title: Jennifer Carpenter

text: On February 10, 2015, it was announced that Carpenter and musician Seth Avett were engaged and expecting their first child. In August 2015, it was revealed that Carpenter had given birth in May to a son and admitted that she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant when shooting the pilot episode of "Limitless". Carpenter and Avett married in May 2016.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate, , (also known as washing soda, soda ash and soda crystals) is the inorganic compound with the formula NaCO and its various hydrates. All forms are white, odourless, water-soluble salts that yield moderately alkaline solutions in water. Historically, it was extracted from the ashes of plants growing in sodium-rich soils. Because the ashes of these sodium-rich plants were noticeably different from ashes of wood (once used to produce potash), sodium carbonate became known as "soda ash". It is produced in large quantities from sodium chloride and limestone by the Solvay process.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The decahydrate is formed from water solutions crystallizing in the temperature range −2.1 to +32.0 °C, the heptahydrate in the narrow range 32.0 to 35.4 °C and above this temperature the monohydrate forms. In dry air the decahydrate and heptahydrate lose water to give the monohydrate. Other hydrates have been reported, e.g. with 2.5 units of water per sodium carbonate unit ("pentahemihydrate").


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate decahydrate (NaCO·10HO), also known as washing soda, is the most common hydrate of sodium carbonate containing 10 molecules of water of crystallization. Soda ash is dissolved in water and crystallized to get washing soda.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate serves as a flux for silica (SiO, melting point 1,713 °C), lowering the melting point of the mixture to something achievable without special materials. This "soda glass" is mildly water-soluble, so some calcium carbonate is added to the melt mixture to make the glass insoluble. Bottle and window glass ("soda-lime glass" with transistion temperature ~570 °C) is made by melting such mixtures of sodium carbonate, calcium carbonate, and silica sand (silicon dioxide (SiO)). When these materials are heated, the carbonates release carbon dioxide. In this way, sodium carbonate is a source of sodium oxide. Soda-lime glass has been the most common form of glass for centuries. It is also a key input for tableware glass manufacturing.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Hard water contains dissolved compounds, usually calcium or magnesium compounds. Sodium carbonate is used for removing temporary and permanent hardness of water.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: As sodium carbonate is water-soluble and magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate are insoluble, the former is used to soften water by removing Mg and Ca. These ions form insoluble solid precipitates upon treatment with carbonate ions:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate has several uses in cuisine, largely because it is a stronger base than baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) but weaker than lye (which may refer to sodium hydroxide or, less commonly, potassium hydroxide). Alkalinity affects gluten production in kneaded doughs, and also improves browning by reducing the temperature at which the Maillard reaction occurs. To take advantage of the former effect, sodium carbonate is therefore one of the components of , a solution of alkaline salts used to give Japanese ramen noodles their characteristic flavor and chewy texture; a similar solution is used in Chinese cuisine to make lamian, for similar reasons. Cantonese bakers similarly use sodium carbonate as a substitute for lye-water to give moon cakes their characteristic texture and improve browning. In German cuisine (and Central European cuisine more broadly), breads such as pretzels and lye rolls traditionally treated with lye to improve browning can be treated instead with sodium carbonate; sodium carbonate does not produce quite as strong a browning as lye, but is much safer and easier to work with.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate is used in the production of sherbet powder. The cooling and fizzing sensation results from the endothermic reaction between sodium carbonate and a weak acid, commonly citric acid, releasing carbon dioxide gas, which occurs when the sherbet is moistened by saliva.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate also finds use in food industry as a food additive (E500) as an acidity regulator, anticaking agent, raising agent, and stabilizer. It is also used in the production of "snus" to stabilize the pH of the final product.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: While it is less likely to cause chemical burns than lye, care must still be taken when working with sodium carbonate in the kitchen, as it is corrosive to aluminum cookware, utensils, and foil.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate is also used as a relatively strong base in various fields. As a common alkali, it is preferred in many chemical processes because it is cheaper than sodium hydroxide and far safer to handle. Its mildness especially recommends its use in domestic applications.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: For example, it is used as a pH regulator to maintain stable alkaline conditions necessary for the action of the majority of photographic film developing agents. It is also a common additive in swimming pools and aquarium water to maintain a desired pH and carbonate hardness (KH). In dyeing with fiber-reactive dyes, sodium carbonate (often under a name such as soda ash fixative or soda ash activator) is used to ensure proper chemical bonding of the dye with cellulose (plant) fibers, typically before dyeing (for tie dyes), mixed with the dye (for dye painting), or after dyeing (for immersion dyeing). It is also used in the froth flotation process to maintain a favourable pH as a float conditioner besides CaO and other mildly basic compounds.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium (NaHCO) or baking soda, also a component in fire extinguishers, is often generated from sodium carbonate. Although NaHCO is itself an intermediate product of the Solvay process, the heating needed to remove the ammonia that contaminates it decomposes some NaHCO, making it more economic to react finished NaCO with CO:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: In a related reaction, sodium carbonate is used to make sodium bisulfite (NaHSO), which is used for the "sulfite" method of separating lignin from cellulose. This reaction is exploited for removing sulfur dioxide from flue gases in power stations:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: This application has become more common, especially where stations have to meet stringent emission controls.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate is used by the cotton industry to neutralize the sulfuric acid needed for acid delinting of fuzzy cottonseed.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: It is also used to form carbonates of other metals by ion exchange, often with the other metals’ sulphates.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate is used by the brick industry as a wetting agent to reduce the amount of water needed to extrude the clay. In casting, it is referred to as "bonding agent" and is used to allow wet alginate to adhere to gelled alginate. Sodium carbonate is used in toothpastes, where it acts as a foaming agent and an abrasive, and to temporarily increase mouth pH.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The integral enthalpy of solution of sodium carbonate is −28.1 kJ/mol for a 10% w/w aqueous solution. The Mohs hardness of sodium carbonate monohydrate is 1.3.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Sodium carbonate is soluble in water, and can occur naturally in arid regions, especially in mineral deposits ("evaporites") formed when seasonal lakes evaporate. Deposits of the mineral natron have been mined from dry lake bottoms in Egypt since ancient times, when natron was used in the preparation of mummies and in the early manufacture of glass.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The anhydrous mineral form of sodium carbonate is quite rare and called natrite. Sodium carbonate also erupts from Ol Doinyo Lengai, Tanzania's unique volcano, and it is presumed to have erupted from other volcanoes in the past, but due to these minerals' instability at the earth's surface, are likely to be eroded. All three mineralogical forms of sodium carbonate, as well as trona, trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate, are also known from ultra-alkaline pegmatitic rocks, that occur for example in the Kola Peninsula in Russia.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Extraterrestrially, known sodium carbonate is rare. Deposits have been identified as the source of bright spots on Ceres, interior material that has been brought to the surface. While there are carbonates on Mars, and these are expected to include sodium carbonate, deposits have yet to be confirmed, this absence is explained by some as being due to a global dominance of low pH in previously aqueous Martian soil.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Trona, also known as trisodium hydrogendicarbonate dihydrate (NaHCOCO·2HO), is mined in several areas of the US and provides nearly all the US consumption of sodium carbonate. Large natural deposits found in 1938, such as the one near Green River, Wyoming, have made mining more economical than industrial production in North America.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: There are important reserves of trona in Turkey; two million tons of soda ash have been extracted from the reserves near Ankara.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: It is also mined from some alkaline lakes such as Lake Magadi in Kenya by dredging. Hot saline springs continuously replenish salt in the lake so that, provided the rate of dredging is no greater than the replenishment rate, the source is fully sustainable.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Several "halophyte" (salt-tolerant) plant species and seaweed species can be processed to yield an impure form of sodium carbonate, and these sources predominated in Europe and elsewhere until the early 19th century. The land plants (typically glassworts or saltworts) or the seaweed (typically "Fucus" species) were harvested, dried, and burned. The ashes were then "lixivated" (washed with water) to form an alkali solution. This solution was boiled dry to create the final product, which was termed "soda ash"; this very old name refers derives from the Arabic word "soda", in turn applied to salsola soda, one of the many species of seashore plants harvested for production. "Barilla" is a commercial term applied to an impure form of potash obtained from coastal plants or kelp.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The sodium carbonate concentration in soda ash varied very widely, from 2–3 percent for the seaweed-derived form ("kelp"), to 30 percent for the best barilla produced from saltwort plants in Spain. Plant and seaweed sources for soda ash, and also for the related alkali "potash", became increasingly inadequate by the end of the 18th century, and the search for commercially viable routes to synthesizing soda ash from salt and other chemicals intensified.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: In 1792, the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc patented a process for producing sodium carbonate from salt, sulfuric acid, limestone, and coal. In the first step, sodium chloride is treated with sulfuric acid in the Mannheim process. This reaction produces sodium sulfate ("salt cake") and hydrogen chloride:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The salt cake and crushed limestone (calcium carbonate) was reduced by heating with coal. This conversion entails two parts. First is the carbothermic reaction whereby the coal, a source of carbon, reduces the sulfate to sulfide:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: This mixture is called "black ash". The soda ash is extracted from the black ash with water. Evaporation of this extract yields solid sodium carbonate. This extraction process was termed lixiviating.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The hydrochloric acid produced by the Leblanc process was a major source of air pollution, and the calcium sulfide byproduct also presented waste disposal issues. However, it remained the major production method for sodium carbonate until the late 1880s.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: In 1861, the Belgian industrial chemist Ernest Solvay developed a method to make sodium carbonate by first reacting sodium chloride, ammonia, water, and carbon dioxide to generate sodium bicarbonate and ammonium chloride:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The resulting sodium bicarbonate was then converted to sodium carbonate by heating it, releasing water and carbon dioxide:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: Meanwhile, the ammonia was regenerated from the ammonium chloride byproduct by treating it with the lime (calcium oxide) left over from carbon dioxide generation:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The Solvay process recycles its ammonia. It consumes only brine and limestone, and calcium chloride is its only waste product. The process is substantially more economical than the Leblanc process, which generates two waste products, calcium sulfide and hydrogen chloride. The Solvay process quickly came to dominate sodium carbonate production worldwide. By 1900, 90% of sodium carbonate was produced by the Solvay process, and the last Leblanc process plant closed in the early 1920s.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The second step of the Solvay process, heating sodium bicarbonate, is used on a small scale by home cooks and in restaurants to make sodium carbonate for culinary purposes (including pretzels and alkali noodles). The method is appealing to such users because sodium bicarbonate is widely sold as baking soda, and the temperatures required ( to ) to convert baking soda to sodium carbonate are readily achieved in conventional kitchen ovens.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: This process was developed by Chinese chemist Hou Debang in the 1930s. The earlier steam reforming byproduct carbon dioxide was pumped through a saturated solution of sodium chloride and ammonia to produce sodium bicarbonate by these reactions:


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The sodium bicarbonate was collected as a precipitate due to its low solubility and then heated up to approximately or to yield pure sodium carbonate similar to last step of the Solvay process. More sodium chloride is added to the remaining solution of ammonium and sodium chlorides; also, more ammonia is pumped at 30-40 °C to this solution. The solution temperature is then lowered to below 10 °C. Solubility of ammonium chloride is higher than that of sodium chloride at 30 °C and lower at 10 °C. Due to this temperature-dependent solubility difference and the common-ion effect, ammonium chloride is precipitated in a sodium chloride solution.


title: Sodium carbonate

text: The Chinese name of Hou's process, "lianhe zhijian fa" (), means "coupled manufacturing alkali method": Hou's process is coupled to the Haber process and offers better atom economy by eliminating the production of calcium chloride, since ammonia no longer needs to be regenerated. The byproduct ammonium chloride can be sold as a fertilizer.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Munich Agreement (; ; ) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia, despite the existence of a 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic, for which it is also known as the Munich Betrayal (; ). Most of Europe celebrated the Munich agreement, which was presented as a way to prevent a major war on the continent. The four powers agreed to the German annexation of the Czechoslovak borderland areas named the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. Adolf Hitler announced that it was his last territorial claim in Northern Europe.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Germany had started a low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, the United Kingdom and France on 20 September formally asked Czechoslovakia to cede its Sudetenland territory to Germany, which was followed by Polish territorial demands brought on 21 September and Hungarian on 22 September. Meanwhile, German forces conquered parts of Cheb District and Jeseník District and briefly overran, but were repelled from dozens of other border counties. Poland also grouped its army units near its common border with Czechoslovakia and also instigated generally unsuccessful sabotage on 23 September. Hungary also moved its troops towards the border with Czechoslovakia, without attacking.


title: Munich Agreement

text: An emergency meeting of the main European powers – not including Czechoslovakia, although their representatives were present in the town, or the Soviet Union, an ally to both France and Czechoslovakia – took place in Munich, Germany, on 29–30 September 1938. An agreement was quickly reached on Hitler's terms, being signed by the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy. The Czechoslovak mountainous borderland that the powers offered to appease Germany had not only marked the natural border between the Czech state and the Germanic states since the early Middle Ages, but it also presented a major natural obstacle to any possible German attack. Having been strengthened by significant border fortifications, the Sudetenland was of absolute strategic importance to Czechoslovakia.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 30 September, Czechoslovakia yielded to the combination of military pressure by Germany, Poland, and Hungary, and diplomatic pressure by the United Kingdom and France, and agreed to give up territory to Germany on Munich terms. Then, on 1 October, Czechoslovakia also accepted Polish territorial demands.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Munich Agreement was soon followed by the First Vienna Award on 2 November 1938, separating largely Hungarian inhabited territories in southern Slovakia and southern Subcarpathian Rus' from Czechoslovakia. On 30 November 1938 Czechoslovakia ceded to Poland small patches of land in Spiš and Orava regions.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In March 1939, the First Slovak Republic, a Nazi puppet state, proclaimed its independence. Shortly afterwards, Hitler invaded Czechia and turned it into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, giving Germany full control of what remained of Czechoslovakia, including its significant military arsenal that later played an important role in Germany's invasions of Poland and France. As a result, Czechoslovakia had disappeared.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Today, the Munich Agreement is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states."


title: Munich Agreement

text: The First Czechoslovak Republic was created in 1918 after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Saint-Germain recognized the independence of Czechoslovakia and the Treaty of Trianon defined the borders of the new state which was divided to the regions of Bohemia and Moravia in the west and Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' in the east, including more than three million Germans, 22.95% of the total population of the country. They lived mostly in border regions of the historical Czech Lands for which they coined the new name Sudetenland, which bordered on Germany and the newly-created country of Austria.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Sudeten Germans were not consulted on whether they wished to be citizens of Czechoslovakia. Although the constitution guaranteed equality for all citizens, there was a tendency among political leaders to transform the country "into an instrument of Czech and Slovak nationalism." Some progress was made to integrate the Germans and other minorities, but they continued to be underrepresented in the government and the army. Moreover, the Great Depression beginning in 1929 impacted the highly-industrialized and export-oriented Sudeten Germans more than it did the Czech and Slovak populations. By 1936, 60 percent of the unemployed people in Czechoslovakia were Germans.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In 1933, Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein founded the Sudeten German Party (SdP), which was "militant, populist, and openly hostile" to the Czechoslovak government and soon captured two-thirds of the vote in the districts with a heavy German population. Historians differ as to whether the SdP was a Nazi front organisation from its beginning or evolved into one. By 1935, the SdP was the second-largest political party in Czechoslovakia as German votes concentrated on this party, and Czech and Slovak votes were spread among several parties.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Shortly after the "Anschluss" of Austria to Germany, Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, and he was instructed to raise demands that would be unacceptable to the democratic Czechoslovak government, led by President Edvard Beneš. On 24 April, the SdP issued a series of demands upon the government of Czechoslovakia that was known as the Karlsbader Programm. Henlein demanded things such as autonomy for Germans living in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak government responded by saying that it was willing to provide more minority rights to the German minority but was initially reluctant to grant autonomy. The SdP gained 88% of the ethnic German votes in May 1938.


title: Munich Agreement

text: With tension high between the Germans and the Czechoslovak government, Beneš, on 15 September 1938, secretly offered to give of Czechoslovakia to Germany, in exchange for a German agreement to admit 1.5 to 2.0 million Sudeten Germans, which Czechoslovakia would expel. Hitler did not reply.


title: Munich Agreement

text: As the previous appeasement of Hitler had shown, France and Britain were intent on avoiding war. The French government did not wish to face Germany alone and took its lead from British Conservative government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He considered the Sudeten German grievances justified and believed Hitler's intentions to be limited. Both Britain and France, therefore, advised Czechoslovakia to accede to Germany's demands. Beneš resisted and, on 19 May, initiated a partial mobilization in response to a possible German invasion.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 20 May, Hitler presented his generals with a draft plan of attack on Czechoslovakia that was codenamed Operation Green. He insisted that he would not "smash Czechoslovakia" militarily without "provocation", "a particularly favourable opportunity" or "adequate political justification." On 28 May, Hitler called a meeting of his service chiefs, ordered an acceleration of U-boat construction and brought forward the construction of his new battleships, "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz," to spring 1940. He demanded that the increase in the firepower of the battleships "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" be accelerated. While recognizing that this would still be insufficient for a full-scale naval war with Britain, Hitler hoped it would be a sufficient deterrent. Ten days later, Hitler signed a secret directive for war against Czechoslovakia to begin no later than 1 October.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 22 May, Juliusz Łukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador to France, told the French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet that if France moved against Germany to defend Czechoslovakia, "We shall not move." Łukasiewicz also told Bonnet that Poland would oppose any attempt by Soviet forces to defend Czechoslovakia from Germany. Daladier told , the Soviet ambassador to France, "Not only can we not count on Polish support but we have no faith that Poland will not strike us in the back."


title: Munich Agreement

text: However, the Polish government indicated multiple times (in March 1936 and May, June and August 1938) that it was prepared to fight Germany if the French decided to help Czechoslovakia: "Beck's proposal to Bonnet, his statements to Ambassador Drexel Biddle, and the statement noted by Vansittart, show that the Polish foreign minister was, indeed, prepared to carry out a radical change of policy if the Western powers decided on war with Germany. However, these proposals and statements did not elicit any reaction from British and French governments that were bent on averting war by appeasing Germany."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Hitler's adjutant, Fritz Wiedemann, recalled after the war that he was "very shocked" by Hitler's new plans to attack Britain and France three to four years after "deal[ing] with the situation" in Czechoslovakia. General Ludwig Beck, chief of the German general staff, noted that Hitler's change of heart in favour of quick action was Czechoslovak defences still being improvised, which would no longer be the case two to three years later, and British rearmament not coming into effect until 1941 or 1942. General Alfred Jodl noted in his diary that the partial Czechoslovak mobilization of 21 May had led Hitler to issue a new order for Operation Green on 30 May and that it was accompanied by a covering letter from Wilhelm Keitel that stated that the plan must be implemented by 1 October at the very latest.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In the meantime, the British government demanded that Beneš request a mediator. Not wishing to sever his government's ties with Western Europe, Beneš reluctantly accepted. The British appointed Lord Runciman, the former Liberal cabinet minister, who arrived in Prague on 3 August with instructions to persuade Beneš to agree to a plan acceptable to the Sudeten Germans. On 20 July, Bonnet told the Czechoslovak ambassador in Paris that while France would declare its support in public to help the Czechoslovak negotiations, it was not prepared to go to war over Sudetenland. In August, the German press was full of stories alleging Czechoslovak atrocities against Sudeten Germans, with the intention of forcing the West into putting pressure on the Czechoslovaks to make concessions. Hitler hoped that the Czechoslovaks would refuse and that the West would then feel morally justified in leaving the Czechoslovaks to their fate. In August, Germany sent 750,000 soldiers along the border of Czechoslovakia, officially as part of army maneuvres. On 4 or 5 September, Beneš submitted the Fourth Plan, granting nearly all the demands of the agreement. The Sudeten Germans were under instruction from Hitler to avoid a compromise, and the SdP held demonstrations that provoked a police action in Ostrava on 7 September in which two of their parliamentary deputies were arrested. The Sudeten Germans used the incident and false allegations of other atrocities as an excuse to break off further negotiations.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 12 September, Hitler made a speech at a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg on the Sudeten crisis in which he condemned the actions of the government of Czechoslovakia. Hitler denounced Czechoslovakia as being a fraudulent state that was in violation of international law's emphasis of national self-determination, claiming it was a Czech hegemony although the Germans, the Slovaks, the Hungarians, the Ukrainians and the Poles of the country actually wanted to be in a union with the Czechs. Hitler accused Beneš of seeking to gradually exterminate the Sudeten Germans and claimed that since Czechoslovakia's creation, over 600,000 Germans had been intentionally forced out of their homes under the threat of starvation if they did not leave. He alleged that Beneš's government was persecuting Germans along with Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks and accused Beneš of threatening the nationalities with being branded traitors if they were not loyal to the country. He stated that he, as the head of state of Germany, would support the right of the self-determination of fellow Germans in the Sudetenland. He condemned Beneš for his government's recent execution of several German protesters. He accused Beneš of being belligerent and threatening behaviour towards Germany which, if war broke out, would result in Beneš forcing Sudeten Germans to fight against their will against Germans from Germany. Hitler accused the government of Czechoslovakia of being a client regime of France, claiming that the French Minister of Aviation Pierre Cot had said, "We need this state as a base from which to drop bombs with greater ease to destroy Germany's economy and its industry."


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 13 September, after internal violence and disruption in Czechoslovakia ensued, Chamberlain asked Hitler for a personal meeting to find a solution to avert a war. Chamberlain decided to do this after conferring with his advisors Halifax, Sir John Simon, and Sir Samuel Hoare. The meeting was announced at a special press briefing at 10 Downing Street, and led to a swell of optimism in British public opinion. Chamberlain arrived by a chartered British Airways Lockheed Electra in Germany on 15 September and then arrived at Hitler's residence in Berchtesgaden for the meeting. The flight was one of the first times a head of state or diplomatic official flew to a diplomatic meeting in an airplane, as the tense situation left little time to take a train or boat. Henlein flew to Germany on the same day. That day, Hitler and Chamberlain held discussions in which Hitler insisted that the Sudeten Germans must be allowed to exercise the right of national self-determination and be able to join Sudetenland with Germany. Hitler repeatedly falsely claimed that the Czechoslovak government had killed 300 Sudeten Germans. Hitler also expressed concern to Chamberlain about what he perceived as British "threats." Chamberlain responded that he had not issued "threats" and in frustration asked Hitler "Why did I come over here to waste my time?" Hitler responded that if Chamberlain was willing to accept the self-determination of the Sudeten Germans, he would be willing to discuss the matter. Hitler also convinced Chamberlain that he did not truly wish to destroy Czechoslovakia, but that he believed that upon a German annexation of the Sudetenland the country's minorities would each secede and cause the country to collapse. Chamberlain and Hitler held discussions for three hours, and the meeting adjourned. Chamberlain flew back to Britain and met with his cabinet to discuss the issue.


title: Munich Agreement

text: After the meeting, Daladier flew to London on 16 September to meet with British officials to discuss a course of action. The situation in Czechoslovakia became tenser that day, with the Czechoslovak government issuing an arrest warrant for Henlein, who had arrived in Germany a day earlier to take part in the negotiations. The French proposals ranged from waging war against Germany to supporting the Sudetenland being ceded to Germany. The discussions ended with a firm British-French plan in place. Britain and France demanded that Czechoslovakia cede to Germany all territories in which the German population represented over 50% of the Sudetenland's total population. In exchange for that concession, Britain and France would guarantee the independence of Czechoslovakia. The proposed solution was rejected by both Czechoslovakia and opponents of it in Britain and France.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 17 September 1938 Hitler ordered the establishment of "Sudetendeutsches Freikorps", a paramilitary organization that took over the structure of Ordnersgruppe, an organization of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia that had been dissolved by the Czechoslovak authorities the previous day due to its implication in a large number of terrorist activities. The organization was sheltered, trained and equipped by German authorities and conducted cross-border terrorist operations into Czechoslovak territory. Relying on the Convention for the Definition of Aggression, Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš and the government-in-exile later regarded 17 September 1938 as the beginning of the undeclared German-Czechoslovak war. This understanding has been assumed also by the contemporary Czech Constitutional court. In the following days, Czechoslovak forces suffered over 100 personnel killed in action, hundreds wounded and over 2,000 abducted to Germany.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 18 September, Italy's "Duce" Benito Mussolini made a speech in Trieste, Italy, where he declared "If there are two camps, for and against Prague, let it be known that Italy has chosen its side", with the clear implication being that Mussolini supported Germany in the crisis.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 20 September, German opponents within the military met to discuss the final plans of a plot they had developed to overthrow the Nazi regime. The meeting was led by General Hans Oster, the deputy head of the "Abwehr" (Germany's counter-espionage agency). Other members included Captain , and other military officers leading the planned coup d'etat met at the meeting. On 22 September, Chamberlain, about to board his plane to go to Germany for further talks at Bad Godesberg, told the press who met him there that "My objective is peace in Europe, I trust this trip is the way to that peace." Chamberlain arrived in Cologne, where he received a lavish grand welcome with a German band playing "God Save the King" and Germans giving Chamberlain flowers and gifts. Chamberlain had calculated that fully accepting German annexation of all of the Sudetenland with no reductions would force Hitler to accept the agreement. Upon being told of this, Hitler responded "Does this mean that the Allies have agreed with Prague's approval to the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany?", Chamberlain responded "Precisely", to which Hitler responded by shaking his head, saying that the Allied offer was insufficient. He told Chamberlain that he wanted Czechoslovakia to be completely dissolved and its territories redistributed to Germany, Poland, and Hungary, and told Chamberlain to take it or leave it. Chamberlain was shaken by this statement. Hitler went on to tell Chamberlain that since their last meeting on the 15th, Czechoslovakia's actions, which Hitler claimed included killings of Germans, had made the situation unbearable for Germany.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Later in the meeting, a deception was undertaken to influence and put pressure on Chamberlain: one of Hitler's aides entered the room to inform Hitler of more Germans being killed in Czechoslovakia, to which Hitler screamed in response "I will avenge every one of them. The Czechs must be destroyed." The meeting ended with Hitler refusing to make any concessions to the Allies' demands. Later that evening, Hitler grew worried that he had gone too far in pressuring Chamberlain, and telephoned Chamberlain's hotel suite, saying that he would accept annexing only the Sudetenland, with no designs on other territories, provided that Czechoslovakia begin the evacuation of ethnic Czechs from the German majority territories by 26 September at 8:00am. After being pressed by Chamberlain, Hitler agreed to have the ultimatum set for 1 October (the same date that Operation Green was set to begin). Hitler then said to Chamberlain that this was one concession that he was willing to make to the Prime Minister as a "gift" out of respect for the fact that Chamberlain had been willing to back down somewhat on his earlier position. Hitler went on to say that upon annexing the Sudetenland, Germany would hold no further territorial claims upon Czechoslovakia and would enter into a collective agreement to guarantee the borders of Germany and Czechoslovakia.


title: Munich Agreement

text: A new Czechoslovak cabinet, under General Jan Syrový, was installed and on 23 September a decree of general mobilization was issued which was accepted by the public with a strong enthusiasm – within 24 hours, one million men joined the army to defend the country. The Czechoslovak Army, modern, experienced and possessing an excellent system of frontier fortifications, was prepared to fight. The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's assistance, provided that the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory. Both countries refused to allow the Soviet army to use their territories.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In the early hours of 24 September, Hitler issued the Godesberg Memorandum, which demanded that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland to Germany no later than 28 September, with plebiscites to be held in unspecified areas under the supervision of German and Czechoslovak forces. The memorandum also stated that if Czechoslovakia did not agree to the German demands by 2 pm on 28 September, Germany would take the Sudetenland by force. On the same day, Chamberlain returned to Britain and announced that Hitler demanded the annexation of the Sudetenland without delay. The announcement enraged those in Britain and France who wanted to confront Hitler once and for all, even if it meant war, and its supporters gained strength. The Czechoslovak Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Jan Masaryk, was elated upon hearing of the support for Czechoslovakia from British and French opponents of Hitler's plans, saying "The nation of Saint Wenceslas will never be a nation of slaves."


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 25 September, Czechoslovakia agreed to the conditions previously agreed upon by Britain, France, and Germany. The next day, however, Hitler added new demands, insisting that the claims of ethnic Germans in Poland and Hungary also be satisfied.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 26 September, Chamberlain sent Sir Horace Wilson to carry a personal letter to Hitler declaring that the Allies wanted a peaceful resolution to the Sudeten crisis. Later that evening, Hitler made his response in a speech at the Berlin Sportpalast; he claimed that the Sudetenland was "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe" and gave Czechoslovakia a deadline of 28 September at 2:00 pm to cede the Sudetenland to Germany or face war. At this point the British government began to make war preparations, and the House of Commons was reconvened from a parliamentary recess.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On September 27, 1938, when negotiations between Hitler and Chamberlain were strained, Chamberlain addressed the British people, saying, in particular: "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing."


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 28 September at 10:00 am, four hours before the deadline and with no agreement to Hitler's demand by Czechoslovakia, the British ambassador to Italy, Lord Perth, called Italy's Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano to request an urgent meeting. Perth informed Ciano that Chamberlain had instructed him to request that Mussolini enter the negotiations and urge Hitler to delay the ultimatum. At 11:00 am, Ciano met Mussolini and informed him of Chamberlain's proposition; Mussolini agreed with it and responded by telephoning Italy's ambassador to Germany and told him "Go to the Fuhrer at once, and tell him that whatever happens, I will be at his side, but that I request a twenty-four-hour delay before hostilities begin. In the meantime, I will study what can be done to solve the problem." Hitler received Mussolini's message while in discussions with the French ambassador. Hitler told the ambassador "'My good friend, Benito Mussolini, has asked me to delay for twenty-four hours the marching orders of the German army, and I agreed.' Of course, this was no concession, as the invasion date was set for 1 October 1938." Upon speaking with Chamberlain, Lord Perth gave Chamberlain's thanks to Mussolini as well as Chamberlain's request that Mussolini attend a four-power conference of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy in Munich on 29 September to settle the Sudeten problem prior to the deadline of 2:00 pm. Mussolini agreed. Hitler's only request was to make sure that Mussolini be involved in the negotiations at the conference. Nevile Henderson, Alexander Cadogan, and Chamberlain's personal secretary Lord Douglas passed the news of the conference to Chamberlain while he was addressing Parliament, and Chamberlain suddenly announced the conference and his acceptance to attend at the end of the speech to cheers. When United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt learned the conference had been scheduled, he telegraphed Chamberlain, "Good man."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Discussions began at the Führerbau immediately after Chamberlain and Daladier arrived, giving them little time to consult. The meeting was held in English, French, and German. A deal was reached on 29 September, and at about 1:30 a.m. on 30 September 1938, Adolf Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Benito Mussolini and Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Agreement. The agreement was officially introduced by Mussolini although in fact the Italian plan was nearly identical to the Godesberg proposal: the German army was to complete the occupation of the Sudetenland by 10 October, and an international commission would decide the future of other disputed areas.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Czechoslovakia was informed by Britain and France that it could either resist Nazi Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexations. The Czechoslovak government, realizing the hopelessness of fighting the Nazis alone, reluctantly capitulated (30 September) and agreed to abide by the agreement. The settlement gave Germany the Sudetenland starting 10 October, and "de facto" control over the rest of Czechoslovakia as long as Hitler promised to go no further. On 30 September after some rest, Chamberlain went to Hitler's apartment in the Prinzregentenstraße and asked him to sign a statement calling the Anglo-German Naval Agreement "symbolic of the desire of our two countries never to go to war with one another again.” After Hitler's interpreter translated it for him, he happily agreed.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 30 September, upon his return to Britain, Chamberlain delivered his controversial "peace for our time" speech to crowds in London.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Czechoslovaks were dismayed with the Munich settlement. They were not invited to the conference, and felt they had been betrayed by the British and French governments. Many Czechs and Slovaks refer to the Munich Agreement as the Munich Diktat (; ). The phrase "Munich Betrayal" (; ) is also used because the military alliance Czechoslovakia had with France proved useless. This was also reflected by the fact that especially the French government had expressed the view that Czechoslovakia would be considered as being responsible for any resulting European war should the Czechoslovak Republic defend herself with force against German incursions.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The slogan "About us, without us!" (; ) summarizes the feelings of the people of Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia and Czech Republic) towards the agreement. With Sudetenland gone to Germany, Czecho-Slovakia (as the state was now renamed) lost its defensible border with Germany and the Czechoslovak border fortifications. Without them its independence became more nominal than real. Czechoslovakia also lost 70 per cent of its iron/steel industry, 70 per cent of its electrical power and 3.5 million citizens to Germany as a result of the settlement. The Sudeten Germans celebrated what they saw as their liberation. The imminent war, it seemed, had been avoided.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Nobel laureate, Thomas Mann, took to pen and pulpit in defense of his surrogate homeland proclaiming his pride at being a Czechoslovak citizen and praising the republic's achievements. He attacked a "Europe ready for slavery" writing that "The Czechoslovak people is ready to take up a fight for liberty and transcends its own fate" and "It is too late for the British government to save the peace. They have lost too many opportunities." President Beneš of Czechoslovakia was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1939.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Though the British and French were pleased, a British diplomat in Berlin claimed he had been informed by a member of Hitler's entourage that soon after the meeting with Chamberlain Hitler had furiously said: "Gentlemen, this has been my first international conference and I can assure you that it will be my last." On another occasion, he had been heard saying of Chamberlain: "If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers." In one of his public speeches after Munich, Hitler declared: "Thank God we have no umbrella politicians in this country."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Hitler felt cheated of the limited war against the Czechs which he had been aiming for all summer. In early October, Chamberlain's press secretary asked for a public declaration of German friendship with Britain to strengthen Chamberlain's domestic position; Hitler instead delivered speeches denouncing Chamberlain's "governessy interference." In August 1939, shortly before the invasion of Poland, Hitler told his generals: "Our enemies are men below average, not men of action, not masters. They are little worms. I saw them at Munich."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Before the Munich Agreement, Hitler's determination to invade Czechoslovakia on 1 October 1938 had provoked a major crisis in the German command structure. The Chief of the General Staff, General Ludwig Beck, protested in a lengthy series of memos that it would start a world war that Germany would lose, and urged Hitler to put off the projected conflict. Hitler called Beck's arguments against war ""kindische Kräfteberechnungen"" ("childish force calculations"). On 4 August 1938, a secret Army meeting was held. Beck read his lengthy report to the assembled officers. They all agreed something had to be done to prevent certain disaster. Beck hoped they would all resign together but no one resigned except Beck. His replacement, General Franz Halder, sympathized with Beck and they both conspired with several top generals, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (Chief of German Intelligence) and Graf von Helldorf (Berlin's Police Chief) to arrest Hitler the moment he gave the invasion order. This plan would only work if Britain issued a strong warning and a letter to the effect that they would fight to preserve Czechoslovakia. This would help to convince the German people that certain defeat awaited Germany. Agents were therefore sent to England to tell Chamberlain that an attack on Czechoslovakia was planned, and of their intention to overthrow Hitler if this occurred. The proposal was rejected by the British Cabinet and no such letter was issued. Accordingly, the proposed removal of Hitler did not go ahead. On this basis it has been argued that the Munich Agreement kept Hitler in power—Halder remained bitter about Chamberlain's refusal for decades after the war—although whether the attempted removal would have been any more successful than the 1944 plot is doubtful.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The agreement was generally applauded. Prime Minister Daladier of France did not believe, as one scholar put it, that a European War was justified "to maintain three million Germans under Czech sovereignty." But the same argument applies to Alsace-Lorraine – contrary to the alliance between France and Czechoslovakia against German aggression.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Gallup Polls in Britain, France, and the United States indicated that the majority of people supported the agreement. President Beneš of Czechoslovakia was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1939.


title: Munich Agreement

text: "The New York Times" headline on the Munich agreement read "Hitler gets less than his Sudeten demands" and reported that a "joyful crowd" hailed Daladier on his return to France and that Chamberlain was "wildly cheered" on his return to Britain.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The British population had expected an imminent war, and the "statesman-like gesture" of Chamberlain was at first greeted with acclaim. He was greeted as a hero by the royal family and invited on the balcony at Buckingham Palace before he had presented the agreement to the British Parliament. The generally-positive reaction quickly soured, despite royal patronage. However, there was opposition from the start. Clement Attlee and the Labour Party opposed the agreement, in alliance with two Conservative MPs, Duff Cooper and Vyvyan Adams, who had been seen up to then as a reactionary element in the Conservative Party.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Daladier believed that Hitler's ultimate goals were a threat. He told the British in a late April 1938 meeting that Hitler's real long-term aim was to secure "a domination of the Continent in comparison with which the ambitions of Napoleon were feeble." He went on to say: "Today it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has obtained the oil and wheat it needs, she will turn on the West. Certainly we must multiply our efforts to avoid war. But that will not be obtained unless Great Britain and France stick together, intervening in Prague for new concessions but declaring at the same time that they will safeguard the independence of Czechoslovakia. If, on the contrary, the Western Powers capitulate again they will only precipitate the war they wish to avoid." Perhaps discouraged by the arguments of French military leaders and civilian officials regarding their unprepared military and weak financial situation, and still traumatized by France's bloodbath in World War I, which he had personally witnessed, Daladier ultimately let Chamberlain have his way. On his return to Paris, Daladier, who had expected a hostile crowd, was acclaimed.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In the days following Munich, Chamberlain received more than 20,000 letters and telegrams of thanks, and gifts including 6000 assorted bulbs from grateful Dutch admirers and a cross from Pope Pius XI.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Poland was building up a secret Polish organization in the area of Zaolzie from 1935. In summer 1938, Poland tried to organize guerrilla groups in the area. On 21 September, Poland officially requested a direct transfer of the area to its own control. Polish envoy to Prague Kazimierz Papée marked that the return of Cieszyn Silesia will be a sign of a goodwill and the "redress of injustice" of 1920. Similar notes were sent to Paris and London with a request that Polish minority in Czechoslovakia should gain the same rights as Sudeten Germans. On the next day Beneš send a letter to Polish president Ignacy Mościcki with a promise of "border's rectification", but the letter was delivered only on 26 September. The answer of Mościcki delivered on 27 September was evasive, but it was accompanied with the demand of Polish government to hand over two Zaolzie counties immediately, as a prelude to ultimate settlement of the border dispute. Beneš's answer wasn't conclusive: he agreed to hand over the disputed territory to Poland, but argued that it could not be done on the eve of the German invasion, because it would disrupt Czechoslovak preparations for war. Poles recognised the answer as playing for time.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Polish diplomatic actions were accompanied by placing army along the Czechoslovak border on 23–24 September and by giving an order to the so-called "battle units" of Zaolzie Poles and the "Zaolzie Legion", a paramilitary organisation that was made up of volunteers from all over Poland, to cross the border to Czechoslovakia and attack Czechoslovak units. The few who crossed, however, were repulsed by Czechoslovak forces and retreated to Poland.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Polish ambassador in Germany learned about the results of Munich Conference on 30 September from Ribbentrop, who assured him that Berlin conditioned the guarantees for the remainder of Czechoslovakia on the fulfilment of Polish and Hungarian territorial demands. Polish foreign minister Józef Beck was disappointed with such a turn of events. In his own words the conference was "an attempt by the directorate of great powers to impose binding decisions on other states (and Poland cannot agree on that, as it would then be reduced to a political object that others conduct at their will)." As a result at 11:45 p.m. on 30 September, 11 hours after the Czechoslovak government accepted the Munich terms, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czechoslovak troops and police and gave Prague time until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on 1 October the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted but then requested a 24 h delay. On 2 October, the Polish Army, commanded by General Władysław Bortnowski, annexed an area of 801.5 km² with a population of 227,399 people. Administratively the annexed area was divided between Frysztat County and Cieszyn County.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The historian Dariusz Baliszewski wrote that during the annexation there was no co-operation between Polish and German troops, but there were cases of co-operation between Polish and Czech troops defending territory against Germans, for example in Bohumín.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Polish ultimatum finally led Beneš to decide, by his own account, to abandon any idea of resisting the settlement. (Czechoslovakia would have been attacked on all sides.)


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Germans were delighted with that outcome and were happy to give up the sacrifice of a small provincial rail centre to Poland in exchange for the ensuing propaganda benefits. It spread the blame of the partition of Czechoslovakia, made Poland a participant in the process and confused political expectations. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Germany. However, there was no formal agreement between Poland and Germany about Czechoslovakia at any time.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Chief of the General Staff of the Czechoslovak Army, General Ludvík Krejčí, reported on 29 September that "Our army will in about two days' time be in full condition to withstand an attack even by all Germany's forces together, provided Poland does not move against us."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Historians such as H.L. Roberts and Anna Cienciala have characterised Beck's actions during the crisis as unfriendly to Czechoslovakia, but not actively seeking its destruction. Whilst Stalin-era Polish historiography typically followed the line that Beck had been a "German Agent" and had collaborated with Germany, post-1956 historiography has generally rejected this characterisation.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Hungary followed Polish request for transfer of territory with its own request on 22 September. Hungarian demands were ultimately fulfilled during the Vienna Arbitration on 2 November 1938.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Joseph Stalin was upset by the results of the Munich conference. On 2 May 1935, France and the Soviet Union had signed the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance with the aim of containing Nazi Germany's aggression. The Soviets, who had a mutual military assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia, felt betrayed by France, which also had a mutual military assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia. The British and French mostly used the Soviets as a threat to dangle over the Germans. Stalin concluded that the West had colluded with Hitler to hand over a country in Central Europe to the Germans, causing concern that they might do the same to the Soviet Union in the future to allow its partition between the western nations. This belief led the Soviet Union to reorient its foreign policy towards a rapprochement with Germany, which eventually led to the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In 1938, the Soviet Union was allied with France and Czechoslovakia. By September 1939, the Soviets were to all intents and purposes a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany, due to Stalin's fears of a second Munich Agreement with the Soviet Union replacing Czechoslovakia. Thus, the agreement indirectly contributed to the outbreak of war in 1939.


title: Munich Agreement

text: The Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons said, "We owe heartfelt thanks to all responsible for the outcome, and appreciate very much the efforts of President Roosevelt and Signor Mussolini to bring about the Munich conference of the Powers at which a united desire for peace has been shown."


title: Munich Agreement

text: As the threats of Germany and of a European war became more evident, opinions on the agreement became more hostile. Chamberlain was excoriated for his role as one of the "Men of Munich", in books such as the 1940 "Guilty Men". A rare wartime defence of the agreement came in 1944 from Viscount Maugham, who had been Lord Chancellor. Maugham viewed the decision to establish a Czechoslovak state including substantial German and Hungarian minorities as a "dangerous experiment" in the light of previous disputes and ascribed the agreement as caused largely by France's need to extricate itself from its treaty obligations in the light of its unpreparedness for war. After the war, Churchill's history of the period, "The Gathering Storm" (1948), asserted that Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich had been wrong and recorded Churchill's prewar warnings of Hitler's plan of aggression and the folly of Britain's persisting with disarmament after Germany had achieved air parity with Britain. Although Churchill recognized that Chamberlain acted from noble motives, he argued that Hitler should have been resisted over Czechoslovakia and that efforts should have been made to involve the Soviet Union.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In his postwar memoirs, Churchill, an opponent of appeasement, lumped Poland and Hungary, both of which subsequently annexed parts of Czechoslovakia containing Poles and Hungarians, with Germany as "vultures upon the carcass of Czechoslovakia."


title: Munich Agreement

text: The American historian William L. Shirer, in his "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" (1960), took the view that although Hitler was not bluffing about his intention to invade, Czechoslovakia could have offered significant resistance. Shirer believed that Britain and France had enough air defences to avoid serious bombing of London and Paris and could have pursued a rapid and successful war against Germany. He quotes Churchill as saying the agreement meant that "Britain and France were in a much worse position compared to Hitler's Germany." After Hitler personally inspected the Czech fortifications, he privately said to Joseph Goebbels that "we would have shed a lot of blood" and that it was fortunate that there had been no fighting.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 5 October, Beneš resigned as President of Czechoslovakia since he realized that the fall of Czechoslovakia was inevitable. After the outbreak of World War II, he formed a Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London. On 6 December 1938, the French-German Non-aggression Pact was signed in Paris by French Foreign Minister Bonnet and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.<ref name="http://archives.chicagotribune.com">France Signs "No-War" Pact with Germany, "Chicago Tribune", 7 December 1938</ref>


title: Munich Agreement

text: In early November 1938, under the First Vienna Award, after the failed negotiations between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, as a recommendation to settle the territorial disputes by the appendix of the Munich Agreement, the German-Italian arbitration required Czechoslovakia to cede southern Slovakia to Hungary, and Poland independently gained small territorial cessions shortly afterward (Zaolzie).


title: Munich Agreement

text: Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia lost about 38% of their combined area to Germany, with some 2.8 million German and 513,000 to 750,000 Czech inhabitants. Hungary, in turn, received in southern Slovakia and southern Carpathian Ruthenia. According to a 1941 census, about 86.5% of the population in the territory was Hungarian. Slovakia lost and 854,218 inhabitants for Hungary (according to a Czechoslovak 1930 census about 59% were Hungarians and 32% were Slovaks and Czechs). Poland annexed the town of Český Těšín with the surrounding area (some , with 250,000 inhabitants. Poles made up about 36% of the population, down from 69% in 1910) and two minor border areas in northern Slovakia, more precisely in the regions Spiš and Orava. (, 4,280 inhabitants, only 0.3% Poles).


title: Munich Agreement

text: Soon after Munich, 115,000 Czechs and 30,000 Germans fled to the rump of Czechoslovakia. According to the Institute for Refugee Assistance, the actual count of refugees on 1 March 1939 stood at almost 150,000.


title: Munich Agreement

text: On 4 December 1938, elections in "Reichsgau" Sudetenland had 97.3% of the adult population vote for the Nazi Party. About half-a-million Sudeten Germans joined the Nazi Party, 17.3% of the German population in Sudetenland (the average NSDAP participation in Nazi Germany was 7.9%). Thus, the Sudetenland was the most "pro-Nazi" region in Nazi Germany.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Because of their knowledge of Czech, many Sudeten Germans were employed in the administration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well as in Nazi organisations, such as the Gestapo. The most notable of them was Karl Hermann Frank, SS and Police General and Secretary of State in the Protectorate.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In 1937, the "Wehrmacht" had formulated a plan, "Operation Green" ("Fall Grün") for the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was implemented shortly after the proclamation of the Slovak State on 15 March 1939. On 14 March, Slovakia seceded from Czechoslovakia and became a separate pro-Nazi state. The following day, Carpatho-Ukraine proclaimed independence as well, but after three days, it was completely occupied and annexed by Hungary. Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha traveled to Berlin and was left waiting, and orders to invade had already been given. During the meeting with Hitler, Hácha was threatened with the bombing of Prague if he refused to order the Czech troops to lay down their arms. That news induced a heart attack from which he was revived by an injection from Hitler's doctor. Hácha then agreed to sign the communiqué accepting the German occupation of the remainder of Bohemia and Moravia, "which in its unctuous mendacity was remarkable even for the Nazis." Churchill's prediction was fulfilled, as German armies entered Prague and proceeded to occupy the rest of the country, which was transformed into a protectorate of the Reich. In March 1939, Konstantin von Neurath was appointed as Reichsprotektor and served as Hitler's personal representative in the protectorate. Immediately after the occupation, a wave of arrests began, mostly of refugees from Germany, Jews and Czech public figures. By November, Jewish children had been expelled from their schools and their parents fired from their jobs. Universities and colleges were closed after demonstrations against the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Over 1200 students were sent to concentration camps, and nine student leaders were executed on 17 November (International Students' Day).


title: Munich Agreement

text: By seizing Bohemia and Moravia, Nazi Germany gained all of the skilled labour force and heavy industry located there as well as all the weapons of the Czechoslovak Army. During the 1940 Battle of France, roughly 25% of all German weapons came from the protectorate. Nazi Germany also gained the all of Czechoslovakia's gold treasure, including gold stored in the Bank of England. Of a total 227 tons of gold found after the war in salt mines, only 18.4 tons were returned to Czechoslovakia in 1982, but most of it came from Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was also forced to "sell" war material to the "Wehrmacht" for 648 million of prewar Czechoslovak koruna, a debt that was never repaid.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Chamberlain claimed the Prague annexation was a "completely different category" that moved beyond the legitimate Versailles grievances. Meanwhile, concerns arose in Britain that Poland, which was now encircled by many German possessions, would become the next target of Nazi expansionism. That was made apparent by the dispute over the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig and resulted in the signing of an Anglo-Polish military alliance. That made the Polish government refuse to accept German negotiation proposals over the Polish Corridor and the status of Danzig. Chamberlain felt betrayed by the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia, realized that his policy of appeasement towards Hitler had failed and so began to take a much harder line against Germany. He immediately began to mobilize the British armed forces to a war footing, and France did the same. Italy saw itself threatened by the British and French fleets and started its own invasion of Albania in April 1939.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Since most of the border defences had been in the territory ceded as a consequence of the Munich Agreement, the rest of Czechoslovakia was entirely open to further invasion despite its relatively-large stockpiles of modern armaments. In a speech delivered in the Reichstag, Hitler expressed the importance of the occupation for strengthening of German military and noted that by occupying Czechoslovakia, Germany gained 2,175 field guns and cannons, 469 tanks, 500 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 43,000 machine guns, 1,090,000 military rifles, 114,000 pistols, about a billion rounds of small-arms ammunition, and 3 million rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition. That could then arm about half of the Wehrmacht. Czechoslovak weapons later played a major role in the German conquest of Poland and France, the last of which country had urged Czechoslovakia into surrendering the Sudetenland in 1938.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In Germany, the Sudeten crisis led to the so-called Oster conspiracy. General Hans Oster, the deputy head of the "Abwehr", and prominent figures within the German military opposed the regime for its behaviour, which threatened to bring Germany into a war that they believed it was not ready to fight. They discussed overthrowing Hitler and the regime through a planned storming of the Reich Chancellery by forces loyal to the plot.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Italy strongly supported Germany at Munich, and a few weeks later, in October 1938, tried to use its advantage to make new demands on France. Mussolini demanded a free port at Djibouti, control of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad, Italian participation in the management of Suez Canal Company, some form of French-Italian condominium over Tunisia and the preservation of Italian culture in French-held Corsica with no French assimilation of the people. France rejected those demands and began threatening naval maneuvers as a warning to Italy.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Germany stated that the incorporation of Austria into the Reich resulted in borders with Czechoslovakia that were a great danger to German security, and that this allowed Germany to be encircled by the Western Powers.


title: Munich Agreement

text: During the Second World War, British Prime Minister Churchill, who opposed the agreement when it was signed, became determined that the terms of the agreement would not be upheld after the war and that the Sudeten territories should be returned to postwar Czechoslovakia. On 5 August 1942, Foreign Minister Anthony Eden sent the following note to Jan Masaryk,


title: Munich Agreement

text: In September 1942 the French National Committee, headed by Charles de Gaulle, proclaimed the Munich Agreement to be null and void from the very beginning, and on 17 August 1944, the French government reaffirmed this. After Mussolini's fascist leadership had been replaced, the Italian Government followed suit and did the same.


title: Munich Agreement

text: Following Allied victory and the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Sudetenland was returned to Czechoslovakia, while the German speaking majority was expelled.


title: Munich Agreement

text: In the United States and the United Kingdom, the words "Munich" and "appeasement" are frequently invoked when demanding forthright, often military, action to resolve an international crisis and characterising a political opponent who condemns negotiation as weakness. In 1950, US President Harry Truman invoked "Munich" to justify his military action in the Korean War: "The world learned from Munich that security cannot be bought by appeasement." Many later crises were accompanied by cries of "Munich" from politicians and the media. In 1960, the conservative US Senator Barry Goldwater used "Munich" to describe a domestic political issue by saying that an attempt by the Republican Party to appeal to liberals was "the Munich of the Republican Party." In 1962, General Curtis LeMay told US President John F. Kennedy that his refusal to bomb Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis was "almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich", a pointed barb given that his father Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. had supported appeasement in general in his capacity as Ambassador to Britain. In 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson, in justifying increased military action in Vietnam, stated, "We learned from Hitler and Munich that success only feeds the appetite for aggression."


title: Munich Agreement

text: Citing Munich in debates on foreign policy has continued to be common in the 21st century. During negotiations for the Iran nuclear agreement mediated by Secretary of State John Kerry, Representative John Culberson, a Texas Republican Representative, tweeted the message "Worse than Munich." Kerry had himself invoked Munich in a speech in France advocating military action in Syria by saying, "This is our Munich moment."


title: Munich Agreement

text: "Munich and appeasement", in the words of scholars Frederik Logevall and Kenneth Osgood, "have become among the dirtiest words in American politics, synonymous with naivete and weakness, and signifying a craven willingness to barter away the nation's vital interests for empty promises." They claimed that the success of US foreign policy often depends upon a president withstanding "the inevitable charges of appeasement that accompany any decision to negotiate with hostile powers." The presidents who challenged the "tyranny of Munich" have often achieved policy breakthroughs and those who had cited Munich as a principle of US foreign policy had often led the nation into its "most enduring tragedies."


title: Munich Agreement

text: The West German policy of staying neutral in the Arab–Israeli conflict after the Munich massacre and the following hijack of the Lufthansa Flight 615 in 1972, rather than taking a pro-Israel position, led to Israeli comparisons with the Munich Agreement of appeasement.


title: Gun

text: A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, projected water disruptors, and technically also flamethrowers), gas (e.g. light-gas gun) or even charged particles (e.g. plasma gun). Solid projectiles may be free-flying (as with bullets and artillery shells) or tethered (as with Taser guns, spearguns and harpoon guns). A large-caliber gun is also called a "cannon".


title: Gun

text: The means of projectile propulsion vary according to designs, but are traditionally effected pneumatically by a high gas pressure contained within the barrel tube, produced either through the rapid exothermic combustion of propellants (as with firearms), or by mechanical compression (as with air guns). The high-pressure gas is introduced behind the projectile, pushing and accelerating it down the length of the tube, imparting sufficient launch velocity to sustain its further travel towards the target once the propelling gas ceases acting upon it after it exits the muzzle. Alternatively, new-concept linear motor weapons may employ an electromagnetic field to achieve acceleration, in which case the barrel may be substituted by guide rails (as in railguns) or wrapped with magnetic coils (as in coilguns).


title: Gun

text: The first devices identified as guns or proto-guns appeared in China from around AD 1000. By the end of the 13th century, they had become "true guns," metal barrel firearms that fired single projectiles which occluded the barrel. Gunpowder and gun technology spread throughout Eurasia during the 14th century.


title: Gun

text: The origin of the English word "gun" is considered to derive from the name given to a particular historical weapon. "Domina Gunilda" was the name given to a remarkably large ballista, a mechanical bolt throwing weapon of enormous size, mounted at Windsor Castle during the 14th century. This name in turn may have derived from the Old Norse woman's proper name "Gunnhildr" which combines two Norse words referring to battle. "Gunnildr", which means "War-sword", was often shortened to "Gunna".


title: Gun

text: The earliest recorded use of the term "gonne" was in a Latin document circa 1339. Other names for guns during this era were "schioppi" (Italian translation-"thunderers"), and "donrebusse" (Dutch translation-"thunder gun") which was incorporated into the English language as "blunderbuss". Artillerymen were often referred to as "gonners" and "artillers" "Hand gun" was first used in 1373 in reference to the handle of guns.


title: Gun

text: According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a gun could mean "a piece of ordnance usually with high muzzle velocity and comparatively flat trajectory," " a portable firearm," or "a device that throws a projectile."


title: Gun

text: Gunpowder and firearm historian Kenneth Chase defines "firearms" and "guns" in his "Firearms: A Global History to 1700" as "gunpowder weapons that use the explosive force of the gunpowder to propel a projectile from a tube: cannons, muskets, and pistols are typical examples."


title: Gun

text: According to Tonio Andrade, a historian of gunpowder technology, a "true gun" is defined as a firearm which shoots a bullet that fits the barrel as opposed to one which does not, such as the shrapnel shooting fire lance. As such, the fire lance, which appeared between the 10th and 12th centuries AD, as well as other early metal barrel gunpowder weapons have been described as "proto-guns" Joseph Needham defined a type of firearm known as the "eruptor," which he described as a cross between a fire lance and a gun, as a "proto-gun" for the same reason. He defined a fully developed firearm, a "true gun," as possessing three basic features: a metal barrel, gunpowder with high nitrate content, and a projectile that occluded the barrel. The "true gun" appears to have emerged in late 1200s China, around 300 years after the appearance of the fire lance. Although the term "gun" postdates the invention of firearms, historians have applied it to the earliest firearms such as the Heilongjiang hand cannon of 1288 or the vase shaped European cannon of 1326.


title: Gun

text: Historians consider firearms to have reached the form of a "classic gun" in the 1480s, which persisted until the mid-18th century. This "classic" form displayed longer, lighter, more efficient, and more accurate design compared to its predecessors only 30 years prior. However this "classic" design changed very little for almost 300 years and cannons of the 1480s show little difference and surprising similarity with cannons later in the 1750s. This 300-year period during which the classic gun dominated gives it its moniker. The "classic gun" has also been described as the "modern ordnance synthesis."


title: Gun

text: The first firearm was the fire lance, which appeared in China between the 10–12th centuries. It was depicted in a silk painting dated to the mid-10th but textual evidence of its use does not appear until 1132, describing the siege of De'an. It consisted of a bamboo tube of gunpowder tied to a spear or other polearm. By the late 1100s, ingredients such as pieces of shrapnel like porcelain shards or small iron pellets were added to the tube so that they would be blown out with the gunpowder. It was relatively short ranged and had a range of roughly 3 meters by the early 13th century. This fire lance is considered by some historians to be a "proto-gun" because its projectiles did not occlude the barrel. There was also another "proto-gun" called the eruptor, according to Joseph Needham, which did not have a lance but still did not shoot projectiles which occluded the barrel.


title: Gun

text: In due course, the proportion of saltpeter in the propellant was increased to maximise its explosive power. To better withstand that explosive power, the paper and bamboo of which fire-lance barrels were originally made came to be replaced by metal. And to take full advantage of that power, the shrapnel came to be replaced by projectiles whose size and shape filled the barrel more closely. Fire lance barrels made of metal appeared by 1276. Earlier in 1259 a pellet wad that filled the barrel was recorded to have been used as a fire lance projectile, making it the first recorded bullet in history. With this, the three basic features of a gun were put in place: a barrel made of metal, high-nitrate gunpowder, and a projectile which totally occludes the muzzle so that the powder charge exerts its full potential in propellant effect. The metal barrel fire lances began to be used without the lance and became guns by the late 13th century.


title: Gun

text: Guns such as the hand cannon were being used in the Yuan dynasty by the 1280s. Surviving cannons such as the Heilongjiang hand cannon and the Xanadu Gun have been found dating to the late 13th century and possibly earlier in the early 13th century.


title: Gun

text: In 1287, the Yuan dynasty deployed Jurchen troops with hand cannons to put down a rebellion by the Mongol prince Nayan. The "History of Yuan" records that the cannons of Li Ting's soldiers "caused great damage" and created "such confusion that the enemy soldiers attacked and killed each other." The hand cannons were used again in the beginning of 1288. Li Ting's "gun-soldiers" or "chongzu" () carried the hand cannons "on their backs". The passage on the 1288 battle is also the first to use the name "chong" () with the metal radical "jin" () for metal-barrel firearms. "Chong" was used instead of the earlier and more ambiguous term "huo tong" (fire tube; ), which may refer to the tubes of fire lances, proto-cannons, or signal flares. Hand cannons may have been used in the Mongol invasions of Japan. Japanese descriptions of the invasions mention iron and bamboo "pao" causing "light and fire" and emitting 2–3,000 iron bullets. The "Nihon Kokujokushi", written around 1300, mentions "huo tong" (fire tubes) at the Battle of Tsushima in 1274 and the second coastal assault led by Holdon in 1281. The "Hachiman Gudoukun" of 1360 mentions iron "pao" "which caused a flash of light and a loud noise when fired." The "Taiheki" of 1370 mentions "iron "pao" shaped like a bell."


title: Gun

text: The exact nature of the spread of firearms and its route is uncertain. One theory is that gunpowder and cannons arrived in Europe via the Silk Road through the Middle East. Hasan al-Rammah had already written about fire lances in the 13th century, so proto-guns were known in the Middle East at that point. Another theory is that it was brought to Europe during the Mongol invasion in the first half of the 13th century.


title: Gun

text: The earliest depiction of a cannon in Europe dates to 1326 and evidence of firearm production can be found in the following year. The first recorded use of gunpowder weapons in Europe was in 1331 when two mounted German knights attacked Cividale del Friuli with gunpowder weapons of some sort. By 1338 hand cannons were in widespread use in France. English Privy Wardrobe accounts list "ribaldis", a type of cannon, in the 1340s, and siege guns were used by the English at Calais in 1346. Early guns and the men who used them were often associated with the devil and the gunner's craft was considered a black art, a point reinforced by the smell of sulfur on battlefields created from the firing of guns along with the muzzle blast and accompanying flash.


title: Gun

text: Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannons were developed, creating in effect the first smooth-bore personal firearm. In the late 15th century the Ottoman empire used firearms as part of its regular infantry.


title: Gun

text: In the Middle East, the Arabs seem to have used the hand cannon to some degree during the 14th century. Cannons are attested to in India starting from 1366.


title: Gun

text: The Joseon kingdom in Korea learned how to produce gunpowder from China by 1372 and started producing cannons by 1377. In Southeast Asia, Đại Việt soldiers used hand cannons at the very latest by 1390 when they employed them in killing Champa king Che Bong Nga. Java was confirmed to use hand cannon in 1413 during Zheng He's voyage. Japan knew of gunpowder due to the Mongol invasions during the 13th century, but did not acquire a cannon until a monk took one back to Japan from China in 1510, and guns were not produced until 1543, when the Portuguese introduced matchlocks which were known as tanegashima to the Japanese.


title: Gun

text: Gunpowder technology entered Java in the Mongol invasion of Java (1293 A.D.). Majapahit under "Mahapatih" (prime minister) Gajah Mada utilized gunpowder technology obtained from the Yuan dynasty for use in the naval fleet. During the following years, the Majapahit army have begun producing cannons known as cetbang. Early cetbang (also called Eastern-style cetbang) resembled Chinese cannons and hand cannons. Eastern-style cetbangs were mostly made of bronze and were front-loaded cannons. It fires arrow-like projectiles, but round bullets and co-viative projectiles can also be used. These arrows can be solid-tipped without explosives, or with explosives and incendiary materials placed behind the tip. Near the rear, there is a combustion chamber or room, which refers to the bulging part near the rear of the gun, where the gunpowder is placed. The cetbang is mounted on a fixed mount, or as a hand cannon mounted on the end of a pole. There is a tube-like section on the back of the cannon. In the hand cannon type cetbang, this tube is used as a place to stick poles.


title: Gun

text: The arquebus was a firearm that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire in the early 15th century. Its name is derived from the German word "Hackenbüchse". It originally described a hand cannon with a lug or hook on the underside for stabilizing the weapon, usually on defensive fortifications. In the early 1500s, heavier variants known as "muskets" that were fired from resting Y-shaped supports appeared. The musket was able to penetrate heavy armor, and as a result armor declined, which also made the heavy musket obsolete. Although there is relatively little to no difference in design between arquebus and musket except in size and strength, it was the term "musket" which remained in use up into the 1800s. It may not be completely inaccurate to suggest that the musket was in its fabrication simply a larger arquebus. At least on one occasion the musket and arquebus have been used interchangeably to refer to the same weapon, and even referred to as an "arquebus musket." A Habsburg commander in the mid-1560s once referred to muskets as "double arquebuses."


title: Gun

text: A shoulder stock was added to the arquebus around 1470 and the matchlock mechanism sometime before 1475. The matchlock arquebus was the first firearm equipped with a trigger mechanism and the first portable shoulder-arms firearm. Before the matchlock, handheld firearms were fired from the chest, tucked under one arm, while the other arm maneuvered a hot pricker to the touch hole to ignite the gunpowder.


title: Gun

text: The Ottomans may have used arquebuses as early as the first half of the 15th century during the Ottoman–Hungarian wars of 1443–1444. The arquebus was used in substantial numbers during the reign of king Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (r. 1458–1490). Arquebuses were used by 1472 by the Spanish and Portuguese at Zamora. Likewise, the Castilians used arquebuses as well in 1476. Later, a larger arquebus known as a musket was used for breaching heavy armor, but this declined along with heavy armor. Matchlock firearms continued to be called musket. They were used throughout Asia by the mid-1500s.


title: Gun

text: Guns reached their "classic" form in the 1480s. The "classic gun" is so called because of the long duration of its design, which was longer, lighter, more efficient, and more accurate compared to its predecessors 30 years prior. The design persisted for nearly 300 years and cannons of the 1480s show little variation from as well as surprising similarity with cannons three centuries later in the 1750s. This 300-year period during which the classic gun dominated gives it its moniker.


title: Gun

text: The classic gun differed from older generations of firearms through an assortment of improvements. Their longer length-to-bore ratio imparted more energy into the shot, enabling the projectile to shoot further. They were also lighter since the barrel walls were thinner, allowing faster dissipation of heat. They no longer needed the help of a wooden plug to load since they offered a tighter fit between projectile and barrel, further increasing the accuracy of firearms – and were deadlier due to developments such as gunpowder corning and iron shot.


title: Gun

text: In 1815, Joshua Shaw invented percussion caps, which replaced the flintlock trigger system. The new percussion caps allowed guns to shoot reliably in any weather condition.


title: Gun

text: In 1835, Casimir Lefaucheux invented the first practical breech loading firearm with a cartridge. The new cartridge contained a conical bullet, a cardboard powder tube, and a copper base that incorporated a primer pellet.


title: Gun

text: While rifled guns did exist prior to the 19th century in the form of grooves cut into the interior of a barrel, these were considered specialist weapons and limited in number.


title: Gun

text: The rate of fire of handheld guns began to increase drastically. In 1836, Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse invented the Dreyse needle gun, a breech-loading rifle which increased the rate of fire to six times that of muzzle loading weapons. In 1854, Volcanic Repeating Arms produced a rifle with a self-contained cartridge.


title: Gun

text: In 1849, Claude-Étienne Minié invented the Minié ball, the first projectile that could easily slide down a rifled barrel, which made rifles a viable military firearm, ending the smoothbore musket era. Rifles were deployed during the Crimean War with resounding success and proved vastly superior to smoothbore muskets.


title: Gun

text: In 1860, Benjamin Tyler Henry created the Henry rifle, the first reliable repeating rifle. An improved version of the Henry rifle was developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1873, known as the Model 1873 Winchester rifle.


title: Gun

text: Smokeless powder was invented in 1880 and began replacing gunpowder, which came to be known as black powder. By the start of the 20th century, smokeless powder was adopted throughout the world and black powder, what was previously known as gunpowder, was relegated to hobbyist usage.


title: Gun

text: In 1861, Richard Jordan Gatling invented the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun, capable of firing 200 gunpowder cartridges in a minute. It was fielded by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s. In 1884, Hiram Maxim invented the Maxim gun, the first single-barreled machine gun.


title: Gun

text: The world's first submachine gun (a fully automatic firearm which fires pistol cartridges) able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP 18.1, invented by Theodor Bergmann. It was introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army during World War I as the primary weapon of the Stosstruppen (assault groups specialized in trench combat).


title: Gun

text: In civilian use, the captive bolt pistol is used in agriculture to humanely stun farm animals for slaughter.


title: Gun

text: The first assault rifle was introduced during World War II by the Germans, known as the StG44. It was the first firearm to bridge the gap between long range rifles, machine guns, and short range submachine guns. Since the mid-20th century, guns that fire beams of energy rather than solid projectiles have been developed, and also guns that can be fired by means other than the use of gunpowder.


title: Gun

text: Most guns use compressed gas confined by the barrel to propel the bullet up to high speed, though devices operating in other ways are sometimes called guns. In firearms the high-pressure gas is generated by combustion, usually of gunpowder. This principle is similar to that of internal combustion engines, except that the bullet leaves the barrel, while the piston transfers its motion to other parts and returns down the cylinder. As in an internal combustion engine, the combustion propagates by deflagration rather than by detonation, and the optimal gunpowder, like the optimal motor fuel, is resistant to detonation. This is because much of the energy generated in detonation is in the form of a shock wave, which can propagate from the gas to the solid structure and heat or damage the structure, rather than staying as heat to propel the piston or bullet. The shock wave at such high temperature and pressure is much faster than that of any bullet, and would leave the gun as sound either through the barrel or the bullet itself rather than contributing to the bullet's velocity.


title: Gun

text: Barrel types include rifled—a series of spiraled grooves or angles within the barrel—when the projectile requires an induced spin to stabilize it, and smoothbore when the projectile is stabilized by other means or rifling is undesired or unnecessary. Typically, interior barrel diameter and the associated projectile size is a means to identify gun variations. Bore diameter is reported in several ways. The more conventional measure is reporting the interior diameter (bore) of the barrel in decimal fractions of the inch or in millimetres. Some guns—such as shotguns—report the weapon's gauge (which is the number of shot pellets having the same diameter as the bore produced from one English pound (454g) of lead) or—as in some British ordnance—the weight of the weapon's usual projectile.


title: Gun

text: A gun projectile may be a simple, single-piece item like a bullet, a casing containing a payload like a shotshell or explosive shell, or complex projectile like a sub-caliber projectile and sabot. The propellant may be air, an explosive solid, or an explosive liquid. Some variations like the Gyrojet and certain other types combine the projectile and propellant into a single item.


title: Paris syndrome

text: Paris syndrome (; ) is a sense of extreme disappointment exhibited by some individuals when visiting Paris, who feel that the city was not what they had expected. The condition is commonly viewed as a severe form of culture shock.


title: Paris syndrome

text: The syndrome is characterized by a number of psychiatric symptoms such as acute delusional states, hallucinations, feelings of persecution (perceptions of being a victim of prejudice, aggression, and hostility from others), derealization, depersonalization, anxiety, and also psychosomatic manifestations such as dizziness, tachycardia, sweating, and others, such as vomiting.


title: Paris syndrome

text: While the syndrome has been particularly noted among Japanese tourists, it has also affected other travellers or temporary residents from East and Southeast Asia, such as those from China, South Korea, and Singapore.


title: Paris syndrome

text: Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist working at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center in France, coined the term in the 1980s and published a book of the same name in 1991. Katada Tamami of Nissei Hospital wrote of a Japanese patient with manic-depression who experienced Paris syndrome in 1998.


title: Paris syndrome

text: Later work by Youcef Mahmoudia, a physician with the hospital Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, indicates that Paris syndrome is "psychopathology related to travel, rather than a syndrome of the traveler." He theorized that the excitement resulting from visiting Paris causes the heart to accelerate, causing giddiness and shortness of breath, which results in hallucinations in the manner similar to (although spurring from opposite causes) the Stendhal syndrome described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini in her book "La sindrome di Stendhal".


title: Paris syndrome

text: Although the BBC reported in 2006 that the Japanese embassy in Paris had a "24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock", the Japanese embassy states no such hotline exists. Also in 2006, Miyuki Kusama, of the Japanese embassy in Paris, told "The Guardian" "There are around 20 cases a year of the syndrome and it has been happening for several years", and that the embassy had repatriated at least four Japanese citizens that year. However, in 2011, the embassy stated that, despite media reports to the contrary, it did not repatriate Japanese nationals with Paris syndrome.


title: Paris syndrome

text: Of the estimated 1.1 million annual Japanese tourists in Paris, the number of reported cases is small. A journal also identified two types of the condition: Those who have previous history of psychiatric problems and those without morbid history who exhibit delayed-expression post traumatic stress disorder. In an interview with Slate.fr, Mahmoudia stated that of the fifty pathological travelers hospitalized each year, only three to five are Japanese.


title: Paris syndrome

text: The French newspaper "Libération" wrote an article on the syndrome in 2004. In the article, Mario Renoux, the president of the Franco-Japanese Medical Association, states that media and touristic advertising are primarily responsible for creating this syndrome. Renoux indicates that while magazines often depict Paris as a place where most people on the street look like models and most women dress in high fashion brands, in reality neither Van Gogh nor models are on the street corners of Paris. In this view, the disorder is caused by positive representations of the city in popular culture, which leads to immense disappointment as the reality of experiencing the city is very different from expectations: tourists are confronted with an overcrowded and littered city (especially if compared to a Japanese metropolis) and a less than welcoming attitude by French hospitality workers like shopkeepers, restaurant and hotel personnel without considering the higher safety risks to which tourists used to safer cities are suddenly exposed.


title: Paris syndrome

text: In 2014, "Bloomberg Pursuits" reported the syndrome also affected a few of the million annual Chinese tourists in Paris. Jean-Francois Zhou, president of the association of Chinese travel agencies in France (Association Chinoise des Agences de Voyages en France), said "Chinese people romanticize France, they know about French literature and French love stories... But some of them end up in tears, swearing they’ll never come back." The article cited a 2012 survey from the Paris Tourism Office, in which safety and cleanliness received low scores, and also noted that the Paris Police Prefecture website was made available in Chinese, in addition to English and French. However, Michel Lejoyeux, head of psychiatry at Bichat–Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, noted in an interview that "Traveler's syndrome is an old story", and pointed to Stendhal syndrome which, conversely, is a set of symptoms arising from an overwhelmingly "positive" touristic experience.


title: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Francis II (; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor (from 1792 to 1806) and the founder and Emperor of the Austrian Empire, from 1804 to 1835. He assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in response to the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French. Soon after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor. He was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.


title: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Francis II continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after the Battle of Austerlitz. The marriage of his daughter Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon on 10 March 1810 was arguably his severest personal defeat. After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis' chancellor Klemens von Metternich culminating in a new European map and the restoration of most of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.


title: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Francis II's grandchildren included Napoleon II (Napoleon's only legitimate son), Franz Joseph I of Austria, Maximilian I of Mexico, Maria II of Portugal and Pedro II of Brazil.


title: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

text: Francis was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of Charles III of Spain. Francis was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Francis was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.