The political pressures of the crisis were enormous, leading to Nazis getting to power in Germany in 1933. Germany’s revival is marked by several achievements that strenghtened its’ position in the international arena. It started already in 1920s with Dawes and Young’s plans and the Locarno conference, which forgave Germany the reparations and admitted it into international playground as a recognized player. Locarno, and the entire later development, resulted in basically guaranteeing the frontiers of states west of Germany, but giving it a free hand in Central and Eastern Europe. What is more, Germans seemed always counted with British neutrality to their line of attack. Britain was in much weaker position than before the First World War. Apart from the consequences of the Great Depression, it started to lose its’ old fame – it experienced relative decline in the world trade, the London City was not the center of the world economic system anymore and therefore could not influence the European economy as the British Government would like. From the military point of view, United Kingdom voluntary limited its’ arms during the blind period of ‘liberal’ disarmament of 1920s and even after Hitler’s accession to power in Germany. Therefore, the British foreign policy was rather evasive one, trying to take no unnecessary decisions that might imply a commitment to one of the Western European powers, keeping thus all possible options opened .
The British tried to insure the stability in Europe also by formal treaties. The fragile peace in the Mediterranian, destabilized by the Spanish Civil War, was to be held by Anglo-Italian agreement – signed on April 16, 1938 that improved relations between the two countries, and between France and Italy as well. This pact, unfortunately, did not prevent Italians from close collaboration in the Axis Berlin-Rome (later Berlin-Rome-Tokyo).
Czechoslovakia was a product of the First World War, but a very successful one. It developed democracy and preserved it until its’ destruction, contrary to all its’ neighbors. Its’ only problem (and that was imposed rather externally) were minorities, in our case the German one, counting about 3 million residents. The following figure shows the areas with predominantly German-speaking population according to 1931 census.

Figure 1 – German-speaking Regions of Czechoslovakia








The British played the international game very ambiguously. Still the power number one, Britain played the leading role in European affairs.