The news from Europe was worse than ever, with England and France agreeing to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and presenting a 'plan' of compromise to her. This plan was cynical in the extreme: it involved outright cession of the Sudeten areas; the autonomy of other regions containing a large German population; the 'neutralization' of Czechoslovakia in the event of a major conflict between other powers, and the usual 'guarantees' of her frontiers by England, France, Germany and Italy. The murderers were guaranteeing to respect the corpse! These terms, we believed, the present Czech Government would never accept. It had an army second to none. Its people had tasted years of true democracy. It had a munitions industry that any one could well have envied (many did). And so we expected that France would respect her previous commitments, that popular indignation in both France and England would bring about the fall of their respective cabinets. We were wrong.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The news from Europe was worse than ever, with England and France agreeing to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and presenting a 'plan' of compromise to her. This plan was cynical in the extreme: it involved outright cession of the Sudeten areas; the autonomy of other regions containing a large German population; the 'neutralization' of Czechoslovakia in the event of a major conflict between other powers, and the usual 'guarantees' of her frontiers by England, France, Germany and Italy. The murderers were guaranteeing to respect the corpse! These terms, we believed, the present Czech Government would never accept. It had an army second to none. Its people had tasted years of true democracy. It had a munitions industry that any one could well have envied (many did). And so we expected that France would respect her previous commitments, that popular indignation in both France and England would bring about the fall of their respective cabinets. We were wrong." in the context of "Alvah Bessie, Men in Battle: A Story of Americans in Spain (1939), p. 336-337" to mean that wisdom is timeless.