FRANCE: June and September

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The hour was 1 :28 a. m., September 30. Out of the great double doors of the conference room of the palatial Führerhaus, in Munich, walked four European statesmen. The expressions on their faces told the story of what had happened.

Adolf Hitler, triumphant, tried to conceal his jubilation. By threats he had cracked the tough little nut of Czechoslovakia and already could feel its meat crunching between his teeth.

Benito Mussolini was ogreishly saturnine. He had bet on the winner.

Neville Chamberlain tried to look like a statesman—imperturbable—but inwardly he was rubbing his hands; he was sure that he had avoided a war which would have been bad business, had got gracefully out of an embarrassing moral obligation to the Czechs, had thrown a cheap sop that would convert a troublesome fellow into a reasonable man with whom Chamberlain could henceforth make profitable connections in this best of all possible worlds.

The fourth man of the party had an entirely different outlook on the world. He, the son of a maker of French bread and pastry, had gone in to sit in conference with Europe's biggest three statesmen. The occasion should have crowned his career. But he came out morosely. He knew he had taken a terrific licking.

He was still Edouard Daladier, but he had grave doubts how much longer he would remain Premier of France. At that conference he had written off, as a total loss, the strong alliances which since the World War had kept France the biggest power in Europe. He had been caught in a corner, trapped because he had not dared break the first rule of modern French politics—never antagonize England. The French people might forgive Edouard Daladier for breaking his Government's word, pledged until only a fortnight before, that France would fight before yielding Czechoslovakia, but he could not expect them to forgive him for what he had allowed to happen to France.

After a few hours' sleep in Munich, Edouard Daladier flew back to Paris a worn, tired, nervous, scared man. In the plane he stiffened his courage by downing a few more pastis (a legal absinthe drink) than usual. As he alighted from the plane at Le Bourget, Paris airport, and saw a big crowd waiting, he grabbed the arm of an aide, exclaimed in apprehension: "My God, where are the Mobile Guards?"

But he needed no protection. The crowd, including many women and children, began to yell "Vive Daladier! Vive la Paix!" Flowers were strewn in his path. An impromptu parade was organized for him. France had expected war at any hour. Few men bothered then to inquire what price had been paid for peace. Daladier struck while the emotion was hot, called the French Parliament to a short, 23-hour session to ratify what he had done. Presented thus with an accomplished fact, the realistic deputies voted approval 535-to-75, almost lone objectors being the intransigent Communists. So Edouard Daladier stayed on as Premier of the France that had lost two cubits from her stature.