The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [186]
What, then, was Britain to do? Woollcombe had three proposals for the ‘immediate or near future’. First was the ‘peaceful separation from Czechoslovakia, and joining to Germany, of the Sudeten German areas’. This would ‘forestall the inevitable’, he argued. Czechoslovak ‘security and unity’, moreover, could never be maintained in ‘any solution which leaves the Sudetens in the State’. Indeed, there was now an opportunity ‘to leave intact a State which would be literally Czechoslovak - a compact, homogeneous, neutralised State under international guarantee’. Second, Woollcombe recommended that Britain endeavour to secure an Anglo-Italian agreement in order to weaken ‘the Rome-Berlin axis’; and third, he urged a settlement in Palestine, perhaps by partitioning the territory, but ‘on lines which went an appreciable way’ towards meeting Arab demands. This was ‘vital if we are not to risk having the Arab world (to which Germany is devoting increasing attention) against us, let alone the necessity of diminishing our growing military etc. commitments in Palestine’. In the longer term, it was clear that Britain ‘should unremittingly build up our armaments . . . Platitudinous though it may be,’ he argued, ‘our only chance of preserving peace is to be ready for war on any scale, without relying too much on outside support,’ though the existing ‘defensive alliance’ with France should be maintained and consolidated. ‘Franco-British strength and absolute solidarity’; friendly relations with Italy and (if possible) Japan, as well as ‘smaller States earmarked as “Vassals” of Germany . . . injecting them with resisting power and courage’ would all help to ensure ‘that Germany’s “style is cramped”’. He also proposed that Britain should cultivate friendship with Germany ‘as far as we can, and without sacrifice of our principles and vital interests’.
‘It may be argued’, he concluded, ‘that this would be giving in to Germany, strengthening Hitler’s position and encouraging him to go to extremes.’ It was better, however, ‘that realities be faced and that wrongs, if they do exist, be righted, than leave it to Hitler to do the righting in his own way and time - particularly if, concurrently, we and the French unremittingly build up our strength and lessen Germany’s potentialities for making trouble’. Sinclair endorsed Woollcombe’s paper - the Foreign Office copy is marked ‘View of S.I.S.’23 (and it also echoed the views Menzies had expressed to his French counterparts the previous October) - but it is not clear how influential it may have been, though it evidently accorded with the majority view in government. Replying to Sinclair on 20 September, Warren Fisher thought it ‘a most excellent document’, which confirmed ‘in our own rearming the vital need for rapid & effective strengthening of our air position’. He also believed that it was ‘air that must “hold the ring” for us - at all events in the initial months. It is thro’ air that the Germans can get at us, & had we used the last few years effectively in that arm, the Germans wd not have been able to override us as they have this present year.’
Over the weekend of 17/18 September both the British Cabinet and the French agreed to allow the annexation of the Sudetenland in exchange for a guarantee of the new borders. But, when Chamberlain returned to Germany on 22 September, he found Hitler had raised his demands. Not only did he now want to occupy the Sudetenland immediately, but he also insisted that Polish and Hungarian claims for Czechoslovak territory be met. This was more than the Cabinet would allow and it was decided to support France if it backed Czechoslovakia. Still seeking to avert war, and with Italy’s involvement, Chamberlain agreed to a conference in Munich between Germany, Britain, France and Italy. Here, on 29 September, it was confirmed that neither France nor Britain was prepared to go to war with Germany on behalf of Czechoslovakia and the country’s fate was sealed in the Munich Agreement, which effectively met Hitler’s raised