A big power intimidates its neighbors.
A crisis erupts.
World leaders meet to head off war.
A deal is struck and peace is proclaimed.
But rather than deterring aggression, the deal inadvertently promotes it.
Within a year the world is at war.
I’m Jim Lindsay, and this is History Lessons.
Our topic today is the Munich Agreement, which was signed by the leaders of Germany, Italy,
Britain, and France in the early morning hours of September 30, 1938.
The backdrop to the Munich Agreement is Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and Germany’s remilitarization.
Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933.
A year later he made himself the dictator, or Führer, and ushered in the Third Reich.
Hitler moved aggressively to jumpstart a foundering German economy and to jettison the constraints
that had been imposed on the German military after World War I. European leaders nervously
looked the other way as he ran roughshod over the security provisions of the Treaty of Versailles
and reasserted German power in central Europe.
One goal of Hitler’s policies was to create Lebensraum, or greater living space, for Germans.
The belief that Germany needed expanded borders included the idea that ethnic Germans living
in neighboring countries should come under German rule.
In March 1938, Germany absorbed Austria in the Anschluss.
Hitler then turned his attention to the Sudetenland, those parts of Czechoslovakia where some three
million ethnic Germans predominated.
Hitler grew increasingly hostile to Czechoslovakia over the course summer of 1938.
In mid-September, he gave a fiery anti-Czech speech, raising fears that war was imminent.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain responded by rushing to Germany for talks
to keep the continent at peace.
Chamberlain approached his talks with Hitler mindful of how the First World War had laid
waste to a generation of Europeans and worried that new technologies like the airplane would
make the next war even more horrific.
He also worried that the British military was ill-prepared to fight Germany and that
the British public wanted peace, not war.
So without consulting Czechoslovakian leaders, Chamberlain agreed to Hitler’s demand that
Germany absorb the Sudetenland.
Chamberlain then persuaded the Czechoslovakian and French governments to accept his concession.
The details were worked out at two subsequent sets of meetings.
The Czechoslovakian government was pointedly not invited to the concluding talks at Munich
that finalized the country‘s dismemberment.
On October 1,1938, Czechoslovakian frontier guards left their posts and German troops
moved into the Sudetenland.
The day before Chamberlain had flown back to London where he was met by cheering crowds.
He waved a memo Hitler had signed pledging Germany’s peaceful intentions and told the
crowd that he had brought “peace for our
time.”
Not all of Chamberlain’s fellow Britons believed that he had saved the day.
Winston Churchill’s response to what Chamberlain had wrought at Munich was withering: “You
were given the choice between war and dishonour.
You chose dishonour and you will have war.”
As we all know, Churchill was right.
Eleven months after the Munich agreement was signed to cheers, German troops invaded Poland.
The Second World War had begun.
The terms “Munich” and “appeasement” entered the diplomatic Hall of Shame.
What is the lesson of the Munich Agreement?
Just this: Appeasing an adversary’s demands may defuse a crisis, but it can also increase
the chances of war by emboldening that adversary to demand more.
Chamberlain thought that if German gained the Sudetenland that Hitler would finally
be satisfied with the status quo in Europe.
But Hitler instead viewed Munich as confirming his belief that Britain and France both lacked
the will to stop German expansion.
It is worth remembering the Munich Agreement as we survey potential threats around the
globe today.
China is a growing military power that is challenging the territorial claims of its
neighbors in Northeast and Southeast Asia.
Iran seeks to become a nuclear power, a development that could upend the geopolitical order in
the Middle East.
In these and other instances, the United States must weigh the risk that diplomacy and compromise
will signal weakness and invite war, against the risk that standing firm will poison relations
and trigger conflicts that could have been avoided.
Unfortunately, which of these risks is greater is usually far clearer when looking backward
in history than when looking forward into the future.
So here’s a question to consider: On what issue or conflict is the United States most
likely to repeat Neville Chamberlain’s mistake?
I encourage you to weigh in with your answers on my blog, The Water’s Edge.
You can find it at CFR.org.
I’m Jim Lindsay.
Thank you for watching this installment of History Lessons.