After World War I the Treaty of Versailles was the most important treaty of the Peace of Paris, for it spelled the details of the Allied peace settlement with Germany. The treaty reduced and restricted Germany territorially and stripped it of all of its overseas colonies too. It was also demanded that Germany had to pay reparations for the damages it caused during the war and the costs of the Allies for fighting in it. Separate peace agreements were signed with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey. The Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires disappeared and new nations rose from the breakup. .
The Treaty of Versailles left Germany weakened and humiliated as well as deprived of its great-power status. In 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany. When he had absolute power he took the title of Der Fuhrer, or "the leader"; his government was called the Third Reich and his main aim was to restore Germany's military might to which he ignored the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles: he began to increase the army size, began producing weapons and wanted to expand Germany's territory. .
The Munich Conference joined the British Prime Minister Chamberlain, the Italian Prime Minister Mussolini, the French Premier Daladier and Adolf Hitler on September 29th, 1938. Hitler demanded self-determination for the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia were a lot of German people lived. In this conference, "Britain, France, and Italy agreed upon Czechoslovakia giving territory gained in the Versailles treaty back to Germany." The problem was that there was not a Czechoslovakian representative at the Conference, nor a Soviet one. The fear to war made the former Allies to quickly surrender to Hitler's demands as he promised to respect Czechoslovakia's sovereignty. .
On March 15th, 1939, Hitler sent his armies into Czechoslovakia and it soon became a German puppet state. The illusion that peace would last soon vanished and the West had to begin preparing for eventual war.
