On the 30th September 1938, Neville Chamberlain arrived at Heston Aerodrome near London with an agreement he’d just signed with a Mr A. Hilter in Munich, Germany. He waved the paper to a jubilant crowd saying, “it is peace for our time.”
Great Britain had agreed alongside France, Italy and Germany to annexe part of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Can you see who they forgot to invite to the party? The Czechs were told if they didn’t agree to the terms they’d have to fight Hitler alone. It became known as the appeasement pact.
It didn’t last long. An emboldened Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia followed by Poland only 6 months later. On September 1st, 1939, Britain declared itself at war with Germany. Hitler is said to have described Chamberlain as “Ein Arschloch” and the Munich agreement as just a “scrap of paper”.
It’s easy to say in hindsight that Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was absolutely the wrong one. But even without the hindsight it’s clear we had a moral obligation to protect an allied country. There were some dissenting voices at the time, including Winston Churchill’s. Of Chamberlain’s Czech appeasement pact Churchill said, “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”
Even before the appeasement agreement was signed by Chamberlain, Churchill wrote to a close friend,
We seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later on even more adverse terms than at present.
Trump and Vance reminded me of Neville Chamberlain this week but without his statesmanship. At least, I can’t imagine Chamberlain losing his temper because a leader of a foreign country did not kowtow sufficiently. We would be wise to remember history. Churchill’s famous speech, performed brilliantly here by Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour is very apt I think. It’s a good film if you haven’t seen it.
rachel.blog 
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