September 25, 2007
Column: The wrong lessons of the 1938 Munich summit
Earlier this year I got an e-mail from a reader accusing me of combining the “worst qualities” of Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain. My offence had been to write a column suggesting that it would be a bad idea to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. This, apparently, meant that I was in favour of the annihilation of Israel (hence Hitler) – and also that I was a pathetic coward (Chamberlain).
This kind of rhetoric is not unusual. As I write, Columbia University in New York is being accused on television of “hosting Hitler”, because it has invited President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran to speak on campus.
Personally, I found being compared to Chamberlain particularly offensive. There are few more damaging taunts than to be compared to the British prime minister who tried and failed to appease Hitler at the Munich summit of 1938. In the US, in particular, the ghost of Chamberlain is regularly brought out to frighten those who are deemed insufficiently resolute in confronting the enemy of the moment. In the run-up to the Iraq war, the lessons of Munich were invoked by President George W. Bush and any number of neo-conservative commentators.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, was at it again during this month’s congressional hearings on Iraq. She reminded her audience that: “Neville Chamberlain genuinely believed that he had brought ‘peace in our time’ by washing his hands of what he believed to be an isolated dispute in ‘a far away country between people of whom we know nothing’. That country was Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain’s well-intentioned efforts … only ensured that an immensely larger threat was thereby unleashed.” The lesson was clear. Confront evil regimes as soon as possible.
The remainder of this week’s column can be read here (FT.com subscribers only). Comments can be made below.
A perhaps more interesting appeaser was Londonderry. A descendant of Congress of Vienna brokers, he himself misapplied many historical lessons even before 1938. The subject of another excellent Kershaw book, ‘Making Friends with Hitler.’
Posted by: JP | September 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am | Report this commentChamberlain’s fault was more in underestimating Hitler than in appeasement on the issue of Czechoslovakia. His action was actually reasonable and justified if it had ensured peace.
The carve up of Europe after WWI was preposterous. We can see in even further hindsight that Czechoslovakia did split, and that the artificial boundaries and borders of Europe were problematic.
Is there any difference to the allowance of German Sudetenland to revert to Germany and our carve up of Yugoslavia in particular Kosovo?
In effect we criticise him for doing the right thing… making peace, because of a completely different factor. It is not appeasement that is at fault, but despotic individuals who gear up for war at any cost.
And by that measure it is not Amedinejad who is comparable to Hitler but Bush, who will do anything to validate a war in the Middle East in order to protect the vital interest of the global system- Oil.
Posted by: Paxinfinite | September 25th, 2007 at 5:04 pm | Report this commentJulius Nyerere, the late Tanzanian president, once observed that “America is also a one-party state but, with typical profligacy, they have two of them”.
This is probably more true now than ever, especially in the field of foreign policy where the interests of the military-industrial complex, the oil industry and “The Lobby” ensure that the candidtaes have to conform with the vested interests’ wishes if they are to have any chance of collecting enough campaign funds to pay for the ridiculously expensive electoral charade.
Third-Worlders should not place any hopes in the American political system.
Best,
P
Posted by: Pacifist | September 26th, 2007 at 9:47 am | Report this commentDear Mr Rachman,
Three cheers to you for pointing out, at last, that the Munich crisis was of far greater weight and consequence than the modern events it is undiscerningly compared to! The repeated misuse and misrepresentation of this tragic event by politicians is more than infuriating; it is historically dangerous.
I nevertheless find much to pick at in the detail your comment, which I suspect may well raise a storm of replies. To focus on one point: the notion that the agreements eventually helped Britain win the conflict surely is questionable. Certainly Neville Chamberlain himself did not appear to see it that way, since British rearmament failed to budge until Hitler’s next annexation six months later. As to the broader strategic balance, it is simpler to paraphrase Winston Churchill, whose views, already largely contained in his speech at the time, were expanded upon in his war memoirs:
1. the surrender of Czechoslovakia meant the loss of a well-equipped army more than one third of the size of the Reich’s. Instead of motorised Czech divisions, it was the Polish cavalry that fought on the allied side a year later.
2. the considerable Czech armaments factories, including excellent aircraft, went to the nazis and were used against the allies throughout the war.
3. while the Soviet Union had given clear assurances to both France and Czechoslovakia in 1938 that it would fight on their side, by the following year it had signed a non-aggression pact with Germany.
4. the Munich accords, which as you rightly points out were perhaps not dishonourable for Britain but were definitely so for France, and the Nazi-Soviet pact dealt devastating blows to French morale and fighting ability.
5. Germany had no defences on the Rhine, while a year later it had completed its fortifications before the economically essential Ruhr region, encouraging demoralised France in its catastrophic defensive strategy.
6. there was a considerable increase, in the year after Munich, in the fighting strength of the Reich, which had only begun to rearm in earnest two years before, and in the confidence of its military command.
There is no right or wrong, of course, in such speculations. Churchill’s words at the funeral of Neville Chamberlain showed an appreciation of his dilemma which seems to have gone entirely missing with modern politicians. It seems hard to quibble, however, with his strategic assessment.
Posted by: Pierre Caquet | September 27th, 2007 at 11:20 am | Report this commentMr Rachman claims that in Kershaw’s biography of Hitler that Hitler wanted war in 1938. From this he draws the inference that Chamberlain must then be right not to want it. One suspects that Rachman has not read this book as he would then be aware the German army was adamantly against war in 1938 for the simple reason it would almost certainly lose. A quick survey of the actual situation would do. In 1938, Hitler didn’t have his eastern front protected by a pact with the Soviet union, he had a vastly inferior army than the one that would be critically bolstered by Czech arms in 1939 and he didn’t have the oil reserves of Romania. The argument that the extra year bought time for the RAF to re-arm maybe have been “compelling” in 1938 when the British government believed Goring’s mendacious claims to Lord Londonderry as to the Luftwaffe’s strength but nearly 70 years later Mr Rachman doesn’t have that excuse. Of course by the summer of 1940, Germany had substantially beefed up it’s airforce using armament factories in… Czechoslovakia.
As for the dishonour, the lack of a formal defence treaty with Abyssinia didn’t stop a government that Chamberlain served in driving Italy into the Axis by threatening them over their attempt to conquer this country - the British invoked the Treaty of Locarno, made threats and did nothing. With the Rhineland, Britain made threats and did nothing. With Czechoslovakia, Britain had one last chance to prove it’s mettle and it made threats and… did nothing.
Even his comparisons with the latter day don’t make sense. The 1956 war was a military catastrophe for Nasser. His army was humiliated by the Israelis and despite Nasser’s claims of “victory”, he would ensure the border with Israel would remain silent for over a decade. The political failure was due to British vacillation over the coverplan and military attack, again driven by wild overrating of the enemies strength. What happened post-US withdrawal of Vietnam is EXACTLY analogous to post-Munich. The North Vietnamese didn’t keep to a treaty they had no intention of honouring and overran Laos and South Vietnam. The Khemer Rouge came to power and murdered 1.5-2 million Cambodians. Only now over three decades later is the region recovering. One assumes that Mr Rachman thinks this was an acceptable outcome.
Mr Rachman is not at all like Chamberlain. Chamberlain had fake estimates of German military power, Chamberlain didn’t know that by abandoning Czechoslovakia he was beefing up German military power and all but forcing the Soviets into Nazi arms. Chamberlain also would not know that a war that lasted 5 years would deliver area atomic weaponry, ballistic missiles and genocide, Mr Rachman manages to still be blind with 20/20 hindsight. Mr Chamberlain was a coward scared by his own shadows, Mr Rachman is simply an incompetent with a grasp that would embarrass a failing GCSE history student which seem to have only impressed people with similarly poor understanding of the world.
Posted by: danny | March 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm | Report this comment