Skip to main content

Full text of "The Struggle For Peace"

See other formats


THE BREAK-UP  OF  CZECHOSLOVAKIA
In the second week of March the union between the Czechs and
the Slovaks which dated from the last days of the Great War
appeared to be coming to an end. On loth March the C^ech
President of the Czechoslovak Republic used his powers under
the constitution to dismiss the Slovak Government, whose late
Prime Minister, Dr. Tiso, the head of the Slovak National
Party', thereupon appealed to Herr Hitler for help. Four days
after, the Slovak Diet at a special session, proclaimed the
independence of Slovakia. On the same day Dr. Hacha, the
President of the Czechoslovak Republic travelled to Berlin for
an interview with Herr Hitler., which concluded with the issue
of a joint signed communiqul stating that in order to secure a
final pacification of this part of Europe, Dr. Hacha had placed
the destinies of the C^ecfi people and country in the hands of the
German Reich. Simultaneously, German forces began a military
occupation of the C^ech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, thus
bringing to an end not only the short-lived independence of the
Czechs, but the Munich Agreement to which the leader of the
German State had been a party. On the afternoon of i^th
March, the day on which the invasion began, the Prime Minister,
though not yet in possession of all the relevant facts, made a
statement in the House of Commons.