One of these lessons repeats the lesson of the birth of Czechoslovakia in the midst of the collapse of Austria-Hungary – that in a moment of crisis, no state can survive without the active support of all its peoples, and not just of a dominant segment. If the Czechoslovak Republic had been able to count on the unwavering support of its peoples, Hitler would have thought twice before attacking them – and “Edouard Daladier and Chamberlain would have thought twice before abandoning them. In these times of peace and tranquillity, he does not seem to allude to it. A dominant segment of a population, especially if it secures foreign aid, can keep a state active and force dissidents to live with it. It can even create a semblance of normality. But if a state is to survive under pressure, compliance with its rule is not enough. Then a state needs more than power or nobility of purpose: it needs the reckless loyalty of its people. Power is not a substitute: a state that cannot win the active loyalty of all its peoples will be vulnerable to a Municher. The Munich Agreement has become a classic example of how foreign policy is not practised, and it has made “appetite” a sordid word. Munich also highlights a classic dilemma of diplomacy: accommodation can signal weakness and invite aggression, but firm conflicts can trigger conflicts that are otherwise avoided. Policy makers choose between these two risks at the risk of their danger, because those of them are greater when one looks to history than when one looks to the future. A new episode of History Lessons has arrived. This time, I am testing the signing of the Munich Convention in the early hours of September 30, 1938.
(The agreement itself dates from September 29, 1938. In the video, I talk about the origins of the Crisis on the Sudetenland, what British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain thought he was achieving in his negotiations with Adolf Hitler and why the Munich agreement did not bring “peace for our time”. George Kennan, an experienced diplomat who has lived long enough to hear half a dozen presidents quote the lessons of Munich, was asked one day if he thought the Americans had drawn the right conclusions from the lesson. Kennan said no. “No episode, perhaps in modern history, was more misleading than the Munich conference.” In international relations, the Munich teaching refers to adolf Hitler`s appeasement at the Munich Conference in September 1938. To avoid war, France and the United Kingdom authorized the German annexation of the Sudetenland. The policy of appeasement underestimated Hitler`s ambitions and believed that sufficient concessions would ensure a lasting peace. [1] Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement vis-à-vis Germany and as a great diplomatic triumph for Hitler. [Keywords] The agreement facilitated the German takeover of Czechoslovakia and led Hitler to believe that Western allies would not risk war on Poland the following year. The day Neville Chamberlain and his French counterpart Edouard Daladier signed the Munich Agreement in September.