Background During the 1930s, tensions increased between Germany and the United Kingdom and its allies. In late 1937 and throughout 1938, German demands for the annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia led to an international crisis. To avoid war, the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain met with German chancellor Adolf Hitler in September and brokered the Munich Agreement. It averted a war and allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland. Although Chamberlain had intended the agreement to lead to further peaceful resolution of issues, relations between the two countries soon deteriorated. On 15 March 1939, Germany breached the terms of the agreement by invading and occupying the remnants of the Czech state. On 29 March, Leslie Hore-Belisha, the secretary of state for war, announced Britain's plans to increase the Territorial Army (TA) from 130,000 to 340,000 men and double the number of TA divisions. The plan was for existing TA divisions, referred to as the first-line, to recruit over their establishments (aided by an increase in pay for Territorials, the removal of restrictions on promotion which had hindered recruiting, construction of better-quality barracks, and an increase in supper rations) and then form a new division, known as the second-line, from cadres around which the new divisions could be expanded. This process was dubbed "duplicating". The 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division provided cadres to create a second-line "duplicate" formation, which became the 46th Infantry Division. Despite the intention for the army to grow, a lack of central guidance on the expansion and duplication process, and a lack of facilities, equipment, and instructors complicated the programme. In April 1939, 34,500 men, all aged 20, were conscripted into the regular army, initially to be trained for six months before being deployed to the forming second-line units. The War Office had envisioned that the duplication process, and recruiting the required numbers of men, would take no more than six months. The process varied widely between the TA divisions. Some were ready in weeks while others had made little progress by the time the Second World War began on 1 September. History Formation On 2 October 1939, the 46th Infantry Division became active. The division took control of the 137th, the 138th, and the 139th Infantry Brigades, in addition to supporting divisional units, which had been administered by the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division. Major-General Algernon Ransome, who was called out of retirement and had previously