The Balkans (dedikált példány) [antikvár]

Preface O, 'n a late-September evening in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain went on radio to address the nation regarding the growing international crisis surrounding events in Czechoslovakia. The Nazi-influenced Sudeten German minority in that state had precipitated a situation that threatened to result in a German invasion of the country. France had signed an alliance guaranteeing Czechoslovakia's security, and Britain was closely allied with France in case of any future hostilities. An invasion by Hitler's Germany would force both to live up to their treaty responsibilities. The frightening possibility of a costly and bloody European war loomed large, and naturally the British people were concerned. In the course of his address, Chamberlain, desperate to avoid a conflict, made the following comment: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing." The next day Hitler notified Chamberlain that he was willing to discuss a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The day after that, the British prime minister flew off to Munich, where he and French Premier Edward Daladier, under the delusion that peace thus would be assured, essentially caved in to Hitler's demands to dismember France's East European ally. Fear of spilling British blood to uphold Britain's moral responsibilities and ignorance of East European realities led Chamberlain to the Munich appeasement. Far from preventing the war he feared, his actions ultimately guaranteed its outbreak a year later. One cannot help but be struck by similarities between Chamberlain's reaction to the Sudeten crisis sixty-odd years ago and those of Western leaders to the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina that raged between 1992 and 1995. The same ignorance, befuddlement, and fear reflected in Chamberlain's telling remark characterized their efforts to end the Bosnian debacle. Apparently lacking any concrete understanding of the situation on the ground, caught off guard by the rapid and violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, and afraid that the resulting regional instability would threaten relationships in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU), the Western powers vacillated among inactivity, half measures, and appeasement of nationalist aggressors—anything to avoid costly, and potentially bloody, direct intervention—before finally manipulating the parties involved in the war into signing a tenuous agreement at Dayton, Ohio.