Liliputins-133

In the last-ditch effort of trying to find a key for peace the Munich Agreement actually opened a can of wars ... "
Leo Tolstoy

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this ?
http://www.stihi.ru/2012/08/18/5368

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last–ditch adjective \;las(t)-;dich, -;dich\ :

made as a final effort to keep something bad from happening

Full Definition of LAST-DITCH

1:  fought or conducted from the last ditch :  waged with desperation or unyielding defiance <put up a last–ditch resistance>

2:  made as a final effort especially to avert disaster <a last–ditch attempt to raise the money>
 
Last Ditch Attempt"  What is the origin of this saying?
 
A ‘last ditch attempt’ is a last-minute attempt or an attempt to do something at the final opportunity to do so. This term has its origins in a speech by King William III of England in the late 17th century. He called upon all Englishmen to ‘fight and die
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A final try at doing something; the last possible attempt.

Example Usage:  I made one last-ditch effort to get her to stay but it was no use;  We are making a last-ditch effort to finish our work in time for the deadline.

Did you know…?  The expression ‘a last-ditch effort’ has its origins in military terminology.  The ‘last ditch’ was, in military terms, the last line of defence.



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What Does It Mean to "Open a Can of Worms"?

Metaphorically speaking, to open a can of worms means to inadvertently create numerous new problems while trying to solve one. Experts disagree on the origin of the phrase, but it is generally believed to be a Canadian or American metaphor coined sometime in the 1950s. Bait stores routinely sold cans of worms and other popular live baits to fishermen, who often discovered how easy it was to open them and how difficult it was to close them. Once the worms discovered an opportunity to escape, it became nearly impossible to keep them contained.

Some experts say the metaphor is a modern extension of Pandora's Box. In the original story, a mortal was warned not to open a box belonging to Pandora. When curiosity got the best of this mortal, she opened the box and inadvertently released numerous plagues on the world. According to legend, the only thing remaining in Pandora's box was a creature called Hope. In this same sense, to open a can of worms means to release a host of often irrevocable problems or complications. As long as the "can" remained sealed, there would be no harm.

It is rarely a good thing to open a can of worms, although the damage control process could prove to be cathartic. An accountant looking for answers to a tax problem could discover evidence of financial wrongdoing by his client, for example. The exposure of that one secret could set off a chain of events with even more dire consequences. Once the accountant decided to open the can, however inadvertently, the worms themselves triggered an entirely new set of problems. By exposing the truth to the light, however, the situation could now be handled honestly.

Sometimes the decision to open a can of worms does not work out so well. History is full of events in which the investigation of one problem has led to the exposure of dozens of other problems lurking beneath the surface. Investigations, such as the Washington Post inquiry into a break-in at the Watergate office complex in 1972, often expose scandals much bigger than the original story. There is often no elegant or efficient way to reseal the ugly truth once someone decides to reveal it.



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Munich Agreement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Munich Agreement was a settlement permitting Nazi Germany's annexation of portions of Czechoslovakia along the country's borders mainly inhabited by German speakers, for which a new territorial designation "Sudetenland" was coined. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe, without the presence of Czechoslovakia. Today, it is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement toward Germany. The agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 (but dated 29 September). The purpose of the conference was to discuss the future of the Sudetenland in the face of ethnic demands made by Adolf Hitler. The agreement was signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Sudetenland was of immense strategic importance to Czechoslovakia, as most of its border defenses were situated there, and many of its banks and heavy industries were located there as well.
Because the state of Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, it considered itself to have been betrayed by the United Kingdom and France, so Czechs and Slovaks call the Munich Agreement the Munich Dictat (Czech: Mnichovskэ diktбt; Slovak: Mnнchovskэ diktбt). The phrase "Munich Betrayal" (Czech: Mnichovskб zrada; Slovak: Mnнchovskб zrada) is also used because the military alliance Czechoslovakia had with France and Britain proved useless. Today the document is typically referred to simply as the Munich Pact (Mnichovskб dohoda).




Quotations from key participants

The Funeral of British Honour

To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian

Sir,

The flowers piled before 10, Downing Street are very fitting for the funeral of British honour and, it may be, of the British Empire. For sheer degradation the frenzies of last Friday beat even the night of Mafeking.

I appreciate the Prime Minister's love of peace. I know the horrors of war – a great deal better than he can. But when he returns from saving our skins from a blackmailer at the price of other people’s flesh, and waves, laughing with glee, a piece of paper with Herr Hitler’s name on it, if it were not ghastly, it would be grotesque. No doubt he has never read Mein Kampf in German. But to forget, so utterly, the Reichstag fire, and the occupation of the Rhineland, and June 30, 1934, and the fall of Austria! We have lost the courage to see things as they are. And yet Herr Hitler has kindly put down for us in black and white that programme he is so faithfully carrying out. (For he keeps his threats, though not his promises.) Alliance with Italy and England; the annihilation of France; the conquest for the German plough of the Ukraine; a Reich of 250,000,000. And then?

I may be wrong. No one can tell. There are no sure prophecies in politics, as even Bismarck owned. But just because all roads lead none knows whither, all the more reason to keep the straight path of honour. This is the really unpardonable thing in the conduct of Mr. Chamberlain. Even if what he did were the right thing to do, this was not the way to do it. Any really great man who had felt forced to sacrifice a small nation that trusted in him would at least have returned full of anguish and of shame. But Mr. Chamberlain, though he had good intentions, has no finer sense of honour. He lent himself with complacency to the shrieking adulation of a London that had lost all dignity, without one thought for the agony of Prague. Leaders should have some touch of finer mettle. Mr. Chamberlain, canting of "peace with honour," has debased the moral currency of England. And not for the first time; and not, I fear, for the last.

Meanwhile the past is past, however shameful. What now? If we have any respect we shall remedy at once that outrageous omission by which all Sudetens in Czech prisons are to be liberated, while no word is said of the Czechs dragged across the frontier into German captivity or arrested in Germany. Secondly, we shall compensate Czechoslovakia for the property we have forced her to leave to the invader – the machinery in Czech-owned factories, the fortifications, and their artillery, – which belonged to the Czech State as a whole, not to the Sudetens, as indefeasibly as the very streets of Prague. Thirdly, unless we propose to barricade ourselves behind pieces of paper kindly autographed by Herr Hitler, we shall look a little better to our defences, even if it means conscription in the near future.
 
[From a letter by F. L. Lucas of King's College, Cambridge, British anti-appeasement campaigner, to the Manchester Guardian, 4 October 1938]

 
Neville Chamberlain, wrote King George VI before the first meeting with Hitler in September, 1938:

Imperial England and Nazi Germany are "the two pillars of European peace and buttresses against communism."

Neville Chamberlain, announcing the deal at Heston Aerodrome:

... the settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ' ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.'[40]

Later that day he stood outside 10 Downing Street and again read from the document and concluded:

"My good friends, for the second time in our history a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time." (Chamberlain's reference to Beaconsfield's return from the Congress of Berlin in 1878)[40][41]

Chamberlain in a letter to his sister Hilda, on 2 October 1938:

"I asked Hitler about one in the morning while we were waiting for the draftsmen whether he would care to see me for another talk….I had a very friendly and pleasant talk, on Spain, (where he too said he had never had any territorial ambitions) economic relations with S.E. Europe, and disarmament. I did not mention colonies, nor did he. At the end I pulled out the declaration which I had prepared beforehand and asked if he would sign it. As the interpreter translated the words into German, Hitler said Yes, I will certainly sign it. When shall we do it? I said "now", and we went at once to the writing table and put our signatures to the two copies which I had brought with me."

Winston Churchill, denouncing the Agreement in the House of Commons:

"We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat ... you will find that in a period of time which may be measured by years, but may be measured by months, Czechoslovakia will be engulfed in the Nazi rйgime. We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude ... we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road ... we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting". And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time."