Maxime Tandonnet notably published
André Tardieu.
The misunderstood
(Perrin, 2019) and
Georges Bidault: from the Resistance to French Algeria
(Perrin, 2022).
He teaches foreigners and nationality law at the University of Paris XII.
To discover
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“
Yesterday Daladier and Chamberlain, today Le Pen and Orban, we are in Munich in 1938
,” declared Valérie Hayer, head of the Renaissance list, thus setting the tone for her European election campaign.
On September 12, 1938, in Nuremberg, in front of a fanatic crowd, Hitler demanded the annexation to Germany of the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia, a country allied to France and friend of the United Kingdom.
However, at the end of the Munich conference on September 30, provoked by Mussolini as a last chance to avoid a war in Europe, Daladier, Chamberlain, the
Duce
and the
Führer
signed two agreements giving satisfaction to the latter.
On his return, the President of the French Council was celebrated as a hero.
“
Ah, the idiots, if they only knew
,” he is said to have declared in front of the popular jubilation.
Not only did these agreements of sinister memory not save the peace but they undoubtedly favored the debacle of May-June 1940 by giving Hitler's Germany time to arm itself more and increase its air superiority.
However, these Munich agreements have become, from the second half of the 20th century, an almost systematic reference or even a propaganda tool for supporters of the use of armed force in circumstances which have absolutely no relation to the Europe at the end of the 1930s. More than a myth, the infamous compromise of September 30, 1938 has become a sort of cream pie which never fails to resurface as soon as a political arbitration has to be made between a military solution or negotiated.
“
The US defeat in Vietnam temporarily discredited the Munich amalgam, which Lyndon Johnson and his Secretary of State Dean Rusk invoked
ad nauseam
to convince the American electorate of the need for intervention in Vietnam.
Indisputably, Munich propelled the United States into Vietnam
,” writes historian Jeffrey Record in a salutary article, entitled “
Use and Abuse of History
” published by the journal
Politique Étrangère
(2005, n°3).
Temporarily, of course!
Because the same obsessive fixation resurfaced to justify the disastrous American intervention in Iraq in 2003. The neoconservative Richard Perle, influential president of the Defense Board Policy, cited the lesson of Munich to justify the necessity of the war: "
Certainly, action to overthrowing Saddam could precipitate the advent of what we want to avoid, the use of chemical and biological weapons.
But the danger posed by these weapons will only increase as the arsenal increases.
A preemptive strike against Hitler, in the time of Munich, would have meant immediate war, avoiding the one that came later.
Later was much worse...
" But these weapons of mass destruction did not exist and the lie of the American leaders of the time plunged the Middle East into indescribable chaos marked by the advent of Daesh, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people including the annihilation of the Christians of Iraq.
At the height of absurdity, the concept of "Munichois" should therefore apply to the entire Western world, including the most ardent current opponents of the spirit of Munich invoked once again despite common sense.
Maxime Tandonnet
The disadvantage of overusing historical comparisons is that it distorts the appreciation of contemporary tensions by applying lessons learned from a situation that has no real connection to the present.
Making the Munich agreements a banal object of political communication amounts to blurring the perception of events which occur in circumstances radically different from those of the end of the 1930s. Certainly the use of force may be inevitable depending on the circumstances;
However, anachronism or absurd amalgamations, by blurring the benchmarks of intelligence, by weighing in favor of armed interventions which proved disastrous, have undoubtedly contributed to aggravating the planetary chaos since the end of the Second World War.
Moreover, Pierre Mendès France was also treated as a Munich resident at the time of the Geneva agreements granting independence to Indochina in 1954;
the same insult was leveled at the opponents of the disastrous and humiliating Franco-British expedition against Nasser's Egypt in 1956 and de Gaulle himself was treated as a Municher for his policy of Algerian independence (1959-1962).
In fact, the endless accusation of Munich-mindedness is just as absurd regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Because 2024 is not 1938. Hitler's Germany of the late 1930s, fanaticized, presented itself as an almost invincible power which was to defeat Poland in a few days and France (supposedly the first army in the world) in three weeks ... But Russia has been held in check for two years by the 50th world power.
Nuclear deterrence has become an essential part of the problem, obviously non-existent in 1938. The tragedy of the Munich agreements comes in part from the betrayal by France of an alliance treaty with Czechoslovakia which has no equivalent with Ukraine.
And then, today's Russia is not animated by the equivalent of
Mein Kampf
announcing the destruction of France, the enslavement of Europe and the genocidal intentions of the
Führer.
Also readThe week of FigaroVox - “Are we in 1914 or 1938?”
The question that was posed at the time of the Munich agreements was that of the entry into war of democracies to save Czechoslovakia.
However, the question does not even arise today since no Western state plans to enter into direct conflict with Russia to defend Ukraine (beyond some boasting).
At the height of absurdity, the concept of "Munichois" should therefore apply to the entire Western world, including the most ardent current slayers of the spirit of Munich invoked once again despite common sense.
This observation in no way excuses Putin's regime and obviously does not lead to a questioning of Western support for Ukraine, but it does underline that when the time comes and if the circumstances are right, this anachronistic obsession which relies heavily on a logic of posture – that of the anti-Munichois in an operetta –, should not obstruct the search for a peace solution.