Daladier, Édouard

Daladier, Édouard (1884–1970) French premier who reluctantly signed the Munich Pact with Hitler With British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, French premier Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Pact of September 30, 1938, giving Adolf Hitler the Czech Sudetenland. Born in Carpentras, France, Daladier was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1919 as a member of the Radical Party. A vigorous politician, he served from 1924 to 1933 variously as minister of colonies, minister of war, minister of public instruction, and minister of public works. On January 31, 1933, he formed his own government, which dissolved in October. The next year, in January 1934, he formed another government, which endured a mere four weeks. In 1935, he led the Radical Party in a coalition with the Socialists and the Communists as the Popular Front, with himself as premier. Like Chamberlain, Daladier was concerned at virtually any cost to avoid war with Germany and thus cooperated in Chamberlain's Appeasement Policy by endorsing the Munich Pact, thereby abrogating France's treaty agreement to defend the national integrity of Czechoslovakia. Appeasement, of course, failed to avert armed conflict, and Daladier led France into a war for which it had failed to prepare. In June 1940, when France fell following the Battle of France, Daladier attempted a lastminute escape to French North Africa, where he intended to establish a government in exile. InMorocco, however, agents of the Vichy Government arrested him and returned him to France. There he was tried at Riom in February 1942. With others who had resisted the Vichy compromise, Daladier publicly accused Henrie-Philippe Pétain and his followers of having failed to prepare for war. Vichy authorities in turn remanded Daladier to German custody, and he remained a prisoner of the Reich until the liberation of France in 1945. After the war, Daladier was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies, serving from 1946 to 1958. Diehard president of the much-diminished Radical Party, he opposed the constitution promulgated by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. After the failure of his opposition, he retired from politics and public life.