Given the subject, we should probably call this a milestone anniversary1: 88 years ago, in Bavarian Munich, representatives of four powers decided that Czechoslovakia had to cede its mostly German-speaking borderlands to Germany. Among the signatories were the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, the German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Representatives of Czechoslovakia were not invited and their consent was not sought; hence the phrase “About us, without us” (O nás, bez nás). While most languages call the event just the Munich Agreement, Czechs also call it the Munich Dictate, or, less frequently, the Munich Betrayal. This reflects the fact that France was a formal ally of Czechoslovakia and yet decided to abandon it in its hour of need.
Western Europe celebrated what it regarded as a last-minute success in preserving peace. It was a naive stance, because even though the German demands were cloaked in the language of self-determination of the German-speaking population, the taking of Sudetenland was in fact just the first step toward future conquest of all of Europe.
But people are very good at ignoring what they don’t want to see - for example, that they are trying to conclude good-faith treaties with what was fundamentally a gangster regime.
This is not to say that the first Czechoslovak Republic was a completely innocent victim. Its treatment of its huge German-speaking community could have been better.
For example, its early decision to fire or pension all public officials who weren’t able to prove their knowledge of the Czech or Slovak language (The Language Law of 1920) was a huge self-inflicted wound. Czech is a very complicated language. Few people would be able to acquire it as adults, and many border regions were close to 100 per cent German-speaking anyway. While the new country certainly had a legitimate interest in promoting a new common language of official communication, this could have been introduced more gradually, for example by demanding at first that at least someone in any given office have command of Czech, and only ramping up the language requirements gradually when admitting new employees, while giving the young generation an actual opportunity to learn Czech in school.
Such a process might have taken 15 or 20 years, but it would have caused fewer issues. At the beginning of the 20th century, public officers tended to be obedient to the government, and at the same time they wielded a lot of respect and influence in their communities. Alienating such a group of people was ultimately detrimental to Czechoslovakia as a whole, and it would have had some negative consequences down the road even if the Nazis had never gained power and the Weimar Republic remained a standard member of the international community.
That said, the Nazis did get to power, and what brought Czechoslovakia down was not a “normal” conflict about collective rights2, but rabid German nationalism on steroids, which quickly proceeded to set the entire continent on fire and kill millions.
In hindsight, we can say that Munich was a very, very bad decision for the Western powers. While it gained them a single year of peace, it also:
Cemented Hitler’s grip on power. As late as 1938, some German generals were entertaining the idea of a coup if Hitler started a senseless war. After such a political triumph, this was no longer possible.
Weakened opponents of pro-German alignment in Italy. The ruling fascist party was not universally pro-German and there were important skeptics in the highest levels of government (Ciano, Balbo). If Mussolini had been less convinced that the West was toothless and future ascendancy of Nazi Germany inevitable, he might have sat the war out just like the Spanish dictator Franco did. But what he saw in Munich gave him few reasons to do so.
The remaining rump of Czechoslovakia was militarily indefensible and Hitler was able to crush it effortlessly just half a year later, gaining full access to the highly developed Czechoslovak armaments industry, which from that moment on fueled his further conquests.
The permanent loss of trust in France and Britain among the local population helped pave the way for Stalin’s later expansion into Central Europe. Even almost a hundred years later, nations east of the former Iron Curtain aren’t willing to rely on a French promise of military protection; you only lose credibility once.
This lesson is not forgotten, and it is one of the reasons why, today, there is so much scepticism toward any future peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine. Many people don’t trust Putin to actually uphold the peace, rather than just exploit a convenient pause to rearm and then attack again according to his own schedule.
The so-called realists tend to worship hard power, but at the some time overlook that trust, or lack thereof, plays at least as important role in international relations. Every peace treaty with every aggressor will always be compared to Munich. Are we really concluding a lasting peace or just making fools of ourselves, with unforeseen consequences down the line?
You can’t always tell. But what happened 88 years ago, moved the balance of thought permanently toward the latter, even in countries where most of the people have never heard anything about Munich. In a bizarre and ironic way, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia changed the entire world.
The extent of use of AI in this article: 11 grammatical errors and 1 typo fixed. No editing.
Why? Because Hitler was involved, and neo-Nazis use 88 as a shorthand for Heil Hitler, as H is the eighth letter in the alphabet.
By the standards of 1930s Europe, the grievances of the Sudeten Germans against the Czechoslovak government were relatively mild. It was still a democratic state where about a quarter of MPs were German and German politicians would serve in some governments.
Zvoní, zvoní zrady zvon - čí ruce ho rozhoupaly? Francie sladká, hrdý Albion - a my jsme je tolik milovali. (František Halas)
The bell of betrayal is ringing - whose hands set it swinging? Sweet France, proud Albion - and we loved so much.
It's such a painful moment of Czech history. The "what ifs" are massive here...
Also, there's a pretty neat board game that's been recently published about this: The Bells of Treason (Zrady zvon). I haven't played it myself but it comes well recommended as an interesting simulation of what the Czechoslovak side debated internally and how they responded or could have responded to various international pressure and decisions.