A Total and Unmitigated Defeat was a speech by Winston Churchill in the House of Commons at Westminster on Wednesday, 5 October 1938, the third day of the Munich Agreement debate. Signed five days earlier by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, the agreement met the demands of Nazi Germany in respect of the Czechoslovak region of Sudetenland.
Churchill spoke for 45 minutes to criticise the government for signing the agreement and, in general, for its policy of appeasement. The speech officially ended Churchill's support for the government's appeasement policy. Churchill had hoped for a reasonable settlement of the Sudetenland issue, but he was adamant that Britain must fight for the continued independence of Czechoslovakia. Among his criticisms of the government, Churchill said that the Soviet Union should have been invited to take part in the negotiations with Hitler.
Although it was one of Churchill's most famous speeches, the Commons voted 366 to 144 in support of a motion in favour of the government's signing of the agreement. Despite their stated opposition to the agreement, Churchill and his Conservative Party supporters chose to abstain, and did not vote against the motion.
Background
Churchill in 1938
In 1938, Winston Churchill was a backbench MP who had been out of government office since 1929. He was the Conservative member for Epping. From the mid-1930s, alarmed by developments in Germany, he had consistently emphasised the necessity of rearmament and the buildup of national defences, especially the Royal Air Force. Churchill strongly opposed the appeasement of Hitler, a policy by which the British government, led by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, hoped to maintain peace in Europe.
Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland
The First Czechoslovak Republic was created in 1918 as an amalgam of territories that had belonged to Austria-Hungary. Among its citizens were three million ethnic Germans, accounting for 22.95% of the total population. Most Germans lived in the Sudetenland, a region that bordered Germany and Austria. Sudetenland was the most industrialised area of Czechoslovakia and relied heavily on exports for regional prosperity. The economy of the region was badly hit by the Great Depression after the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. Unemployment escalated, especially among Sudeten Germans, and in 1933, inspired by Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Konrad Henlein founded the Sudeten German Party (SdP), which publicly asked for regional autonomy but secretly sought the union of Sudetenland with Germany.
Soon after the Anschluß, Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, Henlein met Hitler in Berlin and was instructed to present the so-called Karlsbader Programm to the Czechoslovak government, led by President Edvard Beneš. The document amounted to a series of demands that Czechoslovakia could not accept, principally autonomy for all Germans living in the country. Hitler and Goebbels launched a propaganda campaign in support of the SdP. As Hitler had intended, tensions rose until by September, the outbreak of war seemed immininent.
Czechoslovakia needed the support of other European powers, especially Britain and France. Writing in the Evening Standard on 18 March, Churchill called upon Chamberlain to declare with France that both countries would aid Czechoslovakia if it was subject to an unprovoked attack.
Chamberlain, however, had other ideas. He sympathised with the Sudeten Germans and, commenting on the French declaration, believed some arrangement should be made that "would prove more acceptable to Germany".
Escalation of crisis
Germany mobilised on 2 September, and the crisis came to a head on the 12th, when Hitler made a speech at Nuremberg in which he condemned the Czechoslovak government and accused it of atrocities and of denying rights of self-determination to the Sudeten Germans. On the 13th, Chamberlain decided to act and requested a meeting with Hitler to try to avert the possibility of war. Chamberlain met Hitler at Berchtesgaden on the 15th, but there was no conclusion. However, Hitler demanded for the Sudetenland to be ceded to Germany but claimed that he had no designs on the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain met French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier in London next day. They agreed that Czechoslovakia should cede to Germany all territories in which over 50% of the population were ethnic Germans. In exchange, Britain and France would guarantee the independence of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks rejected the proposal and the same day issued a warrant for Henlein's arrest.