew it would only last a few months line 1866 and 1870.  In 1938 everyone knew that a war would be a real disaster and might end up with the world down another couple of empires; as the proprietor of one of the ones at risk Chamberlain did have to exercise some caution.

Trust?  Did they stop building Spitfires and radar stations?

Maybe trust isn't the right word, but Chamberlain came back to England in the belief that he had averted war, when Hitler obviously had other plans.  Is there any way he could have known?

[goat major]

One of my lecturers at university had written a book about appeasement. The main thrust of his argument was that Chamberlain knew what Hitler was up to but was concerned that the Commonwealth would be reluctant to join Britain in a gung ho European war against Germany (the big change between 1914 and 1939 was that the 'white' commonwealth countries were now completely self governing and couldn't be compelled to declare war). Chamberlain therefore went all out to demonstrate that he was trying everything he could do avoid war before it inevitably occurred. And as has been pointed out above - preparations for war continued apace.

[Last Hussar]

Too many people (especially Americans) seem ignorant of the preparations being made, even as Chamberlain signed - a book on the history of Hackney shows the civil defence preparions being made in '38.  Too many memories of 20 years earlier and the 'missing generation' for those then in power meant that committing to defend a 'small country far away' as a first resort would have been political suicide, especially in the Depression with the spectre of communist revolt in the minds of Europes ruling classes.

Also remember up to then there was private agreement that maybe we had let the French go too far in punishing the Germans in 1919, and much of the terms Hitler broke were thought to be too onerous (You can't put troops in 'that' part of your own country, you can't have aeroplanes etc), and the British had the fig leaf that the post war carve up had invented lots of countries, and people who had grown up German found they were not only 'not German' but a miniority: Hitler (who had been created by those harsh terms) was 'sort of' just allowing Germans their nationality back.

What Hitler disregarded was that taking the whole of Czechoslovakia wasn't covered by that fig leaf, and once discarded that excuse could not be reused (Danzig Corridor).

Underlaying this of course was the fact the French and British had seen what had happened in the SCW, and were desperately trying to buy time to catch up.