This, as recent studies have shown, is debatable. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain received 20, letters and telegrams thanking him for averting war at Munich. Yet sheer relief at not having to fight or endure the dangers and hardships of war, especially after it had appeared so close, must account for much of this enthusiasm. When the statesmen returned, the full details of the Munich Agreement—with which they allowed Germany to take the territory of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, in a failed attempt to avoid what would become World War II — were not yet known, and it looked as though they had extracted actual concessions out of Hitler and at least saved face.
In , opinion polls were taking their first baby steps. The shadow of the Great War meant that panic took over in September, in the immediate run-up to Munich. During the crisis, however, French opinion was only fluid. In both countries, pro- and anti-appeasers straddled the left—right divide. Another factor specific to Britain was that the Dominions, whose participation was regarded as essential in any future war, were highly reluctant to fight on behalf of Czechoslovakia.
South Africa and Canada were keen to avoid any sort of European commitment. The New Zealand high commissioner in London was more hawkish, but his Australian counterpart emerged as supportive of the Anschluss and of ceding the Sudetenland. The economic consequences of the Munich agreement are bound to be very hard for Czechoslovakia. The loss of industries, railheads, junctions and so on, cannot fail to cause heavy loss of trade and unemployment.
Nor can there be any doubt that Czechoslovakia will become for Germany an object of quasi-colonial exploitation. Two days later, all the editorials were devoted to Munich, including the following about censorship. One aspect of the vast disturbance of the last fortnight must strike anybody who reflects on its history.
In the three most powerful States of Central and Eastern Europe the peoples were not allowed to know what was being said and done outside. In Russia there seems to have been very little news. In Germany and Italy the news was deliberately falsified when it was not suppressed. The Italian people were led to believe that Chamberlain was in agreement with Hitler and only anxious to put pressure on Benes. Of one of his speeches they were given a false version.
When you look at the population of Europe you find that almost one half of it was thus left in ignorance or deceived. Of the four Powers represented at Munich, France and Great Britain have between them a population of about ninety millions and Germany and Italy a population of one hundred and fifteen. The people of France and Great Britain knew everything and the people of Germany and Italy very little. It used to be said that the first casualty in war is truth; but there are countries in which truth is killed long before war begins.
During the war between Russia and Japan we were told as a dramatic indication of the dense ignorance of the Russian peasant that there were villages in which nobody knew that a war was going on; that was cited as an illustration of the primitive state of Russian civilisation.
To-day the most alarming fact is the ignorance of the best educated peoples, an ignorance that is the result of deliberate policy on the part of their rulers. It is curious to reflect that this sudden return to the arts of concealment and suppression comes at a time when the growth of democratic ideas and the triumphs of invention seemed to be spreading general enlightenment. President Wilson, who coined phrases that have come to such unhappy results, spoke at the Peace Conference of open covenants openly arrived at, thinking that justice and peace were assured of success if men lived in the full light of day.
When Bridges wrote his Testament of Beauty he thought that wireless had made war much more unlikely. Whereby war, fallen from savagery to fratricide, From a trumpeting, vain glory to a crying shame, Stalketh now with blasting curse branded on its brow.
No doubt the wireless has had a great influence in the last fortnight, for the contrast between German truculence and the moderation of the leaders of other countries, including in particular Czechoslovakia, made a great impression here, in the United States, and in all neutral countries. Now we are really a world power again. As part of the Munich agreement all predominantly German territory in Czechoslovakia was to be handed over by October 10th.
Poland and Hungary occupied other parts of the country and after a few months Czechoslovakia ceased to exist and what was left of Slovakia became a German puppet state. However, the French and British premiers had flown home in triumph to tumultuous welcomes from their peoples, who felt huge relief that another European war had been avoided. The Munich Conference. The agreement permitting Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland was signed on Sept 29, Second World War Germany.
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