44 Days in Prague: The Runciman Mission and the Race to Save Europe

The dramatic story of a last-ditch attempt to avert catastrophe in Europe, on the eve of the Second World War.

''A blow-by-blow account... Meticulously researched, a feat of synthesis in which each stage of Runciman''s mission is rendered in... detail.''

''Shukman’s study is... very pacey and engaging, breaking new ground in several ways. It sets out nicely the hybrid nature of the SdP.''

‘Ann Shukman has produced a vivid and scrupulously fair investigation into her grandfather Walter Runciman’s role in the doomed pre-war mission to broker a peace deal between the Czechoslovak Republic and its Sudeten German minority.’

''The Runciman Mission has all but disappeared in today''s narrative of the pre-WW2 crisis. Ann Shukman has rescued it from obscurity with her skilfully woven account. No one writing on the Munich Conference can now ignore its prelude or the man at its centre, fated to fail.''

''An engrossing blow-by-blow account of a fateful mission. The author draws brilliantly on family material to bring alive a now-lost inter-war world of high society and high diplomacy.''

''The melancholy Runciman mission, the last attempt to discover some arrangement whereby Germans and Czechs could live more or less contentedly together in Bohemia, receives here a long-overdue appraisal. Ann Shukmann combines a keen critical mind with a mastery of the available sources.''

''Based on family papers, new documents from the Czech archives and interviews with descendants of those who met members of the Runciman Mission in Czechoslovakia, Shukman brings this story to life and offers a delightfully vivid personal aspect. A most interesting and enjoyable book.''

''44 Days in Prague charts the history, ambitions and ultimate failure of the Runciman Mission to Czechoslovakia in the late summer of 1938, skilfully weaving social and cultural threads into a story of high politics. A remarkable achievement.''

''Shukman''s timely and instructive chronicle of the doomed 44-day Runciman peace mission to Czechoslovakia in August-September 1938 unsparingly exposes the ignorance, prejudices, and gullibility of key British actors, including her own relatives, in their dealings with the Czechoslovak parties. Eye-opening.''

''With exemplary clarity, Ann Shukman, drawing on her own archive, recounts the mission''s progress week by week. It was lavishly entertained, and met everyone--save the real puppet-master, Hitler. Runciman''s final despairing cry was "They lied to me!" A remarkable book.''

After discovering that her grandmother had pro-German sympathies, Ann Shukman resolved to investigate her grandfather Walter Runciman’s 1938 Mission to Prague. This government-sponsored British delegation sought to broker peace between the Czechoslovak republic and its Sudeten German minority—a dispute that Hitler was aggravating with virulent anti-Czech propaganda and threats of invasion. 

Drawing fresh evidence from personal diaries, private papers and Czech publications, 44 Days in Prague exposes the misunderstandings and official ignorance that provoked a calamitous series of betrayals. It reveals that, while Walter Runciman always supported Czechoslovakia’s integrity, his wife Hilda—whose role became crucial—publicly favoured the German cause.

This is a moving portrayal of Walter’s declining influence as tensions mounted, from the couple’s efforts to court a divided old aristocracy at glittering social occasions, to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s fatal undermining of the Mission, in his abrupt decision to negotiate directly with Hitler. Shukman’s vivid narrative combines personal insight with meticulous research to shine new light on this pivotal yet tragic episode of European history.

• | Author: Ann Shukman
• | Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
• | Publication Date: Apr 04, 2024
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Hardback
• | ISBN-13: 9781911723042
• | ISBN-10: 1911723049