How Czechoslovakia helped provoke war

The Invasion of Czechoslovakia

Historians think that Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 was a major step in the coming of war:

 1.    It utterly discredited Appeasement.  If Munich was the 'high-point' of appeasement, the invasion of Czechoslovakia showed that appeasement would never manage to stop Hitler, because Hitler simply did not keep the treaty promises he made.  Before Munich, 'appeasement' was about negotiating Hitler into being reasonable - it was after March 1939 that 'appeasement' began to acquire overtones of capitulation and weakness. 

 2.    It was the first time - as Chamberlain pointed out on 15 March 1939 - that Hitler had acquired a non-Germanic people.  Before March 1939, Hitler had been able to claim that his demands were reasonable, and that they only sought to redress the 'unreasonable' terms of the Treaty of Versailles (wasn't it reasonale that Germans should have the right to self-determination, as had been given to every other nation in Europe?) The acquisition of Czechoslovakia showed that Hitler was going beyond a 'reasonable' correction of Versailles, and instead seeking to dominate central and eastern Europe.  This is why William Shirer interpreted Chamberlain's Birmingham speech on 17 March 1939 - promising to resist Hitler if he was intended this - as such a turning point. 

 3.    It outraged the British people.  If the British public had cheered the Munich Peace in September 1939, suddenly huge numbers of people were demanding that something be done to stop Hitler - after March 1939, many people were 'up for a war', and everybody realised that war was the only way Hitler would be stopped. 

 4.    A glance at the map made it obvious that Poland would be next:

         Nobody believed that Hitler would stop with Czechoslovakia, and everybody realised that war was the only way Hitler would be stopped.

 5.    Czechoslovakia was one of the few remaining democracies in central/eastern Europe.  By annexing it, Hitler was destroying a democracy - which alarmed Britain, France and even President Rossevelt of the USA. 

 6.    The invasion of Czechoslovakia was so obviously unjust, that it gave the British the moral high gound; when war loomed, Britain was able to go to war 'to defend the right', rather than simply for self-interest...