Later in the session, a pre-arranged deception was undertaken to influence and pressure Chamberlain: one of Hitler`s assistants entered the room to inform Hitler of the other Germans killed in Czechoslovakia, to which Hitler shouted in response: “I will avenge each of them. The Czechs must be annihilated. [32] The meeting ended with Hitler`s refusal to make concessions to the Allies` demands. [32] Later that evening, Hitler worried that he had gone too far to put pressure on Chamberlain and called the suite of Chamberlain`s hotel and said he would agree to annex only the Sudetenland, with no plans for other areas, provided that Czechoslovakia began evacuating ethnic Czechs from the territories of the German majority by September 26 at 8:00 a.m. .m. After pressure from Chamberlain, Hitler agreed to set the ultimatum for October 1 (the same date on which Operation Green was to begin). [37] Hitler then told Chamberlain that this was a concession he was willing to give to the prime minister as a “gift,” out of respect for the fact that Chamberlain had been willing to give up his previous position somewhat. [37] Hitler went on to say that if the Sudetenland were annexed, Germany would no longer have territorial claims over Czechoslovakia and would conclude a collective agreement to guarantee the borders of Germany and Czechoslovakia. [37] Although the Treaty of Versailles did not present a peace agreement satisfactory to all parties concerned, American public opinion on the return of President Woodrow Wilson to the United States in July 1919 was overwhelming for the ratification of the treaty, including the Covenant of Nations. Despite the fact that 32 state lawmakers passed resolutions in favor of the treaty, there was fierce opposition in the U.S. Senate. As threats from Germany and a European war became more and more apparent, opinions changed.
Chamberlain has been criticized for his role as one of the “men of Munich” in books such as The Guilty Men of 1940. A rare defence of the deal came in 1944 from Viscount Maugham, who had been Lord Chancellor. Maugham regarded the decision to establish a Czechoslovak state with significant German and Hungarian minorities as a “dangerous experiment” in light of previous disputes and largely attributed the agreement to the need for the France to free itself from its contractual obligations since it was not prepared for war. [63] After the war, Churchill`s memoirs of the time, The Gathering Storm (1948), claimed that Chamberlain`s appeasement of Hitler in Munich had been wrong, and recorded Churchill`s warnings about war before Hitler`s plan of attack and the madness that Britain insisted on disarmament after Germany had achieved air parity with Britain. Although Churchill acknowledged that Chamberlain was acting for noble motives, he argued that Hitler should have been fought because of Czechoslovakia and that efforts should have been made to include the Soviet Union. The American historian William L. Shirer argued in his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) that although Hitler did not bluff about his intention to invade, Czechoslovakia could have provided considerable resistance. Shirer believed that Britain and France had enough air defenses to avoid serious bombing of London and Paris, and that they could have waged a quick and successful war against Germany.
[66] He quotes Churchill as saying that the deal means that “Britain and France were in a much worse position than Hitler`s Germany.” [61] After Hitler personally inspected the Czech fortifications, he privately told Joseph Goebbels that “we had shed a lot of blood” and that he was glad there was no fighting. [67] After Poland learned that the areas inhabited by Poles were to be handed over to Germany, Poland issued a note to the Czechoslovak government calling for “the immediate conclusion of an agreement under which Polish territory was to be indisputably occupied by Polish troops; This should be followed by an agreement on referendums in districts where a large share of the Polish population is high. [75] Negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference were not always easy. Britain, France and Italy fought together as Allied powers in World War I. The United States entered the war as an associated power in April 1917 and, while fighting alongside the Allies, was not obliged to abide by the already existing agreements between the Allied powers. These agreements tended to focus on the redistribution of territories after the war. US President Woodrow Wilson has firmly rejected many of these agreements, including Italy`s demands on the Adriatic. This has often led to considerable disagreements between the “Big Four”. The British people expected war to come, and Chamberlain`s “statesman gesture” was initially greeted with applause.
He was greeted as a hero by the royal family and invited to the balcony of Buckingham Palace before presenting the deal to the British Parliament. The generally positive reaction quickly deteriorated, despite the royal patronage. However, there was resistance from the beginning. Clement Attlee and the Labour Party rejected the deal, in alliance with two Conservative MPs, Duff Cooper and Vyvyan Adams, who until then had been seen as a hardened and reactionary element of the Conservative Party. On September 28 at 10:00 a.m..m.four hours before the deadline and without Czechoslovakia`s approval of Hitler`s request, the British ambassador to Italy, Lord Perth, summoned Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano to request an urgent meeting. [37] Perth told Ciano that Chamberlain had asked him to ask Mussolini to enter into negotiations and urge Hitler to postpone the ultimatum. [37] At 11:00.m., Ciano met Mussolini and informed him of Chamberlain`s proposal; Mussolini agreed and responded by calling the Italian ambassador to Germany and telling him: “Go immediately to the Führer and tell him that whatever happens, I will be at his side, but that I ask for a delay of twenty-four hours before the start of hostilities. In the meantime, I`ll explore what can be done to fix the problem. [40] Hitler received Mussolini`s message during a conversation with the French ambassador. Hitler told the ambassador: “My good friend, Benito Mussolini, asked me to postpone the marching orders of the German army by twenty-four hours, and I agreed. Of course, this was not a concession, as the date of the invasion was set at 1. October 1938. [41] Addressing Chamberlain, Lord Perth Chamberlain thanked Mussolini and Chamberlain for asking Mussolini to attend a conference of the four powers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy in Munich on September 29 to resolve the Sudetenland problem before the deadline of 2:00.m p.m.
Mussolini agreed. [41] Hitler`s only demand was to ensure that Mussolini was included in the conference negotiations. [41] When U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned that the conference was scheduled, he telegraphed Chamberlain: “Good Man.” [42] In the early 1930s, soothing concessions were widely seen as desirable – because of the anti-war response to the trauma of World War I (1914-1918), the second reflection on Germany`s vindictive treatment in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and the perception that fascism was a useful form of anti-communism. However, at the time of the Munich Pact, concluded on 30 September 1938 between Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, this policy was rejected by the Labour Party, by some conservative dissidents such as the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the Minister of War Duff Cooper and the future Prime Minister Anthony Eden. The appeasement was strongly supported by the British upper class, including royalty, big business (based in the City of London), the House of Lords and media such as the BBC and the Times. [4] In the meantime, the UK government has demanded that Beneš request a mediator. As Beneš did not want to sever his government`s ties with Western Europe, he reluctantly agreed. The Sudeten Germans were ordered by Hitler to avoid any compromise,[25] and the SdP organized demonstrations on September 7 that provoked a police action in Ostrava during which two of his deputies were arrested.
[23] The Sudeten Germans used the incident and false accusations of other atrocities as a pretext to break off new negotiations. [23] [26] Under the colonization of Versailles, the Rhineland was demilitarized. .
