The Soviets, the Munich Crisis, and the Coming of World War II
Cambridge University Press, 1/22/2004
EAN 9780521830300, ISBN10: 0521830303
Hardcover, 236 pages, 23.1 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
The Munich crisis is everywhere acknowledged as the prelude to World War II. If Hitler had been stopped at Munich then World War II as we know it could not have happened. The subject has been thoroughly studied in British, French and German documents and consequently we know that the weakness in the Western position at Munich consisted in the Anglo-French opinion that the Soviet commitment to its allies - France and Czechoslovakia - was utterly unreliable. What has never been seriously studied in the Western literature is the whole spectrum of East European documentation. This book targets precisely this dimension of the problem. The Romanians were at one time prepared to admit the transfer of the Red Army across their territory. The Red Army, mobilised on a massive scale, was informed that its destination was Czechoslovakia. The Polish consul in Lodavia reported the entrance of the Red Army into the country. In the meantime, Moscow focused especially on the Polish rail network. All of these findings are new, and they contribute to a considerable shift in the conventional wisdom on the subject.
List of maps
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Foreword
Preface. A test case of collective security
Introduction. The nature of the problem
Part I. Background of the Munich Crisis
1. The shaky foundations of collective security
Moscow, Paris, London
2. Soviet-Romanian relations I
1934–8
3. Soviet-Romanian relations II
Summer 1938
Part II. Foreground
Climax of the Crisis
4. East awaiting West
5. The Red Army mobilises
6. Denouement
Part III. Conclusion
7. What the Red Army actually did
8. What the Red Army might feasibly have done
9. Epilogue
10. Assessment of Soviet intentions
Appendix 1. Pertinent paragraphs of the League of Nations Covenant
Appendix 2. Franco-Soviet and Czechoslovak pacts
excerpts
Selected source materials and literature
Index.