But the fact of the matter, is that Matthews is wrong. By sitting down at the table with Hitler, Chamberlain made his willingness to negotiate known. It basically said that Chamberlain was willing to make at least some concessions to Hitler, and that Half of Czechoslovakia was the outcome of those negotiations, which meant that Half of Czechoslovakia was the best deal Chamberlain could get out of the negotiations.
I have no idea if avoiding the Munich Conference would have avoided war (I would say no, since the Reich was pretty fixated on its imperial ambitions), and I have no idea if not having Munich could have saved the Czechs and Slavs from 70 years of blood and oppression, but I do know that the West could have avoided being complicit in it.
I agree with your statement that the West could have avoided complicity by not negotiating. In the medium term without having the Munich agreement, Hitler would have simply stuck a few divisions in Czechoslovakia, and the end result would have been the same. Look how efficiently he took apart most of the rest of Europe.
I don't think there was anything wrong with Chamberlain sitting down with Hitler. He could've chosen to walk away from the table without giving anything away, and held the moral high ground of, "Hey, at least we tried to talk to the guy!"
After Chamberlain's death, Churchill made a fine speech in eulogy. He noted that for a man to strive with all his might for peace is no shameful thing, and that whatever else was said about the war, thanks to Chamberlain's efforts, no-one could say that Britain was to blame for it.
Let us imagine that Britain and France had stood against Germany with Czechoslovakia. Are we to imagine that Germany would have laid aside its imperial ambitions and overnight become a liberal democracy? No. The Germans might have backed down then, but built up their forces more quickly and then acted. We simply would have had WWII start a year or so earlier, with the same end result. And then people would say, "if only Chamberlain had not stood against Hitler, we might not have had WWII at all...!"
I really hated that guy on the clip. I kept wishing they'd pull the plug. He was about as coherent as your average looney on the street corner passing out pamphlets and bellowing about the Rapture. Who let him out in public?
Morons! Right Wing crypto-fascist morons. Duhh...I dunno, you think it was because Neville Chamberlain reneged on Britain's treaty commitment to protect Czechoslovakia; letting Germany occupy the Sudetenland, and later standing by while Germany occupied the rest of the country,... hmmm
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But the fact of the matter, is that Matthews is wrong. By sitting down at the table with Hitler, Chamberlain made his willingness to negotiate known. It basically said that Chamberlain was willing to make at least some concessions to Hitler, and that Half of Czechoslovakia was the outcome of those negotiations, which meant that Half of Czechoslovakia was the best deal Chamberlain could get out of the negotiations.
I have no idea if avoiding the Munich Conference would have avoided war (I would say no, since the Reich was pretty fixated on its imperial ambitions), and I have no idea if not having Munich could have saved the Czechs and Slavs from 70 years of blood and oppression, but I do know that the West could have avoided being complicit in it.
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Let us imagine that Britain and France had stood against Germany with Czechoslovakia. Are we to imagine that Germany would have laid aside its imperial ambitions and overnight become a liberal democracy? No. The Germans might have backed down then, but built up their forces more quickly and then acted. We simply would have had WWII start a year or so earlier, with the same end result. And then people would say, "if only Chamberlain had not stood against Hitler, we might not have had WWII at all...!"
I really hated that guy on the clip. I kept wishing they'd pull the plug. He was about as coherent as your average looney on the street corner passing out pamphlets and bellowing about the Rapture. Who let him out in public?
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That... that was a thing of beauty. Thanks for the link.
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