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Munich 1938

© Ralph Zuljan

In September 1938, an international crisis developed around the future of a little known area of then Czechoslovakia, populated mostly by ethnic Germans, and known as Sudetenland. The Third Reich under Adolf Hitler threatened to go to war with Czechoslovakia unless so-called Sudetenland was immediately ceded to Germany. Czechoslovakia had military alliances with France and the Soviet Union. Therefore, a war between the two countries threatened to escalate into another world war -- that no one wanted -- and might engulf all the great powers, including Great Britain. It was a most unwelcome prospect. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, believed he could defuse this crisis through direct negotiations with Hitler.

In British political circles there was a feeling that the Germans had been treated unfairly at the end of the Great War. There was a strong pacifist movement and a near universal desire to avoid another world war. Chamberlain, along with most of the political elite, believed that by befriending Hitler's Germany (rather than antagonizing it) and negotiating German expansion (rather than opposing it) not only would another potentially devastating war with Germany be prevented, but a powerful new ally in the struggle against Communist expansion would be gained. Chamberlain's attitude towards Hitler resonates with Roosevelt's approach to Stalin. The policy that emerged was called appeasement.

While France may not have shared Britain's interest in appeasing the Third Reich over the Sudetenland, the French leadership demonstrated a thorough unwillingness to act unilaterally against the new Germany. There had been unease with the growth of German power in the 1930s but the political will to do anything other than accept it did not exist as neither the British nor the Italians were willing to take joint action. The outcry generated by earlier French efforts to enforce the articles of Versailles proved sufficient to deter further attempts. By 1938 it was unthinkable; a variety of international agreements had already gutted the German disarmament and reparations provisions of Versailles. France grudgingly accepted the Third Reich's great power status by 1938. So, while France stoically prepared to honor its guarantee to Czechoslovakia, its leaders preferred to avoid doing so if at all possible.

Perhaps the most bellicose of the great powers in 1938 was the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin. It viewed the rise of Nazi Germany with great concern and endeavored to create an anti-Nazi coalition during the period leading up to the Sudeten crisis. It declared a willingness to assist Czechoslovakia and go to war with the Third Reich, provided that either Poland or Rumania allowed the Red Army transit rights through their territory and Britain and France also went to war. This offer was received with suspicion from all quarters. However, Poles and Rumanians doubted the Red Army would ever leave their territory if they allowed it entry and therefore refused to give it transit rights, the offer proved to be irrelevant to resolving the crisis.

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