Ebook: The change in the European balance of power, 1938-1939 : the path to ruin

The origins of this study lie in the spring of 1970 when, in a research seminar, I undertook to study the military aspects of the Czech erisis of 1938. As I became familiar with the period, I eame to feel that, although the 1938 crisis was of great importance in delineating the shift in the European balance of power, it formed only a part of a larger picture. To understand the historical process, the entire period from March 1938 through to the winter of 1939-1940 must be seen as a whole.
This study aims to achieve such an understanding. It looks at the strategic, economic, and military situations over the period and then considers them in relation to the actual course of events. It attempts to clarify not only the real strategic positions but the differing percep¬ tions of them by military leaders and statesmen. Above all, this study tries to describe the impact of military and strategic factors in peace as well as in war.
Only by discussing the processes through which policy evolved, by considering the misperceptions and miscalculations that guided policy ^ makers, and by comparing their views with the actual strategic situation can one understand what went wrong in the late thirties. As in any era, politicians and military leaders faced immense difficulties in the formation of policy. What in retrospect may seem clear and obvious was not necessarily so at the time. For nearly all the strategic missteps there were seemingly good and logical reasons for taking what in retrospect was the wrong course. Yet, in the final analysis. Hitler more often than not made correct strategic decisions, while the Allied leaders did not. That difference alone suggests that something was indeed wrong with the response of the Western Powers to the crisis occasioned by the rise of Nazi Germany.