Today turns 82 one of the most infamous pages in the history of Italy and Europe. In the evening between 29 and 30 September of 1938, the heads of government of the great powers of the Old Continent (excluding Russia) met at Monaco of Bavaria. The meeting had been proposed in extremis by Benito Mussolini at the suggestion of the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. The other two seats around the table were occupied by the French premier, Edouard Daladier, and from the German fürer, Adolf Hitler. The goal of the summit was to appease the expansionism of Nazi Germany – in essence, to please it – and thus defuse the war for which everyone was preparing.
In March of that same year Hitler had achieved a resounding success with theConnection, the annexation of Austria (country of birth of the Fürer) to the German Reich. Once that front was closed, the Nazi leader had put a new claim on the table: this time Hitler was targeting the region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by the Sudetenland, over three million people of German descent.
In September 1938 Chamberlain flew twice to Germany to present compromise proposals to Hitler, but both times returned to London empty-handed. Monaco was an extreme, desperate attempt: in the end, together with Daladier, the British prime minister accepted a project formally presented by Italybut that actually he accepted Hitler's requests almost literally, providing for the annexation of the entire Sudetenland to the Reich. All without the Czechoslovakians even being consulted.
Upon returning home, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini were greeted by massive demonstrations of popular enthusiasm and acclaimed as heroes who had avoided war. But what was saved in Monaco was a fake peace, which destroyed the credibility of France and England, paving the way for new aggressions by the Nazis. “They could choose between dishonor and war – commented Winston Churchill – They have chosen dishonor. And they will have war".
