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Old 9th Apr 2019, 20:06
  #12631 (permalink)  
Chugalug2
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: West Sussex
Age: 82
Posts: 4,761
Received 226 Likes on 70 Posts
Pali, I can only speak for myself but I would certainly be very interested in getting a Czech perspective on the 1938 Munich agreement, or Mnichovská zrada (betrayal) as it is known. I presume that the treason you mention was by the Czechoslovak Government's acceptance of the agreement of Britain France and Germany (done without the Government or its guarantor (the Soviet Union) being present).


Here in the UK of course most rejoiced, in the naïve belief that Hitler's signature on Chamberlain's note did indeed promise peace in our time. I believe that Hitler himself felt cheated by the agreement of his war, having been handed the Sudetenland on a plate. He had a point. He may have felt ready for war but we certainly didn't. The time gained before we were finally at war the following year gave us just time to bring our most critical component, RAF Fighter Command, to full readiness. A year earlier and the BoB would almost certainly have been lost. We would have been forced to sue for peace and Hitler would have been free to turn his entire might on the Soviet Union with a single front war.

Munich was vital to us winning the war and defeating Nazism, just as destroying the French Fleet was. It was done at the cost of Czechoslovakia and then Poland. At least they are free now of those twin tyrannies. Without Munich there is every chance that the Third Reich would now extend from the Pacific West Coast to the Atlantic Eastern one. Who knows? the Channel is our salvation, but being between the Russian and German Empires is the curse of the states of Eastern Europe. No doubt that is the appeal of the EU and its proposed Army, but better perhaps to not pursue that right now....


So yes, more please Pali!
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