On September 30, 1938, the Munich Agreement was signed between Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, allowing Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. The agreement, seen as an attempt to appease Hitler, was met with widespread criticism for its failure to prevent the outbreak of World War II. The Munich Agreement is often cited as a prime example of the policy of appeasement, where leaders attempted to avoid conflict by conceding to some of the aggressors demands. In the long term, it emboldened Hitler and contributed to the start of the war the following year.