The Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, is widely perceived today as a terrible mistake made by a weak leader. The standard narrative is that Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, blinded by his own idealism, fed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to the Nazi war machine in the naïve hope of appeasing an insatiable Hitler. It is true that Chamberlain was highly idealistic, and he failed as a leader by placing his own public relations above national diplomacy, by disdaining foreign policy experts and by sidelining colleagues who challenged his strategy of appeasement. However, there were strong military, diplomatic and political reasons not to risk war with Germany in September 1938. Neville Chamberlain failed his nation, but a better leader most likely would have been forced to make the same choice.

Though Neville Chamberlain’s previous government roles were not in foreign relations,[1] he had a strong diplomatic vision, shaped and informed by his prominent political family. His father, Joseph Chamberlain, was an imperial leader who planned the British annexation of the Boer republics in southern Africa.[2] His half-brother, Austen Chamberlain, won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate the Locarno Pact as foreign minister during the 1920s.[3] Like them, and like many members of the British foreign policy establishment, Neville Chamberlain believed that Britain had a special role in the defense of international order. In March 1938, after Hitler annexed Austria, Chamberlain showed his instincts when he said that “France, as usual has been caught bathing, and the world looks to us.”[4] Chamberlain’s conviction in Britain’s responsibilities to the global order also tied into his belief, formed from years of government service in financial and health issues, that arms races were inherently wasteful. Chamberlain saw armament reduction initiatives like the 1921-1922 Washington Conference as vital, and perceived his duty to be the restoration of sanity: he wrote in October of 1937 that he had “far reaching plans” for “the appeasement of Europe and Asia and for the ultimate check to the mad armaments race.”[5]

In May of 1938, only months after absorbing Austria, Hitler began to publicly agitate for reuniting the three million German-origin citizens of Czechoslovakia’s “Sudetenland” with Germany.[6] Seeking a peaceful settlement, Chamberlain flew to Germany for the first of three meetings with Hitler on September 15.[7] The move was bold but was fatally flawed in two ways, handing Hitler the advantage.

First, Chamberlain mixed his idealistic goal for peace with self-serving public opinion calculations. Chamberlain had succeeded to party leadership in 1937, and had not yet won a general election.[8] With the economy continuing to struggle, diplomatic success was one way to bolster his electoral odds. At that point, only Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt had used airplanes to campaign,[9] and Chamberlain’s flight to meet Hitler seemed aimed to capture public attention. His return from the third meeting, at Munich, showed what he had been seeking: Chamberlain stepped off his plane onto a London airport tarmac in front of a wildly cheering crowd, held up the nonaggression pact he had signed with Hitler, and dramatically proclaimed that he had achieved “peace for our time.”[10] However, in pursuit of this heroic image, Chamberlain placed personal publicity success ahead of good diplomacy. By the end of his initial meeting with Hitler, Chamberlain had already made a major concession by accepting the use of plebiscites to determine which regions of Czechoslovakia were over 50% German and would be handed over.[11] In the following meeting, on September 22, Hitler presented new demands: that the German army would occupy the Sudetenland, with all Czechoslovaks being evacuated by September 28. Chamberlain flew back to London to persuade his government to accept the new demands, and wrote a note back to Hitler, “I feel certain that you can get all essentials without war, without delay.”[12] By the time Hitler proposed a final meeting at Munich for September 29, he doubtlessly recognized that Chamberlain had invested so much in the publicity of the negotiations that “he was willing to accept any settlement which could be portrayed positively at home.”[13] At Munich, Hitler got almost all of his demands.[14]

In addition to his willingness to sign an unbalanced deal in order to win a public-relations victory, Chamberlain failed his nation by declining to consult foreign policy experts throughout the negotiations and by ignoring the concerns of those who opposed his policies. Before the crisis, Chamberlain had already cleared the foreign office of top diplomats who did not share his vision for peace through appeasement. In January 1938 he pushed permanent undersecretary Sir Robert Vansittart, the foreign office’s leading voice on the rising threat posed by Germany, “upstairs” into a ceremonial but politically powerless role.[15] Only weeks later Anthony Eden, foreign secretary and another vocal opponent of appeasement, resigned to protest Chamberlain’s attempts to conciliate Germany and Italy.[16] On these departures, Chamberlain wrote “I suspect that in Rome and Berlin the rejoicings will be loud & deep.”[17] Some members of the British foreign policy establishment recognized that Chamberlain was out of his depth: in March 1938 Sir Horace Rumbold, who had been ambassador to Berlin when Hitler seized power, wrote that Chamberlain didn’t know “the technique of dealing with Dictators who are necessarily bullies. The more you truckle to them the more arrogant they become.”[18] However, there were few opportunities to pressure the Prime Minister to reconsider. When Chamberlain travelled to negotiate with Hitler, “there were no advance preparations and [he] travelled without expert advisers.” This stood in striking contrast to other interwar conferences, in which Prime Ministers had been prepared extensively and had brought teams of experts.[19] After Chamberlain’s second meeting with Hitler, even the new “heretofore compliant” foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, was alarmed enough by Chamberlain’s concessions to push back against appeasement.[20] Instead of addressing opposition from his closest advisors, however, Chamberlain left for Hitler’s proposed final meeting in Munich without convening his cabinet. He most likely did so in order to avoid further pressure, believing that popular support for a peace deal would reestablish his political position.[21]

However, even if Chamberlain had not been visibly desperate for a deal, had included experts in his negotiations and had considered colleagues’ dissenting viewpoints, he was in an incredibly difficult situation. With hindsight, some would argue that firm British and French opposition to German expansion would have restrained Hitler from further aggression. This is possible, but conjectural. What is certain is that any British leader who tried to stop Germany in September 1938 risked war, and Chamberlain’s fear of war over Czechoslovakia was not purely based on his own ideology: it was in line with Britain’s painful military, diplomatic and political realities.

First, Britain was not prepared for war in September 1938. Since 1919, British military planning had been based on the “ten-year rule” – made permanent in 1928 by Winston Churchill himself – which set the armed forces’ budgets assuming that Britain would not fight a major war for 10 years.[22] Britain did not begin to rearm until 1934, and in September 1938, the process was still ongoing. At that point, Britain could have only sent two poorly equipped divisions to the continent if war broke out.[23] Naval rearmament had begun in 1936 as a five-year plan, and it wasn’t until April of 1938 that the RAF was authorized to purchase as many aircraft as could be produced: Colonel Hastings Ismay noted in the midst of the Czech crisis that “delaying the outbreak of war would give the [RAF] time to acquire airplanes that could counter the Luftwaffe.”[24]

Second, before World War Two, Western military planners vastly overestimated the threat of aerial bombing. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s statement in the House of Commons in 1932, that “the bomber will always get through,” was commonly assumed.[25] Germany’s 1937 bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War carried “Exaggerated reports of 5,000 casualties,” which were widely believed.[26] Based partially on these numbers, in 1938 the Committee of Imperial Defense reported that a German bomber offensive against Britain would kill 500,000 civilians in the first three weeks.[27] In reality, Germany’s “London Blitz” bombing campaign killed 28,556 Londoners and hospitalized 25,578 over the course of about eight months,[28] but Chamberlain cannot be faulted for taking military experts’ overly dire estimates seriously.

Third, Britons still carried the scars of World War One. Public opinion was strongly against war, especially over a country as obscure as Czechoslovakia.[29] In addition, since World War One, Commonwealth countries had become much more autonomous. Though Britain’s declaration of war in World War One had automatically brought in Canada, Australia and New Zealand on its side, this was no longer guaranteed in 1938. If those countries felt that Czechoslovakia was not worth fighting for, Britain could be left fighting with no allies but France.[30]

Fourth, the UK was desperately short of reliable allies in 1938. Throughout the year leading up to the Munich conference, Chamberlain discussed the French government’s habit of disintegrating, its financial instability, its industrial troubles, and even suspected it of being in touch with his opposition.[31] UK experts were distrustful of the Soviet Union, and Chamberlain was highly dismissive of the U.S., which he saw as timid and isolationist.[32] Though Chamberlain should have invested more work in building up a relationship with America – “He made no attempt to establish personal relations with Franklin Roosevelt” and he stated at one point that “the Americans are so rotten it does not matter who we send” to represent Britain in Washington[33] – no responsible British leader could have gone to war in 1938 expecting the U.S. to join in support.

Once Hitler’s intentions became clear, it was easy to criticize Chamberlain’s decision at Munich: he was presented as having surrendered to Hitler’s bullying tactics, strengthening Germany’s war machine with Czechoslovakia’s natural resources and arms industry[34] while disgracefully sacrificing an ally against German expansion, until war inevitably broke out anyway. However, this narrative fails to account for the dire situation Chamberlain faced. Britain was simply not ready for war, and at that point, it was still not certain that war was inevitable. Chamberlain’s real failure was in placing his public image over effective statecraft, in choosing not to consult with experts to prepare for his summits with Hitler, and in pursuing his idealistic goal of peace through appeasement while ignoring the concerns of those who questioned his vision. In the end, Chamberlain did fail his country in September 1938. What is less clear is whether another leader could have done much better.

Endnotes

[1] Erik Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 10, no. 2-3 (1999): 276.

[2] Ibid., 277.

[3] “Sir Austen Chamberlain – Biographical,” Nobelprize.org, accessed September 18, 2017.

[4] Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” 278.

[5] Ibid., 277.

[6] Ibid., 283.

[7] Ibid., 287.

[8] “Neville Chamberlain,” Encyclopædia Britannica, January 12, 2017.

[9] Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” 283.

[10] Christopher Klein, “Chamberlain Declares ‘Peace for Our Time,’ 75 Years Ago,” History.com, September 30, 2013.

[11] Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” 288.

[12] Ibid., 289.

[13] Ibid.

[14] “Munich Agreement,” Encyclopædia Britannica, December 16, 2016.

[15] John Simkin, “Robert Vansittart,” Spartacus Educational, April 2016.

[16] “Anthony Eden,” Encyclopædia Britannica, January 17, 2017.

[17] Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” 284.

[18] Ibid., 285.

[19] Ibid., 284.

[20] Ibid., 288.

[21] Ibid., 289.

[22] “The ten-year rule and disarmament,” The National Archives.

[23] Nick Baumann, “Neville Chamberlain Was Right,” Slate.com, September 28, 2013.

[24] Ibid.

[25] “Blitz WW2 – The Battle of London,” Military History Monthly, January 22, 2011.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Michael McCarthy, “The Big Question: Was Neville Chamberlain really the failure portrayed by history?” The Independent, August 19, 2009.

[28] “The Battle of London,” Military History Monthly.

[29] McCarthy, “The Big Question.”

[30] Baumann, “Neville Chamberlain Was Right.”

[31] Goldstein, “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis,” 279.

[32] Ibid., 280.

[33] Ibid., 281.

[34] J. Goldmann, “The Armament Industry of Czechoslovakia,” Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics & Statistics 5 no. 12 (2009): 201.

Bibliography

“Anthony Eden,” Encyclopædia Britannica, January 17, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anthony-Eden.

“Blitz WW2 – The Battle of London.” Military History Monthly. January 22, 2011. https://www.military-history.org/articles/world-war-2/blitz-ww2.htm.

“Munich Agreement.” Encyclopædia Britannica. December 16, 2016. https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement.

“Neville Chamberlain,” Encyclopædia Britannica, January 12, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Neville-Chamberlain.

“Sir Austen Chamberlain – Biographical.” Nobelprize.org. Accessed September 18, 2017. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1925/chamberlain-bio.html.

“The ten-year rule and disarmament,” The National Archives. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/10-year-rule-disarmament.htm.

Baumann, Nick. “Neville Chamberlain Was Right.” Slate.com. September 28, 2013. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/09/neville_chamberlain_was_right_to_cede_czechoslovakia_to_adolf_hitler_seventy.html.

Goldmann, J. “The Armament Industry of Czechoslovakia.” Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics & Statistics 5 no. 12 (2009).

Goldstein, Erik. “Neville Chamberlain, the British official mind and the Munich Crisis.” Diplomacy and Statecraft 10, no. 2-3 (1999).

Klein, Christopher. “Chamberlain Declares ‘Peace for Our Time,’ 75 Years Ago.” History.com. September 30, 2013. http://www.history.com/news/chamberlain-declares-peace-for-our-time-75-years-ago.

McCarthy, Michael. “The Big Question: Was Neville Chamberlain really the failure portrayed by history?” The Independent. August 19, 2009. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-big-question-was-neville-chamberlain-really-the-failure-portrayed-by-history-1774449.html.

Self, Robert. “Was Neville Chamberlain really a weak and terrible leader?” BBC. September 30, 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24300094.

Simkin, John. “Robert Vansittart.” Spartacus Educational. April 2016. http://spartacus-educational.com/Robert_Vansittart.htm.

North Korea is a mistake of history created by outside forces. It has nuclear weapons, improving missiles and the world’s most brutal totalitarian regime. It is a threat to its own people, to its neighbors and to the stability of East Asia. Its regime limps along despite an impoverished population and a critically inefficient command economy, which it refuses to reform. American policy on North Korea gives the pervading sense that the US is merely treading water, trying only to prevent the situation from getting worse while hoping that the problem will be solved internally. As a nation which claims to lead the free world, to defend basic human rights and to stand for nuclear non-proliferation, America has a responsibility to do more.

The US needs a greater sense of urgency in its approach to the North Korean regime’s human-rights abuses, weapons programs and exports, and aggressive behavior against US allies. The 372-page United Nations investigation into human rights violations in North Korea, issued on February 17^th, 2014, is the most damning and comprehensive report to date. It details North Korea’s extensive prison network, which holds an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners subjected to inhuman conditions, torture, and the constant threat of execution.[1] The Chairman of the UN commission releasing the report, Michael Kirby, compared the Kim regime’s atrocities to the Nazis’ in the Holocaust.[2] Meanwhile, as its 25 million citizens live in squalid poverty under the threat of incarceration for deviant thoughts, the Kim regime – living in luxury – directs state resources towards a massive military, including advancing missile and nuclear programs. In addition to threatening US allies South Korea and Japan, North Korea shows an alarming enthusiasm for shipping weapons and technologies to other rogue regimes and to terrorist groups. The Kim regime maintains close ties with Assad’s Syria and has sent arms to Hezbollah and Hamas via Iran, and has a history of threatening nuclear proliferation.[3] The international community and the US have a responsibility to end North Korea’s nuclear technology and weapons trafficking, to protect stability and vulnerable civilian populations in East Asia, and to stand up for the basic human rights of 25 million North Koreans.

Regardless of US policy, the Kim regime is on a road to ruin, as its economy rots and citizens learn about free exchange and the outside world through black markets. North Korea wears the scars of an inefficient, crumbling Stalinist economy. The country’s food rationing system has not worked properly since environmental factors, government incompetence and the loss of Soviet support brought between 600,000 and 2.5 million deaths in the 1994-1998 famine.[4] Today, most North Koreans live in extreme poverty; a 2013 UN investigation found that food consumption is “borderline or poor” in 84% of North Korean households, and malnutrition and even starvation are widespread.[5] This economy could only find new life in market-oriented reform, which is off the table. Any hope that Kim Jong-un would adopt such a path suffered a critical blow when he publicly executed his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, who was the chief North Korean envoy to Beijing and an advocate of Chinese-style economic reform.[6] The regime fears, perhaps correctly, that any reform might begin a fatal loosening of its political grip. Informal liberalization through black markets has already increased North Korean citizens’ willingness to express dissent. These markets emerged during the 1990s famine when, for survival, North Korean citizens had to turn to market exchange instead of the broken government food-distribution system. Ever since, this activity has become entrenched throughout the country, decreasing citizens’ dependence on the government and providing extensive opportunities for smuggling goods and information from the outside world. The regime has tried to curtail this activity, most notably in 2009 with a “currency reform” which wiped out the private wealth of trading citizens. Instead of silence, citizens responded with anger and riots across North Korea, forcing the government to take an unprecedented step back. It offered some subsidies as compensation for losses, and even publicly executed the official identified as having come up with the idea.[7] This event proved to the regime that any economic liberalization, which will increase free trading, could bring serious challenges to the regime’s political authority. As a result, the regime does not appear to be considering a change in course even though its current path is unsustainable. This state of affairs, and the Kim regime, cannot continue indefinitely.

US policy on North Korea has settled into a safe but stagnant pattern, and must be reevaluated and reinvigorated. The US remains officially committed to using the “stick” of new sanctions and the “carrot” of aid to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. However, North Korea has a long history of signing agreements and breaking them later, while the aid and sanctions relief it receives in the meantime only help to prop the Kim regime up. Regardless of which tools the US uses, the Kim regime will not willingly give up its nuclear weapons. North Korean officials carefully watched what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, whose falls suggest that giving up nuclear weapons programs surrenders the only effective deterrent against US-imposed regime change. The Kim regime will not give up this pillar of its defense. The US, meanwhile, cannot simply wait the regime out. The only way for the regime to cede power peacefully is probably through the unlikely route of long-term economic reform, and more realistic options – an internal uprising, a sudden regime implosion or even a conventional war – range from the dangerous to the disastrous. These outcomes will risk humanitarian crises and North Korean use of nuclear weapons. This unstable situation is one of the reasons the US has failed to take a more active policy position on North Korea, but doing nothing is not the answer. Encouraging broad-based change among North Korean citizens themselves could help bring about regime change, while gradual grassroots pressure from within will carry less risk than will sudden crises or the intervention of outside powers. North Korean citizens proved with their fiery response to the regime’s 2009 currency “reform” that they are capable of making the government change course, and the US can help them. First, the US should encourage defection from North Korea. Escaped ordinary North Korean citizens have proven to be extremely dedicated and effective in the battle to smuggle outside news into their country, weakening the regime. Elite defectors, if they could be drawn away by a combination of US guarantees and the occasionally lethal politics of Pyongyang, could also provide the US with essential information on the internal workings of the North Korean government. Despite the importance of this information to American policy, US officials have admitted that in this field they are far behind China.[8] Second, the US should support non-governmental civil society organizations which smuggle pamphlets, radios, DVDs and even USB drives into North Korean black markets. These groups’ combined annual budgets do not exceed $1 million,[9] and the US. can significantly expand their efforts to expose North Korean citizens to the outside world by increasing the organizations’ funding. It can also help these groups with diplomatic support, especially in China, where their activities are often illegal. Current US policy towards North Korea is ineffective, almost apathetic, and American policymakers need to take a fresh look at what can be done to affect the situation on the ground for the better.

Finally, the US’ most difficult but potentially most effective option on North Korea is to quietly bring China to the table. Providing essential aid and diplomatic support, China is a vital pillar of the Kim regime’s existence, maintaining North Korea as a buffer state between its own border and American troops in US-allied South Korea. US outreach to China on this issue would have to be entirely secret, would only be able to pursue limited goals – China will not help to topple the Kim regime, at least not under current conditions – and might be rejected outright. However, even a less tolerant Chinese attitude towards North Korea could have significant implications in forcing the regime to change its course. To pursue this outcome, the US should work to assuage China’s fears of losing North Korea as a buffer state. It should be able to promise that, in the event of a regime fall and Korean reunification, the US military will never establish any bases north of the current DMZ. It can also pledge that if American forces must enter North Korea to help South Korean troops secure the North’s nuclear weapons, those troops will stay away from China’s border and withdraw once their objectives are complete. For its part, South Korea can restate its policy that it does not have an interest in nuclear weapons, and it could promise that in the event of reunification it will end the North’s program and that it will neutralize the weapons already made. The US and South Korea could promise to bear a certain share of the cost and responsibility of assisting North Korean refugees, millions of whom China fears will flood across its border in the event of a collapse. In addition, any discussion between China and the US will help prevent disastrous miscalculation if, in the event of a sudden collapse, outside powers have to intervene quickly without time to communicate their intentions and coordinate their actions. As unlikely as it is to be met with a positive reception, the US must still try to open a dialogue with China on the future of North Korea. Any reduction in Chinese support, or prior discussion in case a sudden collapse requires rapid response, could help push events in a better direction and prevent disaster.

The North Korean regime is a threat to its own people, to East Asia and to the world. Inside the country, black-market activity is pushing North Korean citizens to become increasingly self-reliant and knowledgeable of the outside world, and less willing to take government abuse. If the regime continues to refuse change, its fall is inevitable; the only question is how many more years and how much more suffering must come to pass before that day. The US can push events in a positive direction by realizing the failures of its past policy, by encouraging defection from North Korea and by aiding civil-society organizations which smuggle outside knowledge into the country. Only by communicating with China, however, can the US constrain the Kim regime’s flexibility and create contingency plans in case a regime implosion necessitates rapid outside intervention. A diplomatic breakthrough with the Chinese, even in secret, may be unlikely. Nevertheless, with a moral imperative to end the Kim regime, the knowledge that the regime will inevitably collapse unless it rapidly changes its course, and a lack of unilateral options to create change on the ground, the US must try every option at its disposal. Anything less is a failure of American ideals and American policy.

Stephen Mettler (’18) is a sophomore in Saybrook College.

Endnotes

[1] “World Report 2014: North Korea,” World Report 2014: North Korea, Human Rights Watch.

[2] Hunter Stuart, “North Korea Atrocities ‘Strikingly Similar’ To Nazis, UN Says.,” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 Feb. 2014.

[3] Davis, Carlo. “North Korea’s Weapons Trade: A Look at A Global Business.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 July 2013.

[4] Joshua Stanton and Sung-yoon Lee, “Pyongyang’s Hunger Games,” The New York Times, The New York Times, 07 Mar. 2014.

[5] Agence France Presse, “Widespread Malnutrition Still the Norm in North Korea Despite Increase In Food Production,” Business Insider, Business Insider, Inc., 28 Nov. 2013.

[6] Sue Terry, “A Korea Whole and Free,” Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, July-Aug. 2014.

[7] Adrian Hong, “How to Free North Korea,” How to Free North Korea, Foreign Policy, 19 Dec. 2011.

[8] Robert D. Kaplan and Abraham M. Denmark, “The Long Goodbye: The Future North Korea,” World Affairs Journal, World Affairs, May-June 2011.

[9] Thor Halvorssen and Alexander Lloyd, “We Hacked North Korea with Balloons and USB Drives,” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 15 Jan. 2014.