The seeds of the crisis were planted at the Paris peace conference of 1919. There, the victorious Allies carved the new nation of Czechoslovakia out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
But instead of following their principle of self-determination, the Allies placed under the rule of 7 million Czechs 3 million Germans, 3 million Slovaks, 800,000 Hungarians, 150,000 Poles and 500,000 Ruthenians. These foolish decisions spat upon Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points, under the terms of which the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians had laid down their arms.
By 1938, Germany had arisen, re-armed and brought Austria into the Reich, and was demanding the right of self-determination now be granted to the 3 million Germans in Czechoslovakia, who were clamoring to be free of Prague to rejoin their kinsmen.
Britain had no alliance with, and no obligation to fight for, the Czechs. But France did. And Britain feared that if Adolf Hitler used force to bring the Sudeten Germans back to German rule, France might fight. And if France declared war, Britain would be drawn in, and a second bloodbath would ensue as it had in 1914.
Chamberlain went to Munich because he did not believe that keeping 3 million Germans inside a nation to which they had been consigned against their will was worth a world war.
It is quite conceivable that all this would have been avoided had the United States not entered World War I.
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