ts and issues which surrounded it. The nature of the materials, which cover much of the same ground, do not lend themselves to a sharp structural division of this essay. In a general way, however, an attempt has been made to organize the discussion as follows. First, the issue of Munich is summarized. Then, an extended consideration is given to perspectives critical and relatively supportive of the decision reached by Britain and France, and in particular by Britain, the key Western player at that juncture. Attention is then given to perspectives on French behavior and policy, and then to those of the Soviet Union, the one European Great Power not represented at Munich. Finally, alternative possible outcomes are considered, conclusing with this writer's own evaluation of Munich and its significance.
"During the eighteen months before September 1939," writes Christopher Thorne in his book, The Approach of War, 1938-1939,
The Great Powers of Europe were nominally at peace;
never outside war had the continent known so sustained
a period of tension and fear. The conflict which
followed was Hitler's; seldom has the way of the
aggressor been so inviting. The circumstances in which
the outwardly bloodless conquests of these months took
place and the ease with which they were accomplished
were the work of other men and earlier events.
The post-Versailles map of Europe was potentially unstable at the outset; not without some reason did the Germans give the nickname Saisonstaaten--states doomed to exist only for a season--to the cobbled-together countries of Central Europe. Hostilities were complex and overlapping; all alliances were strained. And over all hung the dread memory of the First World War, a more recent event for Europeans of the late 1930s than the Vietnam War is for Americans today. "Appeasement" may have had a different meaning to diplomats of 1938 than it has for us today...