ABSTRACT
In the immediate afterglow of Munich, it seemed at last that Europe was close to the general settlement Chamberlain wanted. German reaction to the Munich Agreement was quite different. Though Hitler was willing to sign expressions of goodwill with Britain, France he was privately furious at the frustration of his plans for war with Czechoslovakia. The integrity of the Czech state was undermined by deliberate German efforts to encourage Slovak separatism. On 15 March 1939 the Czech President was forced to invite German troops to enter Czechoslovakia on the pretext that it was now ungovernable, faced with incipient civil war. German relations with Poland had been distant but cordial since the signing of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Treaty in 1934. The Pact of Steel upset British and French calculations that Mussolini might be detached from Germany as part of the strategy of containing Hitler. It confirmed French mistrust and hostility towards Italy, hardened the military collaboration between the two western states.
