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In 1939, British politician Winston Churchill uttered these words: “between shame and war, we have chosen shame, and we will get war.” To what was Churchill referring?

User Pozuelog
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In this phrase, Winston Churchill blasted the foreign policy of prime minister Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940) and that of allied France, who chose to conform to Germany´s annexation of the Sudentenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938 in exchange for peace. Chamberlain wanted to avoid war at any cost. After Adolph Hitler´s aggresive move against a neighbor, Chamberlain flew to Munich and signed an accord with Hitler, the Munich Agreeement, in which the Nazi leader promised no more territorial expansion moves in the future. Hitler broke his promises and annexed more Czech territory. This outcome was called "appeasement" ; Churchill and other critics saw it as ineffective, as a free and shameful concession to an agressor. For the future prime minister and many others, appeasement was a wrong response that only encouraged more Nazi German agression. This interpretation became widely accepted in Western politics and diplomacy after WWII and is often quoted by those who critize aggresive policies by some states.

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