in the Sudeten area were of German origin. It became known in May
1938 that Hitler and his generals were drawing up a plan for the
occupation of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks were relying on
military assistance from France, with which they had an alliance.
The U.S.S.R. also had a treaty with Czechoslovakia, and it
indicated willingness to cooperate with France and Great Britain
if they decided to come to Czechoslovakia's defense, but the
Soviet Union and its potential services were ignored throughout
the crisis.
As Hitler continued to make inflammatory speeches demanding that
Germans in Czechoslovakia be reunited with their homeland, war
seemed imminent. Neither France nor Britain felt prepared to
defend Czechoslovakia, however, and both were anxious to avoid a
military confrontation with Germany at almost any cost. In
mid-September, Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister,
offered to go to Hitler's retreat at Berchtesgaden to discuss the
situation personally with the F?hrer. Hitler agreed to take no
military action without further discussion, and Chamberlain agreed
to try to persuade his cabinet and the French to accept the
results of a plebiscite in the Sudetenland. The French premier,
?douard Daladier, and his foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, then
went to London, where a joint proposal was prepared stipulating
that all areas with a population that was more than 50 percent
Sudeten German be returned to Germany. The Czechoslovaks were not
consulted. The Czechoslovak government initially rejected the
proposal but was forced to accept it reluctantly on September 21.
On September 22 Chamberlain again flew to Germany and met Hitler
at Godesberg, where he was dismayed to learn that Hitler had
stiffened his demands: he now wanted the Sudetenland occupied by
the German army and the Czechoslovaks evacuated from the area by
September 28. Chamberlain agreed to submit the new proposal to the
Czechoslovaks, who rejected it, as did the British cabinet and the
French. On the 24th the French ordered a partial mobilization: the
Czechoslovaks had ordered a general mobilization one day earlier.
In a last-minute effort to avoid war, Chamberlain then proposed
that a four-power conference be convened immediately to settle the
dispute. Hitler agreed, and on September 29, Hitler, Chamberlain,
Daladier, and the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini met in
Munich, where Mussolini introduced a written plan that was
accepted by all as the Munich agreement. (Many years later it was
discovered that the so-called Italian plan had been prepared in
the German Foreign Office.) It was almost identical to the
Godesberg proposal: the German army was to complete the occupation
of the Sudetenland by October 10, and an international commission
would decide the future of other disputed areas. Czechoslovakia
was informed by Britain and France that it could either resist
Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexations. The
Czechoslovak government chose to submit.
Before leaving Munich, Chamberlain and Hitler signed a paper