Full text of "The Struggle For Peace"
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75 wounded, the majority of whom were Czechs. Martial law was immediately proclaimed in the affected districts. On the evening of i3th September Herr Henlein and other Sudeten leaders assembled at Eger and sent a telegram to the Czechoslovak Government declaring that they could not be responsible for the consequences of martial law and the special Czech emergency measures if they were not immediately withdrawn. Attempts by Lord Runciman's Mission to bring the Sudeten leaders into discussion with the Czechoslovak Government failed, and on i4th September Herr Henlein issued a proclamation stating that the Carlsbad Points were no longer enough and that the situation called for self-determi- nation. Thereupon, Herr Henlein fled to Germany, where, it is understood, he has since occupied himself with the formation of a Sudeten legionary organisation reported to number 40,000 men. In these circumstances Lord Runciman felt that no useful purpose would be served by his publishing a plan of his own. " The House will recall that by the evening of i4th Septem- ber a highly critical situation had developed in which there was immediate danger of the German troops now concen- trated upon the frontier entering Czechoslovakia to prevent further incidents occurring in Sudetenland, and fighting between the Czech forces and the Sudeten Germans, although reliable reports indicated that order had been completely restored in those districts by i4th September. On the other hand, the Czechoslovak Government might have felt com- pelled to mobilise at once and so risk provoking a German invasion. In either event German invasion might have been expected to bring into operation French obligations to come to the assistance of Czechoslovakia, and so lead to a European War in which this country might well have been involved in support of France. " In those circumstances I decided that the time had come to put into operation a plan which I had had in my mind for a considerable period as a last resort. One of the principal difficulties in dealing with totalitarian Governments is the lack of any means of establishing contact with the personalities in whose hands lie the final decisions for the country. So I resolved to go to Germany myself to interview Herr Hitler K