For some European powers, the Munich Agreement and the Anglo-German Declaration were considered a peace considered unthinkable. Unfortunately, Neville Chamberlain`s great demands did not materialize. These agreements only delayed the inevitable between the great European powers and allowed Hitler to gather more territory with relative ease. This document between the powers of Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom outlined the conditions, as the threats to Germany and a European war became increasingly evident, and opinions changed. Chamberlain was awarded for his role as one of the « Men of Munich » in books such as the Guilty Men of 1940. A rare defence of the wartime accord came in 1944 from Viscount Maugham, who had been the Lord`s chancellor. Maugham regarded the decision to establish a Czechoslovakian state with large German and Hungarian minorities as a « dangerous experiment » in the face of previous disputes and described the agreement, which stemmed mainly from the need for France to free itself from its contractual obligations in the face of its vagueness to war. [63] After the war, Churchill`s memoirs of that time, The Gathering Storm (1948), claimed that Chamberlain`s appeasement of Hitler had been wrong in Munich, and noted Churchill`s pre-war warnings about Hitler`s plan of attack and Britain`s folly of disarmament after Germany reached air parity with Britain. While acknowledging that Chamberlain was acting for noble reasons, Churchill argued that Hitler should have resisted in Czechoslovakia and that efforts had to be made to involve the Soviet Union. The New York Times made the front page of the Munich agreement: « Hitler receives less than his claims from the Sudetenland, » and reports that a « joyful crowd » had applauded Daladier on his return to France and that Chamberlain had been « wildly applauded » upon his return to the UK. [54] The Manchester Guardian covered every point of view in history, from the details of the agreement, Chamberlain, appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to the unease among other nations. One editorial found that the sheet of paper he was waving on his return to Britain was almost worthless. Meanwhile, the British government has asked Benea to ask for a mediator.
As he did not want to sever his government`s relations with Western Europe, the heirs reluctantly agreed. The British appointed Lord Runciman, the former Liberal cabinet minister, who arrived in Prague on 3 August to convince Benes to accept an acceptable plan for the Sudeten Germans. [23] On 20 July, Bonnet informed the Czechoslovakian ambassador in Paris that France, while publicly declaring its support for the Czechoslovakian negotiations, was not prepared to go to war on the Sudetenland. [23] In August, the German press was full of stories of Czechoslovakian atrocities against the Sudeten Germans, with the intention of forcing the West to put pressure on the Czechoslovakians to make concessions. [24] Hitler hoped that the Czechoslovaks would refuse and that the West would feel morally justified in abandoning the Czechoslovaks to their fate. [25] In August, Germany sent 750,000 troops along the border with Czechoslovakia, officially as part of military maneuvers. [9] [25] On September 4 or 5,[23] Erbe presented the fourth plan, which met almost all of the requirements of the agreement.
