Was the Munich Agreement the worst deal in human history?

Munich agreement and chamberlain get anew unfairly bad rap, imo. You have to remember that ww1 was only what, 20 years prior to that? Besides the sheer numbers killed and the standard horrors of war, ww1 was profoundly shocking in a way few wars ever are. Nobody had seen war like that before, with its industrialized mass death and it's fruitlessness. No one had dreamed that war could be THAT bad. Without the munich agreement, there would have been another general European war, a return to that horror, and nobody wanted that. It wasn't naivete that drove it, even chamberlain recognized that the Germans might break the arrangement, but it was either certainly war, or a chance (however small) at peace. Iirc, even the leader of czechoslovakia at the time basically said 'if this averts war, bless you' or something to that effect.

>>2638462
>even chamberlain recognized that the Germans might break the arrangement, but it was either certainly war, or a chance (however small) at peace. Iirc, even the leader of czechoslovakia at the time basically said 'if this averts war, bless you' or something to that effect
He pretty much immediately started arming the country when he got back from the accords too.
Some think he was just stalling for time.

>>2638475
Stalling for time by giving Hitler control of one of the productive industrial regions in Europe?

>>2638497
It beats attacking when you're not ready.

>>2638361
nope...Brits and French needed time to arm. Even with the delay the French didn't get enough time.

>>2638462
President Benes was against the deal and resigned in protest days later, disgusted that France and the UK renaged on their alliance. A united Czechoslovakia with the Sudetan Mountains would've been able to defend itself if France and the UK had helped. The war could've been contained early.

>>2638535
Speculation. It's questionable whether Czechoslovakia would have made up for British and French lack of preparedness. Hitler at least would have preferred the war to break out in 1938. It also would have meant a moral disadvantage for the Allies, since it would have been a war against national self-determination. Imagine "Mourir pour Danzig?"x1000, the Allied public and soldiers would not have been enthusiastic about it.

>>2638531
That's just wrong. France could have steamrolled Germany at any time prior to 1940.

>>2638504
Not if the enemy is even less ready.

>>2638589
How would it have been a moral disadvantage to abide by your own alliance when the two countries which dragged the world into a pointless war less than a decade ago are explicitly threatening to do the same again?

Anyone who thinks a united UK, France and Czechoslovakia couldn't have decisively defeated Germany/Austria in 1938 is delusional. I know it's always more interesting to argue against the popular perception, but in this case there's no basis for it. Munich was a complete failure of imagination on the part of the UK and France.

>>2638699
>How would it have been a moral disadvantage to abide by your own alliance when the two countries which dragged the world into a pointless war less than a decade ago are explicitly threatening to do the same again?

Because, as already mentioned, Germany claimed the Sudetenland in 1938 which was in accordance with the principle of national self-determination. Large parts of the public in Britain considered the German claims justified. As far as I'm informed, the Allies didn't have a formal alliance with Czechoslovakia that guaranteed its borders.

>Anyone who thinks a united UK, France and Czechoslovakia couldn't have decisively defeated Germany/Austria in 1938 is delusional.

Why? What was the relative strength of the Allies compared to Germany in 1938 as opposed to 1939/1940? Britain was lagging behind, they had just started to invest large sums into arms. The opinion that appeasement was to buy time in order to gear up the military is pretty widespread.

>>2638361
For Czechoslovakia, yes

>don't even get invited to negotiations
>everything decided without your consent
>get all your natural defenses given away
>cause a permanent break in the country's ethnic balance (led to all the Germans, who were 1/3rd of the population and quite economically involved, getting kicked out after WW2)
>get invaded and nobody does shit (including greatest ally France) but declarations of war all around when Poland gets pushed

>>2638361
muh time to rearm

>>2638906
Not OP but the German Military wasn't really a behemoth before the outbreak of the actual war. In '38 some of the German high command conspired to kill Hitler if Czechoslovakia didn't back down, because they considered a war with Czechoslovakia at the time to be suicidal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oster_Conspiracy

>>2639873
Not many people remember, but Poland attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Minimal territorial gains with a huge diplomatical and political fallout. Retardation on maximum levels.

It was fucking madness. Benes summed it up rather well:

‘If you have sacrificed my nation to preserve the peace of the world, I will be the first to applaud you. But if not, gentlemen, God help your souls!’

>>2639975
Inter-war Poland was a nasty place, people often forget that.

>>2639975
They also blocked Soviet attempts to send help to the Czech

>>2639975
>>2640628
both revenge for the Czechs siezing that territory and blocking Hungarian attempts to help Poland during the 1920 war with soviets

>>2640645
Pretty stupid revenge then.