The Munich Agreement doomed the first Czechoslovak Republic, paving the way for its March 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany eighty years ago. Chamberlain famously proclaimed ‘peace for our time’ on his return from the Munich conference, while Daladier muttered: ‘the fools, if only they knew what they are cheering’. The Czechoslovaks knew all along. As for the Germans, they were not as united behind Hitler as is sometimes believed. P.E. Caquet, author of the recently-published The Bell of Treason: the 1938 Munich Agreement in Czechoslovakia, will present these differing perspectives and explain how they made possible the tragedy that was Munich.

Professor Caquet is a historian at the University of Cambridge, where he completed his PhD, and a senior member of the Cambridge College Hughes Hall. He has published on various nineteenth and twentieth-century international history topics, including The Orient, the Liberal Movement, and the Eastern Crisis of 1839-41 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2016) and The Bell of Treason: the 1938 Munich Agreement in Czechoslovakia (Profile Books, 2018). The Bell of Treason, published in the UK last year and expected for release in the US and the Czech Republic this year, is a history of the Munich Agreement centred around events in Czechoslovakia. Prior to studying at Cambridge, Mr Caquet lived for ten years in Prague, where he pursued a business career. More information on www.pecaquet.com.