Although France is often seen as a transfer of the responsibility to the British, it had no other option. Its’ army was not well equipped and by far could not compete with the German air force. In the ‘air age’, the English Channel no longer sheltered Britain from distruction.
Although the USSR had always been stressing its’ willingness to stand by Czechoslovakia, it had very little possibilities of real action. First, according to pact, Russian troops were allowed to enter the country only after the French are already in. Second, the catch was that USSR did not share a common border with Czechoslovakia. For getting in, it needed to cross either Poland or Romania. And third, the Soviet Union was rather ignored by France and completely isolated by Britain when solving the Czechoslovakian problem.

The Summer of Munich
Starting the chronological part of this essay, we should mention the mission of Lord Runciman. On July 26, 1938, elderly Lord Runciman was sent to Czechoslovakia to examine and possibly suggest a solution to the not and not coming agreement between the Sudeten Germans and the Czechoslovak government. His person was meant to be neutral to the conflict, but he visited only German-speaking areas and got driven to their side. The Sudeten party was fully prepared for him. One of their leaders wrote:
“His Lordship must take away with him the impression that the situation in this State is so confused and difficult that it cannot be cleared up by negotiation or diplomatic action, that the blame for this lies exclisively with the Czechs, and thus that the Czechs are the real disturbers of peace in Europe.”

Nevertheless, he arranged a list of concessions with Czechoslovakian president Beneš, but Konrad Henlein (the Sudeten leader) rejected it, although it offered the Sudetens even more than they requested in their Karlsbad program on April 24, 1938.
What has to be stressed here, is that the control of the Sudeten movement was solely in Hitler’s hands. Henlein was literally said that he has to put forward requests that the Czech government cannot agree to. Therefore, the negotiations were a never-ending story where the Sudeten demands rose with time.
In the last days before Munich, the complete control of British foreign policy was in hands of Neville Chamberlain .
British feared the 12 September very much, the date of Nazi party meeting in Nürnberg, presumed to be the deadline of Hitler’s patience. It became known already in May that Hitler and his generals were drawing up a plan for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.