Chamberlain was a Fool

In Tuesday's class, we argued whether the Munich agreement was a rational foreign policy exercise by Great Britain and France. Some argued that it was, given that the West wanted a counterweight to Soviet Russia and that Hitler presented a rational argument for expanding Germany to include all persons of German descent. However, I think the evidence shows otherwise. Germany had already shown expansionary ambitions, such as the re-militarization of the Rhineland in 1936. On the specific issue of the Sudetenland, as indicated here, Hitler initially wanted to immediately occupy the region to throw off Czech defenses. This should have signaled alarm bells among the French and English. Finally, Hitler's annexation of the entirety of the Czech Republic in March of 1939 should have made the West realize the necessity of war. They instead waited nearly six months until Germany's invasion of Poland to make that declaration.