Post-World War I history is complicated, but in a nutshell, the Treaty of Versailles imposed steep penalties on the losing countries, including Germany. And that’s what Adolf Hitler seized upon: He made promises that he only wanted to restore Germany to its pre-war glory in terms of both prosperity and territory, and for a long time, other countries were happy to take him at his word. Tim Bouverie is the author of “Appeasement: Chamberlain, Hitler, Churchill, and the Road to War,” and as he explained to Time, Hitler’s repeated claims were convincing enough that European leaders held off on declaring outright war. Except…
“Both of these claims are proven as lies when he invades Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and the British government realizes that he is intent upon wider European conquest — possibly domination,” Bouverie says.
Hitler’s lies had been so convincing that Europe’s foremost powers had signed the Munich Agreement in September 1938, which gave Hitler’s Germany a portion of Czechoslovakia — the Sudetenland, which was home to about 3 million ethnic Germans. Great Britain, Italy, and France signed with Hitler’s promise that he wasn’t going to go any further… and everyone knows how that worked out. Interestingly, even as Britain called out Hitler for violating the agreement and marching into Czechoslovakia, France still urged caution and appeasement instead of war. Britain, however, was starting to make its position clear: Appeasement had not worked, and Hitler could not be trusted.
