action when German troops re-militarizes the Rhineland in 1936 and for historian Ian Kershaw, the allies ‘let slip’ the last chance to stop Hitler and GB’s rearmament programme introduced by Chamberlain in 1936 was significantly behind Germany’s. Appeasement was the result of a belief that peaceful negotiation would bring security for Britain. The controversy stems from the simple fact that Chamberlain failed and Czechoslovakia was abandoned.

In a Parliamentary debate in October 1938 after the Munich Agreement had been signed, Winston Churchill, a strong critic of appeasement, stated ‘All is over, silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness’ highlighting the abandonment of a small state’s independence. Czechoslovakia lost 66 percent of of its coal industry, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power, depriving the nation of natural fortifications that left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. The autonomy of Czechoslovakia was sacrificed on the altar for short-term peace because, in the words of President Benes of Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland was ‘a long way from Great Britain and France’ and Germany had achieved what he wanted ‘the domination of Central Europe.’ The swift occupation of Moravia and Bohemia 6 months later and GB’s guarantee to Poland in the hope of making Hitler re-think, failed and war was declared. As early as 1940, the publication of Guilty Men by CATO spurned the policy of appeasement, criticising Chamberlain for ‘cowardice, a lack of wisdom and disregard of the principle of freedom and democracy’ as the expansionism of the Nazi regime and the nature of Nazi rule became all too apparent. Historian R.A.C Parker suggests that Chamberlain manipulated the public opinion to favour appeasement, a view supported by historian, Frank McDonough who argues he “deliberately deceived British public opinion with overly optimistic accounts of the prospects for lasting peace with Germany” and by preventing war over