![]() ![]() On 25th May, Lord Halifax had a meeting Tomas Masaryk, the Czechoslovak minister in London, and told him the least that his country could "get away with" would be autonomy on "the Swiss model" combined with neutrality in foreign policy. At the same time he sent a diplomatic message which told the French they should not assume Britain would fight to save Czechoslovakia. Lord Halifax sent a message to Berlin which warned that if force was used Germany "could not count upon this country being able to stand aside". The French and Soviet governments pledged support to the Czechs. This led to rumours of Hitler preparing to use the incident as a pretext for invasion and there were reports of German troops assembling near the Czech border. It was reported that two Sudeten German motorcyclists had been shot dead by the Czech police. The Czech crisis reached the first of many dangerous points in May 1938. Eden replied that Chamberlain was attempting to "return to class warfare in its bitterest form". (5) Stanley Baldwin complained to Anthony Eden that his own work "in keeping politics national instead of party" had been rendered worthless. He became suspicious to the point of paranoia, employing Sir Joseph Ball, with the support of MI5, to gather information on the contacts and financial arrangements of his political opponents, and even to intercept their telephone calls. Philip Cunliffe-Lister (Lord Swinton), the Secretary of State for Air, criticised Chamberlain as "overly autocratic and intolerant of criticism". However, some members of his cabinet found him a difficult man. dominating Parliament but the country has not yet taken to him." If he wished, claimed Beaverbrook, he could "be Prime Minister for the rest of his life." Chamberlain told his sister that "as for the House of Commons there can be no question that I have got the confidence of our people as Stanley Baldwin never had it." (4) Bennett, that Chamberlain was "the best P.M. Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the highest selling newspaper in Britain told the former Canadian Prime Minister Richard B. The probability is that the delay will not exceed two or three months at most, unless France and England provide the deterrent, for which cooler heads in Germany are praying." (3)Ĭhamberlain believed his appeasement policy was very popular with the British people. Christie warned that the "crucial question is: How soon will the next step against Czechoslovakia be tried?. Later that month, Hugh Christie, an MI6 agent, working in Nazi Germany, told headquarters that Hitler would be ousted by the military if Britain joined forces with Czechoslovakia against Germany. Hitler told him "that demands should be made by the Sudeten German Party which are unacceptable to the Czech government." Henlein later summarised the comments: "We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied." Hitler suggested that once a crisis was established, he would be willing to send German troops into Czechoslovakia. In March 1938, Adolf Hitler advised Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten Germans, on his political campaign. Henderson's biographer, Peter Neville, pointed out: "So strong was this conviction that he sometimes erred on the side of prejudice against the Czechs and their president, Beneš". Lord Halifax recommended that the British government should apply pressure on President Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia to give up the Sudetenland, with its largely German-speaking population, to Germany. The population consisted of Czechs (51%), Slovaks (16%), Germans (22%), Hungarians (5%) and Rusyns (4%). Before the conflict it had been part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Hitler's main concern was over Czechoslovakia, a country that had been created after the allied victory in the First World War. Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin, told Chamberlain that we would lose a war with Nazi Germany. Neville Chamberlain now appointed fellow appeaser, Lord Halifax, as his new foreign secretary. ![]() Anthony Eden resigned on 21st February, 1938. ![]()
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