The Munich Agreement and the Road to War
This page details the events leading up to World War II, focusing on Hitler's continued aggression and the failed attempts by other European powers to maintain peace through diplomacy.
Following the annexation of Austria, Hitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia. In an attempt to avoid war, European leaders met with Hitler and reached the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. This agreement allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia with a large German-speaking population.
Vocabulary: Sudetenland - The German-speaking areas of northern and western Czechoslovakia that bordered Germany.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain famously declared the Munich Agreement as bringing "peace for our time." However, this optimism was short-lived. By March 1939, Hitler had broken his promises and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, which surrendered without a fight.
Highlight: The failure of the Munich Agreement demonstrated the ineffectiveness of appeasement in dealing with Hitler's expansionist ambitions.
As tensions in Europe escalated, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact on August 23, 1939. This agreement included secret provisions for dividing Eastern European countries between the two powers.
Definition: Non-aggression Pact - An agreement between countries to avoid military conflict with one another.
Realizing that Hitler could no longer be trusted, Britain and France finally took a firmer stance. They vowed to protect Poland, Hitler's next likely target, in the event of German aggression. On March 31, 1939, Prime Minister Chamberlain issued a formal guarantee of Polish independence.
This page illustrates the rapid deterioration of diplomatic efforts to maintain peace in Europe and the increasing likelihood of another major war. It shows how the policy of appeasement ultimately failed to prevent conflict and how European powers began to shift towards a more confrontational approach to Nazi Germany's expansionism.
