Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement, sometimes referred to as the Munich Betrayal, was an international treaty partitioning Czechoslovakia.
History
Threats
Hitler supported separatist movements in the Sudetenland, a borderland of Czechoslovakia that was ethnically German. There was popular belief that Germans were discriminated and persecuted in Czechoslovakia. Beneš declared martial law to counter Germanic nationalism. Hitler declared that Germany would invade Czechoslovakia if the Sudetenland were not surrendered by October 1, 1938.
Within the Sudetenland was the historic Polish region of Trans-Olza, and Bohumin (Bogumin) in particular. As a strategic rail city and as a result of the rift created by the Spa Conference, Moscicki also had been developing plans to seize this region. Hitler's overt political moves accelerated Polish plans. Moscicki made a parallel threat of invasion to the Hrad.
Beneš appealed to the USSR, who had already begun mobilization in Ukraine and Belarus alongside threats to dissolve the Soviet-Polish Nonagression Pact. Soviet planes were moved into Czech airfields and Czechoslovakia began to mobilize its own army.
Arbitration
In late September, the British, French, and Italian governments intervened diplomatically. By September 30th, they came to agreement that Germany could annex the Sudetenland; the surrender would be completed by October 10th. The Czechoslovak government was told that rejecting the agreement would lead to them being recognized as the aggressor in the ensuing war.
Given the concurrent Polish invasion, Beneš was forced to comply.
Polish Invasion
Poland invaded Trans-Olza on October 2nd and rapidly annexed Trans-Olza.
Hitler informally accepted this development. The international reaction to the Munich Agreement was now blunted by the reaction to the Polish invasion.
Polinization policies were established and national governmental control was instituted over a locality that had previously enjoyed significant autonomy and multiculturalism as a way to maintain tenuous peace. Czech schools had generally been better funded and sociopolitically advantageous compared to the Polish schools, and the new administration had swiftly banned both the German and Czech languages. Socialists grabbed onto overt discrimination (as opposed to the covert discrimination of segregated schools) as a political platform.
Legacy
The Czechoslovak defense strategy rested on mountain fortifications in the Sudetenland, so they were left largely defenseless.
One month after the Munich Agreement, the First Vienna Award saw Hungary annex the southern parts of Carpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia that were largely ethnically Hungarian. Spiš and Orava were also annexed by Poland.