Munich Agreement
뮌헨 협정
An agreement concluded in Munich on 29–30 September 1938 by Germany, Italy, Britain and France that forced Czechoslovakia to surrender the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. The Czechoslovak representatives were not admitted to the negotiations, and the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's ally, was excluded from a settlement decided by the four powers alone. Moscow had repeatedly offered to aid Czechoslovakia, but France, Britain and the Czechoslovak government declined, and the Kremlin concluded that collective security was dead.
In depth
Background
The Sudetenland was the mountainous borderland of Czechoslovakia, home to some three million ethnic Germans and fortified as the republic's strategic defensive line. After the Anschluss of Austria, Hitler directed Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party to press demands no Czechoslovak government could accept, and by late September he was threatening war. Britain's prime minister Neville Chamberlain and France, determined to avert war, pressured Czechoslovakia to concede.
On 29–30 September 1938 Hitler, Chamberlain, the French premier Édouard Daladier and Italy's Mussolini met in Munich and agreed that the Sudetenland would be ceded to Germany. The Czechoslovak delegation was kept outside the room and not invited to the talks; it was handed a finished document. German troops occupied the territory between 1 and 10 October.
Soviet exclusion and the end of collective security
The Soviet Union had mutual-assistance pacts with Czechoslovakia and France from 1935, and during the crisis it repeatedly offered military aid to Czechoslovakia. But Soviet troops could reach Czechoslovakia only across Polish or Romanian territory, both of which refused passage, and the French, British and Czechoslovak governments declined Soviet proposals for an international conference and military staff talks. Moscow read the agreement, struck by the Western powers over its head, as the end of collective security, and Soviet diplomacy thereafter turned toward direct dealings with Germany.
Aftermath
Within weeks Poland took the Teschen district and Hungary, through the First Vienna Award, gained parts of southern Slovakia. In March 1939 Hitler broke his word, occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia and created the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The agreement has become a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states, and is remembered in Czechoslovakia as the 'Munich betrayal' (Mnichovská zrada).
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) date, four signatory powers, Sudetenland cession, Czechoslovakia and the USSR excluded from the negotiations, Soviet offers of aid rejected, Polish and Romanian refusal of passage, occupation of the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939
- Wikipedia (RU) Soviet proposals for an international conference and military staff talks declined by France, Britain and Czechoslovakia; Soviet treaties of May 1935 with France and Czechoslovakia; Munich Sgovor framing
- encyclopedia.ushmm.org Germany, Italy, Britain and France signed the agreement 29-30 September 1938; Czechoslovakia forced under pressure to surrender the Sudeten border region; German occupation 1-10 October 1938