LOST LIBERTY?

LOST LIBERTY?

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Jonathan Griffin is the Author of

GLASS HOUSES & MODERN WAR

ALTERNATIVE TO REARMAMENT

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and was formerly Editor of

ESSENTIAL NEWS

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Jonathan (i tiffin

Prague : the Castle and the Charles Bridge

LOST LIBERTY?

The Ordeal of the Czechs

and the
Future of Freedom

by

Joan & Jonathan Griffin

,*

,*' *'

^

CHATTO & WINDUS

LONDON

PUBLISHED BY

Chatto & Hindus

LONDON

The Macmillan Company
of Canada , Limited

TORONTO

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Aeo. No.

34.

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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

To

THE REPUBLIC AND PEOPLE

OF

MASARYK AND BENE

"A lion is a lion, even in a cage; he doesn't

turn into a donkey,"

MASARYK

Contents

PROLOGUE: The Ordeal of the Czechs

and the Future of Freedom page i

PART I: INSIDE CZECHOSLOVAKIA

1 . Background to Berchtesgaden 1 9

2. End of the Sudeten German Problem ? 37

3. The Betrayal 49

4. Ultimatum and Rising 62

5. To Arms! 81

6. Waiting for the Raid 88

7. Self-Determination ' 94

8. The Primrose Path to Munich 105

9. By Force and without War 128

10. Four-Power Justice 142

1 1 . Paying for Peace 1 66

12. The Lion in the Cage 192

PART II: RESPONSIBILITIES AND THE FUTURE

1 . Was Hitler Bluffing ? 205

2. The Enemies of Liberty 225

3. Has Freedom a Future? 267

APPENDICES

Illustrations

Prague : the Castle and the Charles Frontispiece
Bridge

Dr. Thomas Masaryk Facing page ro

President Beneg 64

Dr. Kamil Krofta, Former Foreign

Secretary of Czechoslovakia 6 8

The Czechoslovak Mobilisation

Recruits leaving for the Frontiers 8 2

Czech Mountain Artillery 1 70

Front page of the Special Number of

Der Sturmer for Slovakia 1 8 8

President Hacha 194

MAPS

Czechoslovakia before and after
Munich. From The Times of
November 15, 1938 page 21

Czechoslovakia to-day. From The

Times of March 18, 1939 206

Acknowledgments

To our many Czech, Sudeten German and Slovak
friends we should like to express our gratitude for
unstinted help given to us during several years but
for their sakes we cannot thank them by name.

We also wish to thank Mr. Hamilton Fish Arm-
strong, Professor Seton -Watson, Mr. Graham Hutton,
Mr. David Wills, Miss Elizabeth Wiskemann, Mr.
G. E. R. Geyde, Monsieur Hubert Beuve-Mery and
Monsieur Louis Joxe, who have given us valuable
information, criticism and encouragement.

J.G.
J.G.

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Prologue

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS AND
THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM

WE write this book because we must. We
were on the spot, in Prague, from Septem-
ber 1 5th to December, 1938. We were
there during the great festival of the Sokols in June
and July, 1938, and just after the Germans invaded
Austria; and we had been often before. We saw
how the Czech people endured the ordeal of 1938, It
may well be the noblest thing we shall ever see in the
whole of our lives. Those who see noble sights ought
to record them. That is one reason for this book.

But there are other reasons, practical reasons. The
moment the Treaty of Munich was signed, most people
in England and France wanted to forget Czecho-
slovakia: "What is the good", they said, "of crying
over spilt milk? What matters is the future, and on what
has to be done next nearly everyone is agreed : rearma-
ment, national unity, national service." But is it really
so simple as that? Would that it were! The grave truth
is that the betrayal of Czechoslovakia puts in question
the very aims for which it is reasonable for civilised
people to strive. Peace is not the real issue of our
time: the real issue is liberty. Most people want
peace; but can they have both peace and freedom?

Everyone who is or longs to be a citizen of a free
country is now face to face with four heart-searching

I B

LOST LIBERTY?

problems. On each of them the evidence of Czecho-
slovakia is vital to any serious judgment.

First, should we risk war for freedom? Of the many
people in the Western democracies who accepted the
Treaty of Munich with relief, few perhaps agreed with
the barefaced claim that it was "peace with honour'*,
but a great many, having some idea of what war means
war between industrialised Great Powers felt that
anything would be better than such war. If they had
seen what we saw in Prague, they might have wavered.
We ourselves had long thought peace the first aim of
politics; yet Prague in 1938 seemed to force us to
believe that there is something even worse than war.
Which is true? Is liberty worth modern war? Is
peace worth vassaldom? The fate of the people of
Masaryk's Czechoslovakia raises this question merci-
lessly and is essential to its answer.

There was, before the surrender of Czechoslovakia,
an escape from this question : now there may well be
no escape for any civilised person. For in September,
1938, and in the three months before there was a good
chance that, if Great Britain and France had given
Hitler^no reason to believe that he could get Czecho-
slovakia without fighting them too, there would have
been no war. Even if Hitler had been mad enough
to fight, the war might well have been short, giving to
Germany a moderate regime and to all a humane peace.
But after September 21, 1938, when the Czechoslovak
Government gave in to the ultimatum of the two
great democracies of Western Europe, what chance
is left of deterring aggression, or that war will be
short?

The second problem, in fact, is this : Those countries
that are still democratic have they still the power, if

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

they have the will, to resist and perhaps to deter the
Fascintern? How bitterly, in 1914, people of all
sorts in Great Britain reproached the memory of the
statesmen who had ceded Heligoland to Germany!
That is nothing to the desperate bitterness with which
the British people will soon reproach those who ceded
to Germany Czechoslovakia a bargain which is likely
to cost hundreds of thousands of British lives, and these
perhaps in vain. Many people simply did not know
what they were letting go. Many said, for instance,
that whatever Great Britain and France might have
done, Czechoslovakia would have been quickly overrun.
One day they will know what they should have known
then, that Great Britain and France could have kept
Poland neutral and that in that case Czechoslovakia
would have held out even against Great Germany, for
in hard fact the Czechoslovak Army was the finest in
the world, alike for equipment, for training and for
morale. They have thrown it away. Now, even if
the democracies arm like mad at the cost of cutting
their standard of life and lessening their liberties, all
they will be doing is to replace the thirty-five divisions
of the Czechoslovak Army and its many hundreds
of first-line 'planes and crews and even this only if
the Fascist Powers have not meanwhile kept pace.
Czechoslovakia had the armaments industry of a first-
class Power: it is now in the hands of Hitler. At what
cost in liberty and in money will Great Britain and
France hold their own against a people of eighty
millions with two armament industries of the first rank?
And there is something the democracies cannot replace
the strategic vantage of Czechoslovakia, In losing
this, they have given to Germany the chance to control
all the food, oil and raw materials of Eastern Europe,

3

LOST LIBERTY?

and so, by making Germany less sensitive to blockade,
gravely reduced the effect of their sea-power.

So the surrender of Czechoslovakia has made a mili-
tary and strategic revolution world-wide. Its result
is this : the democracies of the European area are not
strong enough to deter aggression, unless they make
their home front defences strong enough to leave even
dictators no hope of a short war. If this is not enough
to make war its own deterrent, as much for the dictator-
ships as for the democracies, then any war is likely to
be an all-in war of totalitarian attrition, destroying too
much of European civilisation for rebirth, unless
America is clearly ready to defend all democracies
without delay. What is this but collective security once
more? only this time the crying need is for a collective
security that must jump the Atlantic, and Great Britain
is not the lordly chooser between non-intervention and
resistance to aggression, Great Britain is the China or
the Czechoslovakia to be.

The practical result is a hard choice. Rather than
risk being bombed, rather than endure paralysing un-
certainty and gruelling effort only perhaps to be treated
by^ America as they treated the Czechs, will Great
Britain and France accept a peace like the peace the
Czechs accepted that is, become the vassals of a people
ruled by brutes? They may but they should study
the fate of the Czechs first. If they decide to defend
themselves, they must do their best to win help from
the United States. This means that they must do two
things. They must make their defences as efficient
as they can without giving up democratic freedom, for
the United States will not help those who do not help
themselves. And they must show themselves ready
to fight not for their possessions only but for an ideal ;

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

for without that there is no chance that the United
States will be ready to fight beside them again. There
is one ideal, one only, which may have power to make
democracies on both sides of the wide Atlantic face
war again together, the ideal of a world where small
nations can live in freedom beside great nations: in
fact, the unachieved aim of the Great War. (One part
of this vital ideal must be to remake a genuinely inde-
pendent Czechoslovakia.) The most dangerous, as
well as the most evil, of all the * 'consequences of
Munich" are its moral consequences. At Munich
England and France destroyed what remained of that
which millions of English and French and American
soldiers had offered their lives to create. European
democracy will perish and the United States run into
grave danger if they do not show themselves ready
to fight together again for the "war aims" of the last
war.

Again? After such costly failure? Nobody could
work for this without first trying to solve two further
problems the third and fourth of the four. The
third problem is this: Is democracy a worthy aim at all?
Has it not had its chance and proved itself a failure,
even a shameful failure? Can anyone believe in
democracy after Munich?

At the end of the World War the democracies had
the world before them: they had a real chance to put
into practice the new order they had professed to be
fighting for. To set against the hideous losses and
hatred caused by the War, they had the League of
Nations and a republican Germany. They destroyed
both. The United States deserted the League without
trying it. The two great democracies of Western
Europe refused to the Republic of Weimar what they

5

LOST LIBERTY?

allowed to the Terror of Hitler. They betrayed
republican Germany, Manchuria, social-democratic
Vienna, Abyssinia, Spain, China and Czechoslovakia.
Sanctity of treaties; rights of small nations, open
diplomacy, general disarmament the very Powers
who sent myriads of their men to death for these aims
have betrayed these aims and those men. Those men
were fools. They should have stayed at home.
Perhaps the next lot will. If the democracies are
doomed, they are doomed deservedly. Is it honest to
incite people to risk their lives for democracies that
have dishonoured themselves and for a system that has
failed?

And yet what is the alternative to the strife for

democracy? Local variants of Nazi Germany. At

least the so-called democracies are better than that.

At least in a democracy there are no concentration

camps, no pogroms, no need for people to fear that

their closest friends even their children may be

spies and informers, no whole generation of young

people with next to nothing in their heads but a pagan

worship of the State and a lust for Jew-baiting and

domination. Above all, there is in a democracy at

least some freedom of the Press, and criticism has some

power to get things changed. Although sometimes

democratic countries do acts of cruelty that are worthy

of the Nazis, and allow inhuman exploitation and

misery among their workers, yet sooner or later someone

exposes the evil and starts a protest which may get it

put right. Where there is democracy there is hope.

This means that everyone who wants to be better than

an animal must work for a democratic world, if only

there is a real chance that democracies will not always

m practice fail and betray. But is there that chance?

6

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

Here the Czechoslovak Republic of Masaryfc and
Benes has essential evidence to give.

President Masaryk said to Karel Capek: "The new
Europe is like a laboratory built over the great grave-
yard of the World War, a laboratory which needs the
work of all. And democracy modern democracy
is in its infancy." l There has been an explosion In
the laboratory, but modern democracy remains a new
experiment which it is vital to repeat until it succeeds.
What is this modern democracy? Masaryk explains :
"Democratic States", he says, "have hitherto kept up,
in greater or lesser degree, the spirit and the institutions
of the old regime out of which they arose. They have
been mere essays in democracy; nowhere has it been
consistently applied. Only the really new States, the
States of the future, will be founded, inwardly and
outwardly, on liberty, equality and fraternity." 2 Is this
true? At first sight not, because Great Britain, for
instance, has mixed parliamentarism with monarchy
and has, by keeping up many old traditions and institu-
tions, gained a stability that has carried many liberties.
And yet, look closer. Who threw Czechoslovakia to
the wolves? Not the ordinary people of Great Britain :
nobody told them or called Parliament until the ulti-
matum of September aist had already wrung out the
Czechoslovak submission. Not the ordinary people of
France : they too were not consulted about that decisive
ultimatum. Though both peoples rejoiced wildly
when the apparent threat of war passed away for a
while, yet they showed themselves ready to resist : most
people who saw it agree that the French mobilisation
was sublime, for the people were at once resolute and

* President Masaryk tells his Story, by Karcl fiapck, p. 299,
* The Making of a State, by T. G. Masaryk, p. 436.

7

LOST LIBERTY?

resigned; and in London those who fled to the country
were mostly of the class that is supposed to set an
example. Great Britain had a Government which had
won the election of November, 1935, on the policy of
upholding the League of Nations, only to propose the
partition of Abyssinia a bare month later. Those who
exerted the real power in England allowed the interests
of their class to blind them to the nation's interests, and
in their fear and hatred of Bolshevism that ghost
they encouraged and shielded the real and glowing
danger, the Fascintern. In Spain they went on and
on denying to a lawful Government the right to buy
munitions, while German and Italian technicians and
troops were free to take key positions gravely menacing
the communications and even the cities of Great
Britain and France. And Czechoslovakia why did
Czechoslovakia surrender? Chiefly because the real
rulers of Great Britain and France had given to
President Benes grounds for fearing that Czechoslo-
vakia, the least Bolshevist country in Europe, would
become the target of an anti-Bolshevik crusade. The
true lesson of 1938 is that in the great democracies of
Western Europe the peoples had not the rulers they
thought they had: the Cliveden Set and the Two
Hundred Families had the power when it came to the
point. When the leading article of The Times of
September 7^ advocated the partition of Czecho-
slovakia, the British Government repudiated the article
and then enforced the partition. Democracy has not
failed, for it has hardly been tried; the peoples have not
betrayed, B for they have not been trusted. France and
Great Britain have failed and betrayed because they
were not fully enough democracies. What ordinary
people need is not an alternative to democracy, but a

8

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

real democracy a democracy democratic enough to be
clearly worth defending.

The First Czechoslovak Republic tried for twenty
years to carry out in practice this ideal of Musaryk.
It had "no dynasty, no national aristocracy, no old
militarist tradition in the army, and no Church politic-
ally recognised in the way the older States recognised
it". 1 As a new State in a world still suffering badly
from the spiritual and economic effects of a colossal
war, Masaryk's Republic had to face a legion of prob-
lems. It started with a land reform far from ideal,
but necessary; it built up a highly expert army that
was yet a people's army; it played a part out of sill
proportion to its size in the first experiment of a League
of Nations; it treated its minorities better than any
other State in Europe; it stood out as a steadfast
democracy in an exposed position among militarist
dictatorships, while country after country wavered and
turned coat; it was on the way to solving even the
Sudeten German problem, when foreign intervention
stopped it; and in the end it betrayed nobody; it wont
down through the faults of others rather than through
its own, and its people sustained a discipline and
courage which are an immortal inspiration to all peoples
still free. Though its fate is wretched, many people
would be happier if they could think all this of their
own country.

This is not a claim that Czechs were all angels and
the Republic of Masaryk an earthly paradise, "in
the past", Masaryk wrote, "our democratic aims were
negative, a negation of Austrian absolutism. Now
they must be positive ... and it will not be easy/'
Free after three centuries of Austrian rule, the Czechs

1 The MMng of a Stats, by T. G. Masaryk, he. at.

9

LOST LIBERTY?

had their chauvinists, who were just as silly and
dangerous as English or French or American chauvin-
ists; they insisted, for instance, on grabbing TfiSin in
1920 and on pin-pricking the Sudeten Germans
during many precious years. The land reform, an
essential and difficult work of social justice, was some-
times unjust to Hungarians and Germans, and out of
it some Czechs made fortunes. There was a good
deal of corruption in Czechoslovak politics, especially
after the cynical Svehla gained power. Big new
vested interests grew up hardly an improvement on
an old aristocracy and the Agrarian Party came to
represent these rather than the peasants and small
farmers. This Agrarian Party, to make reaction
stronger, helped Henlein to become powerful, and so
has some guilt for the country's catastrophe. Pro-
portional representation meant in practice that one
Government after another was a coalition, and one
result was that each ministry became for years the
preserve of a political party, Czechoslovakia also
inherited from Austria one of the most bureaucratic
bureaucracies in the world. And there was a censor-
ship of the Press which, though it allowed great freedom,
was sometimes unfair and petty. But Czechoslovakia
is now worth urgent study just because it tried to be a
genuine democracy in the real world. Humanly im-
perfect and bent about by reality, still it was a genu-
ine democracy; with all its faults, it was a very good
place to be in. What makes the difference between a
democracy and a tyranny is that a tyranny assumes that
Man is made for the State, while a democracy tries to
carry out the idea that the State is made for Man;
and the test of a democracy is the people how free
they are m fact, how awake to what is going on, how

10

Dr. Thomas Masaryk

Wide World Photo

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

humane, brave and disciplined. By this test the First
Czechoslovak Republic rose very high so high that
it may make all the difference to the future, to what
aims civilised people can still sanely pursue. For the
Republic of Masaryk and Bene has perhaps proved
that democracy is even now worth defending.

But there is still a fourth great problem confronting
everyone who wishes to live in a land of wide freedom.
Can a democracy be ready for modern war and remain
a democracy? Can human freedom survive even the
threat of modern war, let alone war itself?

Czechoslovakia in 1938 was more ready for defence
than any other country yet was still a democracy.
By September, 1938, Great Britain had less than forty
up-to-date anti-aircraft guns to defend the whole of
South-East England, and less than twenty of these
had their crews and instruments complete: yet Czecho-
slovakia had plenty of modern anti-aircraft batteries.
In 1938, still, those who said that Great Britain had
better, as a defence against bombers, disperse many
vital factories and split them into small insulated
buildings, were looked on as cranks: yet Czecho-
slovakia had already done it. The Germans had let
their railways go out of repair and short of rolling-stock :
the Czechs had built new railways to fill their lack of
lines running east and west. When the Germans over-
ran Austria, very many units lost their way: in the
Czechoslovak Army every soldier was trained to move
across country by map. Czechoslovakia had the best
fortifications of Europe even on their southern frontier
they were so far ready that an English observer pro-
nounced those south of Brno the most ingenious he
had ever seen. There were two grave exceptions to
the readiness of the Czechs, but both of them were due

ii

LOST LIBERTY?

to diplomacy: on the fatal September aist their Polish
frontier was not ready for defence, and Great Britain
and France had prevented them from mobilising.
Morally, they were ready, as they showed again and
again, in March, in May, in June, above all in Septem-
ber; those people had no illusions about Hitlerism,
and they had a real democracy to defend. There were
grave exceptions here too those who followed Hlinka
and Beran and Stribrn^ and Henlein have a heavy load
of guilt, for they gave to Hitler and to his English and
French friends the chance to use the ideal of self-
determination against BeneS (of all people) and for
National Socialists (of all people). None the less, it
was desertion by others, not military weakness, that
they helped to cause; it took a Chamberlain and a
Bonnet to make them disastrous; and from September
1 6th to 3oth, 1938, Czechoslovakia was wholly ready
and united, even though there had been races as well
as parties to divide her. Czechoslovakia has proved
that a country can effectively prepare to help deter from
war an industrialised and regimented Great Power and
still be genuinely democratic.

But if war should come, could the democracies win
it and still be democratic at the end? What many fear
is that another great war will not only massacre millions
of men, women and children and devastate a great part
of the most beautiful things made by men, but also
generate such hatred that the peoples of the democracies
wi become no better than the Nazis, and the peace
will be vindictive. Is this inevitable? First, war is
not the only danger to the "invisible things of the spirit
which are the essence of a community and civilisation" : <
vassaldom also may destroy them. The things of the

' Professor Arnold J. Toynbee in Foreign Affairs, January, 1939.

12

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

spirit are in a bad way in after-Munich Czechoslovakia
especially in Slovakia: they would be in mortal
danger if the Czechoslovak Republic had betrayed
France instead of being betrayed. And many have
said that in Republican Spain, in Madrid especially,
the war ennobled the people: certainly we saw the
Czechoslovak people rise to great nobility when they
thought war imminent. Secondly, between 1918 and
1938 a spiritual revolution happened in Europe all
European peoples changed their attitude to war. They
do not go to war lightly, as they did in 1914: they know
now what war must mean. But why should this new
force of popular realism, which made France and
England rejoice wildly at the news of Munich and
made Chamberlain even more a hero than victorious
Hitler to the German people, exert itself only in the
event of peace and have no effect in a war? Consider
the contrast between the mobilisations of 1938 and the
mobilisations of 1914: in 1938, in France, the men
joined up at once, but very soberly, sure that it must
be done, but loathing it; there was none of the unreal
junketing of 1 9 14. Even the Czechs, though to them
mobilisation meant freedom freedom from an experi-
ence worse than warfare raced soberly to arms : they
had illusions about their friends, but not about war-
fare. In 1938 the Rupert Brooke spirit was dead: in
the classes with great possessions something even less
admirable replaced it, but the courage of the peoples
had become a thoughtful courage. The belligerent
peoples of the next war will be very different from the
belligerent peoples of 1914, The peoples' under-
standing of what war means is a thing too deep not to
last through a war. It will last on, opposing the natural
and artificial blasts of hate. The peoples will fight on,

13

LOST LIBERTY?

but they will think as they fight they will think
critically of that for which they are fighting, and they
will insist on a next peace worth keeping. Can human
nature do the two things at once? The Czechs have
shown that in a genuine democracy it can. Within
a bare twenty years the Czechs so subdued their
chauvinism that through all the long ordeal of 1938,
menaced by Germany, insulted by Germany, edged
from concession to concession by their friends and then
deserted, they remained hateless and humane. By their
nobility the Czechs have shown that if only the demo-
cracies are democratic there is a chance of a fair peace
one day.

Everybody who will not accept as inevitable a Pax
Fastistica has to face these heart-searching problems:
should we risk war for liberty? Can liberty survive
even the threat of modern war? Are the democracies
in fact strong enough to deter or resist a fascist coali-
tion? Is democracy, after all its shameful failures, still
worth defending? The solution of all of them depends
mainly on how far the democratic Great Powers will
be genuinely democratic. Czechoslovakia is only the
first victim of Munich. One day Great Britain must
play the part of Czechoslovakia, with the Americans in
the role of the "western democracies". Let us study
the strength of the Czechs, for we may all need it.

Note

Just as we were finishing this book, Hitler invaded
Bohemia and Moravia, occupied Prague, and let the
Gestapo loose upon the Czechs. At first sight it may
seem that this crowning horror has rendered obsolete

THE ORDEAL OF THE CZECHS

some parts of this book those which deal with the de-
tails of the Munich Agreement, of the Fifth and Sixth
Zones and of how the Czechs endured them. But in
fact these details are far from obsolete. For the Ger-
man invasion of Bohemia and Moravia was not only
one of Herr Hitler's many breaches of faith, it was
also an inseparable consequence of what was done at
Munich. The essence of what Mr. Chamberlain and
M. Daladier did at Munich (we give documentary evi-
dence of this) was to trick the Czechs out of their de-
fences and then to leave them to settle their affairs alone
with Hitler. Mr. Chamberlain and M, Daladier there-
fore share responsibility with Herr Hitler for everything
that Hitler may do to the Czechs and Sudeten Germans,
since it was they who gave these people to the mercy of a
man who had already shown himself merciless. Any-
one who simply looks at the outrage of March, 1939,
and at the horrors that are following it, without looking
back at the crisis of September, 1938, and at its first
consequences, will get a quite false idea of what caused
the tragedy and of what is necessary if other tragedies
are to be avoided.

When writing of the Sudeten districts, we have often
used the German rather than the Czech names of towns
and villages because they are more familiar to English
readers. For the same reason, in translating from
documents of the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior
we have usually changed names from the original
Czech into German.

We have made no attempt to translate these docu-
ments of the Ministry of the Interior into elegant
English, for we feel that commonplace official style
should be left to speak for itself.

15

PART I
INSIDE CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Chapter I

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

SEPTEMBER I5th, 1938. In the aeroplane
leaving Marseilles for Prague there were only
two other passengers. One, a young English-
man kept himself to himself, read Aldous Huxley, and
got out at Geneva. The other was a Czech doctor
from Karlsbad, a reserve officer hurrying home to join
his regiment. He had left his wife and children in
Karlsbad three weeks before. Had they been beaten
up and driven out by Henlein's storm-troopers? Had
they been able to flee? If they fled, where were they?
It was through this man that we first directly tasted
the bitter distrust which Lord Runciman, by spending
most of the week-ends of his Czechoslovak Mission
with Sudeten-German aristocrats, had awakened in the
ordinary Czech.

At Zurich the aeroplane filled up. There were no
empty places. It was the war correspondents making
for Prague. We crossed the Czech frontier districts
at a great height, for only the day before Henlein's
boys had fired on Major Sutton-Pratt, one of the British
military observers in the Sudeten land. Our pilots
had revolvers. They laughed about them, knowing
that the sight of a couple of policemen's helmets was
enough to take the spirit out of most Henleinists.

At Ruzyne airport one of our best friends, an official
of the Czech Foreign Office, met us. If we had still

19

LOST LIBERTY?

had any doubts that the situation was desperate, one
look at his face would have blown them away. Living
for over five years next door to danger, these people
had developed strong nerves and few illusions, so that
in past crises the Rhineland, the Anschluss, May 2 ist

Prague had always been an inspiring contrast to

London, where the habit was to think a coming crisis
no business of England's, and then to panic when it
came. But this time our friend was afraid, u The
French Cabinet is divided, 7 ' he said at once, "it's nearly
even eight to seven. On va nous lacker" After that
news, the news, also grave enough, that Henlein had
fled to Germany, calling on his followers to rebel and
secede, seemed relatively unmoving.

The streets of Prague were terribly changed. Less
than three months ago we had seen them in the Sokol
festival, gaudy with the flags and peasant dresses of a
dozen different peoples and of a hundred different
regions Roumanians in astrakhan busbies, Bosnian
Moslems in frilly white drawers, Bulgarians in worka-
day khaki and white lamb caps, boys from Moravian
Slovakia with hats like decorated Christmas-trees, girls
from Bohemia, from Moravia, from Slovakia, from
Ruthenia and Roumania, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes,
Bulgarians, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Esthonians,
Ukrainians, White Russians, American Czechs and
Slovaks, all being photographed, all photographing
each other, all photographing Prague, all buying shoes
from Bat' a, all buying stockings above all, stockings,
all the stockings in Prague. Now the streets were
nearly empty under a clammy grey sky, A few people
stood about reading newspapers, their faces grey.
They knew that Chamberlain had gone to Berchtes-
gaden. They felt that they were being sold.

20

21

LOST LIBERTY?

Consider what the Czech people had already been

through. In the six months since the invasion of

Austria, they had scarcely known a day's respite.

They were more nearly surrounded than ever, and in

the way in which the Austrian Nazis had played the

Trojan Horse they had seen an image of their own

Nazis; then they had seen two of the three German

parties in the Government of the Republic fall over

each other to join Henlein before it was too late. In

April, Henlein had announced and the German press

had trumpeted the "Karlsbad demands", demands that

Czechoslovakia should turn herself into an Austria.

On May aist, when invasion seemed imminent, the

Czechoslovak Army manned the frontiers in record

time. This made the people proud; and the Sokol

festival made them feel that they were not alone, that

there really was a great Slav brotherhood of which they

were part; yet they knew that Hitler would soon attack

again. The Press and wireless of the Third Reich

howled lies and insults at them every day. Then came

Lord Runciman, sent to Prague, as the Czech people

suspected, against the wishes of their Government,

treating the Sudeten German problem as a simple

internal question, extorting concession after concession,

a third plan, a fourth plan. The fourth plan was so

clearly dangerous that only Benes, with his exceptional

authority, could make them accept it. What was their

reward? A leading article of The Times proposing the

partition of Czechoslovakia; Field-Marshal Goring's

abuse ("these ridiculous puppets, this bit of a people,

nobody knows where they come from' 7 ); Hitler's

speech of ^September iath; and then, within half an

hour of Hitler's last words, Henlein's louts loose in the

Sudetenland, looting, beating and murdering.

22

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADKN

On Monday evening, the I2th of September, the
Sudeten German leaders were still ostensibly negotiat-
ing with Lord Runciman; indeed, the Ministry of the
Interior in Prague was told by telephone from Kger
at six o'clock that:

All the leaders of the S.d.P. 1 are in Asch this
evening with Konrad Henlein and are expecting 1 a
conversation with Lord Runciman, At five o'clock
this afternoon Mr. Gwatkin spoke by telephone with
the S.d.P. representatives in Asch, Lord Runciman
has been informed that children have been fired on
in Eger and that there was a terrible massacre, with
many hundreds of dead, mostly children. 2

. No such massacre, of course, ever took place. On
the contrary it was the S.d.P. which had demonstrated
and rioted throughout the day and for many days oast,
On September 9th the police in Bodenbach hac re-
ported to Prague at 8.30 P.M.:

A Communist meeting began in the hall of the
Bodenbach Folkshaus at eight o'clock; Czechs arc
taking part in it. Next door to the Folkshaus is the
Deutsches Haus in front of which about 800 S,cU\
members have gathered, chiefly youths, . .

At nine o'clock the police station reported :

The crowd has now increased to 3000 people,
The crowd on the pavement completely fills 1 eplitz-
strasse and is shouting: "Ein Folk, tin Reich,
Fuhrerl and singing "Deutschland, DeutsMand itbe

Alles , and the Horst Wessellied; they arc shouting

r

>,. . . x Sudetendcutsch Partei.

Ministry of the Interior, Document No. 1379/38, Section C

23

LOST LIBERTY?

"Drauf", meaning on the Folkshau3. The crowd
nearest the Volkshaus began to attack the police, and
threw stones, and glasses and chairs from the nearby
open-air restaurant. Two policemen were wounded.

The leader of the local Ordners^ Hasse, was seen
urging on the crowd against the police, and shouting;
"Ihr Feiglinge^ ihr wo lit ausreissen",

After the two policemen were wounded, the police
began to clean up Teplitzstrasse with rubber
truncheons. They succeeded in pushing the crowd
back into the Poststrasse.

At 10.30 P.M. the station reported:

At ten o'clock Dr. Kreisl of Poststrasse climbed on
to the balcony of one of the houses and made a speech.
He said:

"Comrades, the aim of our demonstration has been
achieved. I can only wonder that to-day, when it is
already absolutely clear that the territory belongs to us
(das Geblet uns gehort\ such a ridiculous little Marxist
group should have been allowed to have a meeting.
Your discipline has been wonderful, and through it
our meeting has achieved its object. I ask you now
to go quietly and orderly to your homes. Heil our
leader, Konrad Henleinl"

His appeal to separate was obeyed. As the crowd
went home two Czechs and a German Social Demo-
crat were attacked and wounded ; they were insulted
by the attackers. 1

On the eleventh the Brno police reported that an
arms cache had been discovered in a disused church at
Valasske Mezirici. The cache contained :

i Ministry of the Interior, Document No, 1285/38, Section C.

24

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTKSCIADKN

two new Brownings, 7-65 calibre, trade -mark

"Walter";

six cases of cartridges, each containing twenty live-
five tin boxes, each containing one kilogram of

gunpowder (labelled Marila melange, Kuky

cany); *
five oil cans, each containing one kilogram of gun

powder (labelled Fantolin) ;
ten metres of fuse cord ;
a tin box, containing a bottle of oil ami a pine of

flannel, the box labelled "Walter Karl li \ilj\-n-
fabrik Zella". 2

At Neudek on the same day crowds gathered in the

streets chanting and yelling "Wir wolkn zurii,-k /;/,<

Reich!" ^ "Lieber Adolf, mack uns fret, von <f<-r T$ff:f,-Jiu-

slowakei!" " Lieber Fuhrer, komm herein, spcrr Jit 1 mt<<

Hunde ein!" The Folkshaus and the police station xvrtr

attacked; Czech and Jewish shops were destroyed, four

police were wounded. Throughout the i i th and i ,'.th

of September the "incidents" continued, j-nnvint'

steadily worse; at Bohmisch Krumau a crowd cullrcln

in the market-place on the afternoon of the r-th, thre

stones, fired at the police and wounded a policeman-

at Schwaderbach, right on the frontier, S.d.l', (h'./^n

captured the gendarmerie station and imprisoned ihr

gendarmes; one gendarme was killed, three wounded-

the imprisoned gendarmes and customs officers were

shut up m the icehouse of the Gasthaus Fischer; at

Markhausen the telephone wires were cut, the gen

darmene station occupied and set on (ire, two t.r

darmes and four customs officers imprisoned; at I Man,

lu- - label ' Fan 'ol>n i a CVch ir(r,.I

Mm ls try of the Interior, Document No. ,.,,y/,i, K iiw t -.

25

LOST LIBERTY?

near Marienbad, rioters captured the gendarmerie
station and wounded three gendarmes; at Haselbach
two gendarmes and a customs officer were murdered,
Everywhere handfuls of exhausted, overworked police
and gendarmes had to face mobs of hysterical Sudeten
Germans, usually outnumbering them by at least two
hundred to one, armed and supported from across the
frontier. The police were not sent sufficient reinforce-
ments, they were told not to fire on demonstrators,
they were not allowed to call upon help from the mili-
tary. They were perpetually harassed by the Minis-
try of the Interior, which implored them "to do
nothing to aggravate the situation", because the
Ministry of the Interior was itself harassed by the
French and British governments in the same sense,
The result was the brigandage and loss of life of the
1 3th and I4th of September.

The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph in Prague,
who made a tour of the Sudeten districts on those two
days, wrote on Tuesday night, the I3th:

The prearranged signal for the outbreak was the
conclusion of the Hitler speech, and throughout the
Sudeten areas the same plan of operation was
followed.

The Henleinists were ordered to gather in com-
panies, small or large, to hear the speech. At its
conclusion the Storm Troopers under their regula-
tion leaders, who donned swastika armlets, marched
into the streets, followed by party supporters, and
began their work of demolition, plunder and revolt.

I have personally ascertained that this was the
procedure followed in Karlsbad, Eger, Falkenau
and Asch, all of which I visited to-day. . . .

26

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

In Karlsbad there had been extraordinary van-
dalism among the fashionable shops. Dozens of
establishments bearing Czech or Jewish names had
holes in their windows where stones had been hurled
through before plundering started.

Henleinist storm-troopers in uniform were dash-
ing about on motor-cycles, some flying the swastika,
others the Henleinist party pennant. When I tried
to photograph the damage at one place, two Hen-
leinist boys of 17 or 1 8 forbade me and placed them-
selves in front of the gaping window. But when I
told them that I should take the picture and have their
faces on record as well they disappeared hastily, . . .

Beyond Karlsbad, in the hamlet of Chlodau, every
available space was painted with swastikas. Huge
swastika banners flew from many houses. Every-
where the Henleinists greeted me with Hitler salutes
and shouted threats when they were not returned, . , .

At Falkenau I saw two gendarmes hard-pressed
by a mob of swastika-badged Henleinists retreating
down the street holding their bayonets in front of
them.

It seemed to be carrying self-restraint on the part
of the Czechs to the limit when they discovered on
leaving the town that the barracks on the outskirts
were full of troops who were not allowed to go out.

Storm-troopers wearing swastika armlets tried to
stop my car, shouting, "Hold him up, hold him up".
But I accelerated and drove hard at them and got
through.

About six miles further on towards the frontier
a dozen Henleinists with swastika armlets waiting
at the side of the road gave me the Hitler salute, and
when I failed to reply greeted my open car with a

27

LOST LIBERTY?

shower of stones, and 1 had to duck my head and
accelerate. My car bore some marks of the en-
counter.

The stone-throwing was repeated on the same

spot on my return journey, but being prepared with

the hood up and windows closed I was able to drive

hard at the Henleinists and make them scatter. , . .

On the return journey, passing through Franzens-

bad I saw a crowd of three or four hundred people

looking at a swastika banner on the church tower.

Three minutes later I met a motor-coach filled with

gendarmes who were going to restore order in Eger,

I turned my car and followed them to see the effect

on the crowd gazing at the swastika.

They vanished immediately. It was almost im-
possible to believe that several hundred people could
disappear with such rapidity. . . , At the entrance to
Karlsbad the same thing had occurred. Here also
martial law was in force, but I only saw one thin line
of police with rifles and bayonets walking quietly
through the streets. I followed them for a while
and saw that whenever they turned a corner people
did not so much run as just cease to be there.

I lay particular emphasis on the fact that the mere
sight of a police helmet suffices to restore order,
because it is part of the Henleinist propaganda to
suggest that the Czech authorities have lost all con-
trol. This is absolutely untrue,

Last night, apparently in accordance with the
wishes of foreign advisers, they gave orders that no
resistance was to be offered to the rioters. The
result was terror which need never have been and
great damage. 1

1 Daily Telegraph, September t4th, 1938.

28

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

The stream of reports and telephone messages flow-
ing into Prague from local gendarmerie stations,
frontier guards and Chief Constables are terrible to
read. At n P.M. on the I3th the Zemskj Wad 1 in
Prague reported that

on the 1 3th September, 1938, about 12 o'clock the
gendarmerie station in Habersbirk (Falkenau dis-
trict) was attacked. The sergeant Tan Koukal was
shot, the gendarmes Krepela and Cern^ beaten to
death with axes, and the gendarme Roubal was also
killed. No further reports have arrived yet?

At 3.45 on the morning of the I4th Komotati re-
ported the murder of a young Czech electrician,
Ladislav Krejci, "probably from political motives", be-
tween 11.45 an d m idnight on the I3th:

The murder was committed on the road from
Komotau to Prague. . . . The doctor who examined
the body found a gunshot wound made by a bullet
of 1.35 mm. calibre right through the heart, two
wounds in the head and one in the main artery.
Five empty revolver cartridges were found on the
ground. The dead man was on his motor cycle;
it is clear from the position of his body that he was
killed as the motor cycle stopped. In his right
hand he held a revolver, from which no shots had
been fired. It is clear that the dead man was
stopped on the road by several men, and when he
pulled at his revolver five shots were fired at him
point-blank. All his possessions were left with

1 2ems"kj t^has no parallel in England; it is a kind of head police office
for Bohemia (the province), under the Ministry of the Interior.
z Ministry of the Interior, Document No, 1390/38, Section C.

29

LOST LIBERTY?

him, so that it is obviously a political murder. The
dead Krejci gave information to the State police
from time to time. 1

During the morning of the i4th at Habersbirk there
was a regular battle between 2000 S.d.P. and the
gendarmerie; on the S.d.P. side there were 28 dead;
14 gendarmes were killed. At Schwaderbach the
remaining gendarmes and customs officers were
dragged away to Germany, and put in the hands of
the Gestapo. From Eger, early in the evening, came
a series of frantic telephone calls from the railway
officials :

(1) "Eger is attacked. Send reinforcements. There
is shooting. S.d.P. party is attacking the town.
Police are resisting. Urgently need military
reinforcements,"

(2) "Police are attacked. There is firing from
machine-guns. We are all threatened. We are
all in danger. We want military help. We
can't take dispatches."

(3) "We are in the dark. The shots are flying over
our heads. We want urgently military help/' 2

At 8.20 P.M. the police reported from Eger:

As there was reason for suspicion that a large
store of arms was hidden in the Hotels Victoria and
Walzel, the S.d.P. centres, two divisions of police,
accompanied by three armoured cars, were sent at
7.30 P.M. to make a search of the hotels. As they
arrived the armoured cars were greeted by firing

' Ministry of Interior, Document No. 14*5/38, Section C.
2 Ministry of Interior, Document No, 1425/38, Section 0,

30

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

from the second floor of the Hotel Walzel, and there
were shots from the cellar of the same hotel and from
the cellar of the Hotel Victoria. The firing was
from machine-guns. Both armoured cars opened
fire on the two hotels. At eight o'clock the police,
using hand-grenades, succeeded in breaking down the
doors of the Hotel Victoria and penetrating inside.
In the Hotel Victoria they captured only Georg
Leicht, employed by the S.d.P. in Prague, and sent
to Eger from Prague. Inside the hotel they found a
large number of automatic pistols of Reichsgerman
manufacture which had been smuggled into Czecho-
slovakia, three other pistols and a large store of
cartridges, and a complete and well fitted up broad-
casting station, Leicht confessed that there were
about ten people with him in the hotel, but that they
fled before the arrival of the police. Among them
he named a certain Karl, who lay on a table and fired
a sub-machine-gun through the window. He also
named a certain Dr. Jenik. According to his in-
formation there is a secret corridor in the hotel
which these people used for their escape.

Opposite the hotel there is a petrol pump, where
four dead men were found lying with their faces
towards the Hotel Walzel. They were obviously
killed by shots from the hotel. They are the police-
man Klener, and lying on his right the railwayman
Blaha, holding in his hand the policeman's rifle. It
is therefore probable that Klener was killed before
Blaha; next to him was a civilian, the keeper of the
petrol pump, German nationality. A little further
on, in the centre of the space was the van of the
Egerer Zeitung and its dead driver, also lying with
his face towards the Hotel WalzeL

3*

LOST LIBERTY?

About 9.40, when the firing from the Hotel
Walzel had stopped, the police went to the gate of
the hotel, rang the bell and the hotel staff let them in.
In the hotel they found no one except the hotel
personnel, no firearms and no ammunition.

They also found two more dead people, a man and
a woman, lying in a corner of the steps leading to
the station. Also, from the evidence, shot from the
Hotel Walzel. The Hotel Victoria is only slightly
damaged by the firing, and the Hotel Walzel still
less.

In the town all was quiet during the battle.
People stayed at home and did not go out into the
streets. It is characteristic that when people met a
policeman, they put both hands above their heads
as a sign that they had no arms, 1

At 9.5 P.M. Warnsdorf police reported:

On the 1 4th of September at 8,15 P.M. a crowd
of about 2000 people gathered in the Warnsdorf
Haupstrasse. From the conversations that have
been overheard the crowd intends to cross the frontier
by the customs house Warnsdorf VII, and to demon-
strate there. According to other conversations
which were overheard, an S.dJP. member also called
on other members to go to the Turnhalle in Warns-
dorf, where arms were being given out. There is in
fact a steady stream of people going in and out of
the Turnhalle. Neither the hall of the Turnhalle nor
the entrance are lighted. The [gendarmerie] station
here cannot interfere as it has at its disposition only
three ^ gendarmes, the other three being to-day
occupied in an investigation on the frontier below

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document No. 1432/38, Section C,

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

Spitzberg. The frontier guard captured three
armed men.

The chief of the station this morning called the
attention of Deputy Rossler to the ban on political
meetings and asked him to use all his authority to
prevent demonstrations which were, according to
reports, to take place this afternoon. Deputy
Rossler promised to do this. But at 8.50 P.M. he
informed the station by telephone in an excited voice
that he could no longer do it, that he could no longer
control the crowd, and could in no way prevent the
demonstrations. He says that they are the spon-
taneous outbreaks of a crowd asking for the right
of self-determination. When asked again, he pro-
mised to try again to compel the demonstrators to
disperse to prevent other outbreaks. This afternoon
Major Vozenilek 1 informed us by telephone that if
it should be urgently necessary the station may ask
the garrison commander in Bohmisch-Leipa to send
armoured cars, that is to say, military assistance.
The garrison in Bohmisch-Leipa informed us by
telephone that they cannot interfere, and therefore
this station cannot interfere, we will limit ourselves
to observing and will give telephone reports. . . .

Demonstrators from Warnsdorf went to the
frontier barriers and are negotiating with the frontier
officials to cross into Germany. At the frontier
there are motor cars with S.A. men, and reflectors
lighting up the barriers. Reichsgerman customs
officers are in full field equipment, 2

On September i^th at 2 A.M. Prague received a
report from Sebastiansberg:

1 A police, not an army, officer.
3 Ministry of the Interior, Document 1437/38, Section C.

33 D

LOST LIBERTY?

To-day, September I5th, at one o'clock in the
morning, the gendarme Jan Hefmdnek, who was
accompanied by the soldier Laburda, noticed in the
square of Sebastiansberg an unknown cyclist with an
Ordner's cap, making rounds in the town in a very
suspicious manner. When he was stopped the
cyclist immediately jumped off his bicycle and began
to shoot. The gendarme Hefmanek was killed im-
mediately by a shot in the mouth from a distance
of one metre. The soldier Laburda was wounded
in the stomach. The clerk Otto PeSek was also
wounded in the leg. The culprit escaped; the
frontier authorities have been warned. 1

It was to this Sudeten German Party, an organisation
of traitors and terrorists, that Lord Runciman and his
staff were pressing the Czechoslovak Government to
make the most trusting concessions. Lord Runciman
in his letter of September 2ist, 2 although admitting
that the riots were "provoked and instigated" by the
extremists of the S.d.P., actually recommended that the
Czech police and military should be withdrawn from
the Sudeten districts, the S.d.P. itself being charged
with keeping order. Keeping order 1 Gangs of young
hooligans who were ready to loot Czech or Jewish
shops, to lock up terrified women and children, to beat
up and kidnap German Socialists and Communists, to
hack off the hands of a Czech postmaster 3 or to shoot
a solitary Czech village policeman in the back, but who
were never prepared to face twenty police, a dozen
soldiers or the death penalty, these were the people

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document No. 1433/38, Section C,

2 Lmd. 5847, September, 1938,

3 They did this at Trinksaifen, near Neudek, We cannot name the
source of this story, but it has been carefully checked,

34

BACKGROUND TO BERCHTESGADEN

to whom Lord Runcirnan and Mr. Chamberlain wished
to entrust the keeping of order. In the face of a terror
organised and armed by a foreign Power, the British
and French Ministers in Prague were urging the Czechs
to take none of the measures required to restore calm
and to rescue the victims. At each disorder in the
Sudeten regions a cry went up, not only from the Ger-
man but from a part of the British Press, that the
Czechoslovak Government was not master in its own
house; yet those who supported this outcry opposed
the Czechs when they wished to take firm measures.

When the Czechs did at last take firm measures, dis-
order died down at once. On the morning of Tuesday,
the 1 3th, the Government proclaimed a state of martial
law in eight districts Eger, Neudek, Elbogen, Karls-
bad, Falkenau, Pressnitz, Krumau and Kaaden, and on
Wednesday ^extended it to Graslitz, Joachimsthal and
Bischofsteinitz, on Thursday to Komotau, Reichen-
berg, Rumburg, Schluckenau and Warnsdorf. By the
afternoon of Thursday the 1 5th the rising, except for
sporadic flares, was dead.

The leaders of the S.d.P. meanwhile presented an
ultimatum to the Czechoslovak Government on the
Tuesday afternoon: martial law must be repealed,
State police must be withdrawn from all districts with
a "German majority", the gendarmerie must be reduced
to their ''normal numbers" and confined to their
"normal duties", and all troops must be confined to
barracks; otherwise negotiations between the Sudeten
German party and the Government would be broken
off finally. The Government, having no intention
of abdicating from the Sudeten districts, ignored the
ultimatum. Henlein then refused to negotiate even
with the long-suffering and assiduous members of the

35

LOST LIBERTY?

British Mission, who pursued him around the country
and on Thursday afternoon, the I5th, he with several
of his closer friends * scuttled hastily to the security of
the Reich, leaving behind an inflammatory and wordy
proclamation "to the Sudeten Germans, to the German
people, and to the whole world!" It said:

In this hour of Sudeten German need, I stand
before you, the German people and the whole civil-
ised world, and I declare: "We wish to live as free
Germans! We want peace and work in our home-
land! We want to go home to the Reich! God
be good to us in our righteous struggle.

In the words of next morning's Sozialdemokrat^ the
anti-Nazi daily of the Sudeten Germans, "Der Piihrer
istgeflohen; kampfen sol! das Folk" the Leader has fled,
and left the fighting to the People.

This was the situation in Czechoslovakia on Septem-
ber 1 5th, when Chamberlain flew to Berchtesgaden,

1 Including Prince Hohenlohe, whom Lord Runciman had visited.

Chapter II

END OF THE SUDETEN GERMAN

PROBLEM?

Puhrer 1st geflohen: kamffen soil das Volk"
This, the first headline we saw on the i6th of
September, was the leit-motiv of the next three
days inside Czechoslovakia. That morning Lord Runci-
man and Mr. Ashton-Gwatkin left for London to tell
Mr. Chamberlain that the Sudeten German problem
could not be solved within the Czechoslovak Republic,
At that very moment the Sudeten German problem was
well on the way to being solved within the republic.

Henlein's flight disgusted and dismayed his fol-
lowers; how could they feel enthusiasm any more for
leaders who urged them to rebellion from a safe retreat?
A great many of them had never wanted or expected a
separation from Bohemia and had never realised that
that was Henlein's policy. He had not told them
so openly. To a great many Sudeten Germans the
"Sudeten German problem" had been simply a question
of getting rid of the Czech postman or the Czech school
teacher or the Czech gendarmes, or of having rather
more jobs to go round or of getting a little higher
unemployment benefit. To many of them it meant
being on the safe side in case Hitler came. Others
wanted to feel that they still belonged to a Herrenvolk,
and vague phrases about "autonomy" or "cantonalisa-
tion" attracted them. But the fourth plan had met

37

LOST LIBERTY?

most of these grievances amply, and even their leaders
had seemed to accept it. Less than a week before on
September 9th, the S.dJP. leaders in Prague had
informed the Czechoslovak Premier, Dr. Hodla that
the way for negotiations between the S.d.P. and the
Government was completely free negotiation on the
basis of the Government's fourth plan. Why then
should the average Sudeten Germans rebel now
deserted by their leader, with Hitler's army on the other
side of a well-guarded frontier, with the Czech Army
in their midst, and with one thing at last clear to them _
that if revolt should broaden into war, their homes would
be ^the first battlefield, This was not the policy for
which they had given Henlein a mandate.

There is plenty of evidence of this feeling. For
instance, Bohemia^ the conservative Sudeten German
newspaper which had gone over to Henlein's camp
when Austria fell, deplored in its leading article of
September ijth the incidents "which had compelled
the spread of martial law", "The most radical group
of Sudeten Germans mostly young men only showed
by their conduct that they are heedless alike of their
homeland (the first and the most threatened) and of the
ever-growing danger of war how near it is Chamber-
lam s sensational flight to Hitler shows all too clearly,"

On the 1 6th Bohemia said:

^ regard to this proclamation of Konrad
Henlein s we make the following statement to our
readers, whose views are already clear to us through

the hundreds and hundreds of letters we are receiving
daily : b

With this proclamation Konrad Henlein has not
only created a gulf between himself and the State,

38

THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM

but also between himself and that part of the
Sudeten German people who gave him their votes as
Volksfuhrer only on the basis of his programme at
that time, a programme so wholly different. That
programme declared with noteworthy insistence the
loyalty and law-abidingness of the Sudeten German
people. His present call to irredentism saddles the
Sudeten Germans with all the consequences of
treason to the State; for such a challenge these
electors gave him neither their votes nor their
mandate. Konrad Henlein alone is responsible for
this proclamation, and not those Sudeten Germans
upon whom, unasked and without any care for the
consequences to them, he has tried to lay the re-
sponsibility. Moreover, even the members of the
S.d.P. parliamentary club who were in Prague, and
who were without communications from Eger or
Asch, had no knowledge of the proclamation.

On the 1 7th Bohemia used still sharper words :

Konrad Henlein's proclamation of yesterday has
had a very mixed reception in the Sudeten German
districts and in S.d.P. circles. There is a more and
more widespread feeling that in these modern times
revolutions cannot just be called up out of the ether
without the Fuhrer himself appearing upon the
barricades. This reaction is even clearer in the
German islands than in the continuous German
districts. But in the frontier districts too, not only
had complete calm been re-established by Friday
afternoon, but many had already gone back to their
normal daily life and to their normal work.

It is quite clear that the rioting in the Sudeten dis-

39

LOST LIBERTY?

tricts did not show, as Lord Runciman and the British

Cabinet seem to have believed, that the Czech-Sudeten

German problem was insoluble, that Czechs and

Germans could no longer live together within the

boundaries of the Czechoslovak State. It showed

exactly the contrary. Henlein's party was dissolved

on September i6th, technically; but really it dissolved

itself; once it had been made plain to his braves that the

"cleaning-up" would be done by the Czech police and

military, and not by them, they either melted away or

ran to the nearest police station to place themselves at

the disposal of the police. In Bodenbach a Henleinist

mayor had a few weeks earlier replaced Herr Fritz

Kessler, an able and popular Social Democrat who had

been mayor for several years. On the Friday morning

Herr Kessler walked into the Mayor's office. "Ich

amtiere hier (This is my office) ", he said to his scared

successor, and pointed to the door. The Henleinist

sat still for a moment, then got up without a word and

walked out. Herr Kessler sat down at his desk and

began his work again as if he had just returned from a

holiday. The Mayor of Neuern, president of the local

S.d.P., put out a joint proclamation with the Social

Democrats urging the people to quiet and order, and

warning them against u the lying rumours spread by an

enemy propaganda". In Reichenberg the Henleinist

Mayor issued a proclamation asking for discipline,

emphasising the great gravity of the situation and

especially warning everyone against unsubstantiated

rumours. In Braunau the local S.d.P. deputy went to

the Eezirksamt to give thanks for the bravery and

exemplary conduct of the police; they had, he said,

prevented great bloodshed, and in future all members

of the S.d.P. would observe the laws of the republic.

40

THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM

Knowing these facts, we were surprised to read Lord
Runciman's judgment that "as the State Police are
extremely unpopular among the German inhabitants,
and have constituted one of their chief grievances for the
last three years, I consider that they should be with-
drawn as soon as possible. I believe that their with-
drawal would reduce the causes of wrangles and riots/' 1

The number of Henleinist leaders and officials who
hastened to assure the Czechoslovak State of their
complete and eternal loyalty and their anxious desire
to be of assistance was fantastic. The rectors and
deans of the German University in Prague notori-
ously Henleinist the heads of the German Technical
High School and a large number of Henleinist school
teachers were invited to the Czechoslovak Ministry of
Education, where they were confronted with Henlein's
proclamation and asked if they identified themselves
with it. All of them, without a single exception,
signed a declaration saying that they repudiated the
proclamation and renewed their oath of loyalty to the
Czechoslovak State. A high official in the Ministry
of Education told us that of fifty-four teachers who
passed through his office forty-nine signed the declara-
tion immediately and would not even have bothered to
read it had he not insisted on reading it aloud to them.
Five hesitated. Four of the five signed after a few
minutes' discussion; one went away by himself for
half an hour to think things over. He returned at
the end of the half-hour, and signed the declaration at
once, without saying a word.

As for the ordinary Sudeten Germans, once freed
from the Henlein terror and from the fear of a Nazi
invasion, they were only too ready to come to terms

1 Cmd. 5847, September, 1938.
41

LOST LIBERTY?

with the Czechoslovak Government as quickly as
possible. The German Catholics and Agrarians who
in March had been so anxious to join Henlein were even
more anxious now to dissociate themselves from him
and to join with the German Social Democrats who
had never once wavered in their loyalty to the republic,
and who had fought side by side with the Czech police
during the riots and with other Democratic Groups
to make a new, loyalist Sudeten German Front.

On Friday evening, September i6th, Herr Jaksch,
the leader of the German Social Democrats, one of the
best and bravest men in Czechoslovakia, made an
eloquent appeal over the wireless "an atte gutgesinnten"
(to all men of goodwill).

"In every party camp [he said] there are men who
want the best for their people. Czechs and Germans
cannot destroy each other. Every nation has its
weakness, but every nation has also its great quali-
ties. The formula for an honourable life together
must be found, not only in our country but in the
whole of Europe. I am quite certain that there
will be enough Lebensraum as soon as the work of
social and economic reconstruction is begun. The
Sudeten Germans [he went on] can write their
names with golden letters in the history of our time,
if they decide for peace. It has been so willed that
a part of the fate of Europe lies in our hands. . . .
What a blessing for our land if it should be the
beginning, the starting place of a new epoch of
European peace. The key lies in our hands/'

The next day, Saturday, September 17th, a new
"National Council of Sudeten Germans" was formed.
It included representatives of all those Sudeten

42

THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM

Germans who wished for a peaceful agreement with
the Czechoslovak Government a Catholic, an Agra-
rian, two German Democrats and Herr Jaksch ; it had
support, though much of it still secretly and timidly
given, from many former members of the Henlein
party. Most astonishing of all, it had the support of
Dr. Lodgman von Auen, the Sudeten German leader
who at the end of the Great War had been the Landes-
hauptmann of the autonomous " German Bohemia", had
fought against the incorporation of the Sudetenland in
Czechoslovakia, and had led the Sudeten Germans at
the time of their fiercest and bitterest quarrels with the
Czechs, all through the period of their non-co-operation
with the Czechoslovak State. When the German
Agrarians and Catholics entered the Czechoslovak
Government in 1926, Dr. Lodgman had retired from
political life in bitterness and disgust. This was the
man, an anti-Marxist and a Sudeten German National-
ist, supporter of Henlein almost to the very moment
of the Karlsbad demands in April, who now came to
Herr Jaksch's flat to see him and to offer his help.
He had known since the time of the Karlsbad speech,
he said, that all would go badly, and that the S.d.P.
was getting out of hand; Henlein had led the Sudeten
German people to chaos. He, Lodgman, wished to
support the new National Council. He was willing
to co-operate with it, even if necessary to sign a mani-
festo, provided that the Council could find a former
leader of the S.dJP. who would sign it at the same
time. Herr Jaksch, surprised at this offer, suggested
Kundt. Dr. Lodgman * replied that he thought Kundt

1 When the German troops entered TepHtz-Schonau in October Dr.
Lodgman sent effusive telegrams to Hitler, Hans Krebs, K. H, Wolf ? the
Mayors of Dresden and Munich, and many others.

43

LOST LIBERTY?

moderate and sensible, and he would be glad to work

with him.

This happened on September i7th. What is the
explanation of Dr. Lodgman's visit? Was he sent by
the former S.d.P. leaders to spy on Herr Jaksch's
movement? Was he afraid and in haste to cover
himself? Or was he genuinely anxious to help? Herr
Jaksch himself was convinced that Dr. Lodgman's
offer was quite genuine; but even if it were due to
corruption or fear, it is not the less important. For
whatever its motive it showed that Dr. Lodgman, the
godfather of Henlein's party, was sure that at this
moment the National Council was powerful.

On that evening the Council issued a manifesto to
the Sudeten German people. This manifesto, drafted
entirely by Herr Jaksch, is one of the most statesman-
like documents any Sudeten German leader ever
issued. Those who signed it were a Catholic, Father
Reichenberger, an Agrarian deputy, Toni Kohler, a
German Democrat, Senator Kostka, the President of
the German Democratic Club, Dr. Karl Sitte, and
Herr Jaksch. It said:

We do not wish in these hours of stress, to dis-
pute over responsibilities. In calmer days impartial
history will judge those who allowed themselves to
be celebrated as "Fuhrers" throughout the country,
and who at the moment of greatest affliction left
their people alone and deserted. . . .

Since the days of the Pfemyslids 1 the Germans
of Bohemia and Moravia have been an element of
peace and progress. Our forefathers were plough-
men, not warriors. . . . Our people will not be simply

1 See note on p. 79.

44

THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM

mourners and the playthings of the Great Powers.
We have a mission to fulfil. In this crisis it is not
only a question of the Sudeten Germans, it is a
question of the fate of all Germans, and of the future
of Europe. The Sudeten Germans, by their whole
tradition, are called to be not the vanguard of a
"Machtpolitik") but the pioneers of an understanding
between the German motherland and her neighbour
peoples. . . .

The fourth plan, which emerged in the course of
the Prague negotiations, opens up a favourable out-
look. This proposal of the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment does not fulfil all the demands which the
Sudeten German people can justly make. But it
brings a great deal and this the S.d.P, too, so long
as it was the master of its own will, recognised
which with honourable will on both sides offers
a suitable terrain for useful negotiations. The
negotiations for a national-political agreement must
not be wrecked. They must be carried on and
brought to a happy ending. . . .

The undersigned have no wish to be reproached
with a new splitting of parties and a division of our
forces. . . . Disregarding all special party and personal
interests, a National Council of all Sudeten Germans
who wish for peace will be set up.

We do, not fail to recognise that the leaders of
the Czech people have a great responsibility. , . .
The mistakes of twenty years of a Czech "National-
Staat" policy must be wholly wiped out. . . . We call
upon all citizens of the Republic, without distinction
of nationality, not to let the work of understanding
be wrecked. Mistrust on both sides must be con-
quered. Let us unite our goodwill and our strength

45

LOST LIBERTY?

in the struggle to keep war far from our homes, and
to prepare a better future for our sorely tried people.

From the Czech side this new effort did not go un-
welcomed. The Czechoslovak Government, we know
on good evidence, was ready to negotiate at once and
quickly with this new National Council of Sudeten
Germans on the basis of the fourth plan. And Karel
Capek wrote a moving "Epistle to the Sudeten Ger-
mans" in which he said:

I have neither the right nor the power at this
moment to contribute anything towards the solution
of the Sudeten German question: but like every
Czech, like every European, I have the right to
raise another, a far more general, a far simpler and
clearer question: Do you want war or peace? . . .

I say openly that I cannot imagine the face of the
man who says: I want war. But, if you want peace
and here I do not appeal to parties or party
leaders, but to private folk like myself if you really
want peace, peace for you and your children, peace
for your people whom you love that is enough for
us. Then we shall soon get on together. Then
we shall have, whatever this or that may divide us,
something in common, each of us will have some-
thing to rely on: a common will for peace. Then
we can work together, we can be fellow-workers,
fellow-workers not only for the peace of your corner
of the earth, created by nature and history, called by
man " Sudeten" > but fellow-workers for the peace of
the world too. And collaborators in saving millions
of beautiful lives. Those who would fall be they
Austrians or Germans have some rights too, don't
you think so?

THE SUDETEN GERMAN PROBLEM

Was it true that Czechs and Germans could live
side by side in peace in Bohemia? For those who saw
the Czech reception of the early Sudeten German
refugees in Prague, or in other Czech towns, it is hard
to doubt. A stream of refugees from the Sudetenland
began even before Hitler's speech, but during the four
days afterwards it was increased ten-fold. Some of the
refugees were Czechs, but these had usually friends or
relations in the interior; most were Sudeten German
Social Democrats and Communists, and they had
nobody, they were entirely dependent on Czech
charity. Women, old men, children, even young men
in their working clothes they came by every train from
the frontier that landed at the Denis or Masaryk
stations. Some were ill, many were too exhausted to
speak. Some had their dogs, or their cats, or their
rabbits or a tame bird. They came frightened and
anxious, not knowing where to go or who would care
for them. They only wanted to escape and to sleep.

They found suddenly that in Prague they were wel-
come. Not only had the town of Prague and various
organisations arranged where they should sleep, and
how they should be fed and looked after, but people
turned out into the streets to cheer them, to stuff the
children's hands with sweets and fruit, cakes and money,
begging to help them. It didn't matter that one spoke
German and the other Czech they struggled to
understand each other, with a few words of bad Czech
on one side, or bad German on the other. The police-
man on duty in front of the Masaryk station, whose job
it was to guide the women and children across the
street, tried his hardest to talk to them in German* In
one camp, the refugees, German Social Democrats, told
the party official who visited them how kind the Czech

47

LOST LIBERTY?

policeman on duty outside had been, and how well they
got on with him. As none of them knew enough to
thank him in Czech, and as he did not understand them
when they tried in German, they asked if the party
official, who spoke Czech, would do it for them, and
this man went up to the policeman and told him what
the refugees had said. "Oh," said the policeman
"but I must help them. I represent Herr Jaksch
here," It is hard, too, to forget the sight of five men
refugees, who had just got off the train. Two of them
were Czech gendarmes, still in their uniforms, dusty,
worn out, unshaven, their faces as grey as their helmets
three of them were German Social Democrats, just as
exhausted, grimy, their eyes glazed with fatigue. They
were from some frontier village where they had fought
the Henleinists side by side. They stood on the plat-
form of the Masaryk station, holding each other's hands.
They were quite silent and very dazed. They just
stood there and would not separate.

Chapter III

THE BETRAYAL

I~"tHIS moment, when the Sudeten German
problem had at last a real chance of being
solved, was the very moment Great Britain and
France chose to betray Czechoslovakia.

The Czechs and the non-Nazi Sudeten Germans did
not yet know that they were being betrayed. Many of
them suspected it. Some of them could not believe
that Great Britain and France would let them down
now : had not the Daily Telegraph l reported that in the
British Inner Cabinet "there was no dissent from the
view that the Prague Government, by sweeping con-
cessions, has provided a fair and indeed handsome basis
for a negotiated solution", and had not M. Bonnet as
lately as September 4th solemnly stated in the presence
of the American Ambassador, that France would
honour the alliance with Czechoslovakia "en tout cas"?
Some Czechs, it is true, went further and were foolishly
optimistic, especially in official circles: a Czech diplo-
mat wrote to us early in September, "All the world is
on our side", and even told us on September I5th that
"The British Mission were prejudiced against us at
first, but within three weeks they were all won over
they couldn't resist the facts". Yet in those days the
very word "Berchtesgaden" suggested "Schuschnigg"
to ordinary Czech minds; and although many Czech

1 Daily Telegraph, Diplomatic Correspondent, September I3th, 1938.

49 E

LOST LIBERTY?

people thought, as apparently many English people
thought, that Chamberlain had gone to Hitler not to
feed him but to warn him, this journey of Chamber-
lain's to the farthest end of Germany shook the nerves
of them all. "Oh, we shall be sold,' 7 said many of our
friends; "you sent us Runciman and pushed us into an
impossible position, and now you will let us down."
(One of them said, "I am not afraid that it will end in a
war, but that it will end in a war loan".) The ordinary
Czech had grown more and more nerve-racked, as
concession had followed concession to Henlein's party.
They were not against concessions, but they 'were
against being pushed little by little over a precipice.
They had seen what concessions had done to Austria
and their common sense told them that the Fourth Plan
might already have gone too far. The English Mission
and the unending series of concessions it had extracted
had done what months and even years of menaces and

insults from the Third Reich had not begun to do

worn thin the nerves of the Czech people. They
wanted desperately to make it clear that they would
rather fight against murderous odds than give in to
Hitler's Germany. Again and again in shops, in
restaurants, in streets and in offices, we heard people
say the same thing: "We had three hundred years of
alien tyranny and we've had twenty years of our repub-
lic; life will not be worth living if we lose this freedom".
Everybody men, women, children too felt that war
was now certain. They were ready for that, but they
were not ready for a renewal of the impotence and
tormenting strain they had endured for the last six
months.

Sunday, September i8th, the day when in London
Chamberlain, Daladier and Bonnet were agreeing on

50

THE BETRAYAL

the betrayal, was a glorious day in Bohemia: "The last
Sunday of peace",, everyone said, and certainly the
Bohemian countryside in the sunshine looked as if war
and a tragic alternative belonged to another planet.
We drove out to Vlasim, about forty miles from Prague.
On the way we saw in every village the new poster of
the Ministry of National Defence; the words on it were:
"Soldiers we are all soldiers now". Vlasim is a
typical Bohemian village, with an arcaded square and
an unpretentious baroque castle; it also had, we were
told, a munitions factory, employing three thousand
people in three shifts of a thousand each. But where
was the factory? We could not see it. The whole
factory was underground in a wood except for a single
tall chimney poking out of the trees, and to prevent an
explosion from spreading it was split up into more
than fifty insulated buildings. We thought of England,
where the new Austin shadow factory presented to
bombers seventeen and a half acres under one roof.

We had come to see Jaksch. He was very cheerful.
He felt that he and his followers had done well. They
had faced the fighting in their home districts, most of
them without flinching and without losing their heads;
and after Henlein had fled, Jaksch had taken the right
steps. The National Council of Sudeten Germans was
going well : it had answered to a national movement of
the Sudeten German people and, though it had given
away none of their interests, it had built a basis for a
firm reconciliation with the Czechs. "Now at last we
can solve the internal problem," he kept on saying, "if
only the Western Powers will stay firm."

"But," we asked Jaksch, "isn't it now too late
to prevent war? Even if Great Britain and France
now stand up to Hitler, can Hitler now draw back?

LOST LIBERTY?

Haven't Britain and France encouraged Hitler to
commit himself too far?" To this Jaksch had an
answer perhaps the true answer. "Hitler can per-
fectly well draw back," he said, "and in this way: He
has only to repeat June 3oth, 1934. The German
people doesn't want war. It is terrified of war. All
the propaganda of Goebbels about French and British
and Russian and Czech armaments has defeated its own
ends. It was meant to make the German people angry
and warlike, but it has made them afraid. They want
peace. All Hitler has to do at any moment is to shoot
Goebbels, Himmler and Ribbentrop, then turn to the
people and say: 'I have always been a man of peace.
But behind my back certain scoundrels were plotting
to drag us into war. I have punished them. There
will be no war/ If Hitler does that, he will be more
popular than ever before. But if he goes to war, he'll
be lost in a few weeks. I have many friends who have
fled from the Reich, and many contacts with men who
are still there, and they all bear out what I say."

We were back in Prague at about five o'clock in the
afternoon. No news had come from London a bad
sign. But Dr. Hodza's broadcast speech at noon had
been firm and reassuring. He said :

"Together with the other nations at whose sides
we fought in the world war, we have done
everything, and we will do everything, to save
peace. . . .

"The so-called plebiscite can in no circumstances
bring about a solution. ... In the name of all the
legal authorities of this State I declare that in spite
of Henlein's refusal to negotiate with the Czecho-
slovak Government, and in spite of his attempted

52

THE BETRAYAL

revolt, the Government will not change in the
smallest degree its previous policy of an understand-
ing with the Nationalities., and especially with the
Sudeten Germans; in this way we shall defend the
full integrity of the State and we shall continue
negotiations on the basis of our last proposals.

"For this the Government does not need Henlein
and the leaders who have fled; for the events that
have happened here and the collapse of the revolt
show clearly that to-day the Government has before
it masses of Sudeten Germans of whom the great
majority desires a peaceful settlement of the national
problems. . . .

"We know that the test before our Republic is a
severe one, and that the demands on our strength
and our power of sacrifice grow every day. The
centuries have taught us that nobody who cannot
fight for peace can dream of it. ... We neither have
nor need strong words. We need and have strong
hearts and great determination." *

We heard, too, that the day before a delegation of
the Bohemian nobility had waited on President Benes.
They, who had always resented the Republic because
of its land reform and its abolition of titles, had come
to assure him of their complete loyalty. Prince Kinsk^
read the declaration in their name:

"Loyalty to the Bohemian State, which our fore-
fathers created and helped to hold for a thousand
years, is for us so natural a duty that we considered
whether we should really emphasise it.

"We see it as our duty to maintain intact the

1 Prager Presse, September zoth.

53

LOST LIBERTY?

from the account furnished ... by Lord Runci-
man. We are both convinced that, after recent
events, the point has now been reached where the
further maintenance within the boundaries of the
Czechoslovak State of the districts mainly inhabited
by Sudeten Deutsch cannot, in fact, continue any
longer without imperilling the interests of Czecho-
slovakia herself and of European peace. In the
light of these considerations, both Governments have
been compelled to the conclusion that the mainten-
ance of peace and the safety of Czechoslovakia's vital
interests cannot effectively be assured unless these
areas are now transferred to the Reich. . . .

The area for transfer would probably have to
include areas with over 50 per cent of German
inhabitants, but we should hope to arrange by
negotiations provisions for adjustment of frontiers,
where circumstances render it necessary, by some
international body including a Czech representative.
We are satisfied that the transfer of smaller areas
based on a higher percentage would not meet the
case.

. . . His Majesty's Government in the United
Kingdom would be prepared, as a contribution to
the pacification of Europe, to join in an inter-
national guarantee of the new boundaries of the
Czechoslovak State against unprovoked aggression,
one of the principal conditions of such a guarantee
would be ... the substitution of a general guaran-
tee against unprovoked aggression in place of
existing treaties which involve reciprocal obligations
of a military character.

. . . The Prime Minister must resume conver-
sations with Herr Hitler not later than Wednes-

56

THE BETRAYAL

day, and earlier if possible. We therefore feel we
must ask for your reply at the earliest possible
moment. 1

In the words of an American commentator, "Cham-
berlain and Daladier were dictating to Benes what
Hitler had dictated to Chamberlain' \ 2

In Prague, as the news leaked out, people were
incredulous, bewildered. How, they asked, can the
Western Powers be so foolish, so suicidal? How can
they let Czechoslovakia be broken up, so that Germany
may have a free run of Central and Eastern Europe?
How can they throw away all our economic resources,
our armaments industry, our strategic position, our
fortifications, our army, our readiness to fight to the
last man, woman, girl and boy? To capture and
neutralise these assets, not to "free" the Sudeten
Germans, is Hitler's concern: how can anyone in
France or even in England still not see this? How
can England and France hand over to Nazi Germany
and in the name of self-determination hundreds of
thousands of German Catholics, Liberals, Socialists,
Communists and Jews, and hundreds of thousands of
Czechs, knowing Hitler's record for sadistic cruelty
to every opponent? How do they think we can defend
the new frontiers they impose on us? What do Great
Britain and France mean by a guarantee of our new
frontiers? They have already guaranteed our present
ones. And does nobody realise that this is a question
of life and death for us, this decision taken so callously
above our heads and without consulting us?

1 Cmd. 5847, Correspondence respecting Czechoslovakia, September,
1938-

2 Hamilton Fish Armstrong, When There is No Peace (Macmillan, New
York, January, 1939),

57

LOST LIBERTY?

A'Dart from the foolishness, the wickedness of the
Ang'o-French plan stunned the Czechs. They were
sincere in their belief in democracy, they were really
ready to die not only for their independence but for
England and France as fellow-democratic countries,
and they could not understand how the professed
democracies of Western Europe could believe so little
in freedom and humaneness as actually to help Hitler
to tear up Czechoslovakia. And where was the
sanctity of treaties, for which Great Britain and France
had fought in the Great War, with Czech legionaries
fighting by their side? Great Britain was morally
committed to Czechoslovakia as deeply as could be,
both by having sent Lord Runciman and by having
pressed Czechoslovakia again and again not to mobilise
in face of German menaces, not to mention her obliga-
tions under the Covenant of the League of Nations and
the Treaties of Locarno. But France the treachery
of France wounded the Czechs cruelly. France had
used the Czechoslovak alliance time and again, against
Germany and against Austria. Benes had never let her
down, Benes had never, like Stojadinovi<5 and Beck,
let himself be tempted away from France or from the
League of Nations by Hitler's repeated offers. He
had even made the working of the Russian alliance
conditional on the alliance with France. So this was
his reward. And France was even more than an ally
of nearly fifteen years' standing she was a friend;
it was towards French culture and civilisation that
Czechoslovakia had turned after the Great War. "Le
fire de tout" said a Czechoslovak statesman that day,
"cest de voir que Stojadinovic' avait raison, quand il
disaif, l Mefiez-vous des puissances occidentales ce sont
des trattres 9 "

58

THE BETRAYAL

Throughout September igth and 2oth President
Benes and the Czechoslovak Cabinet discussed the
proposals. They still hoped that the French Cabinet
might revolt. They could not believe that M. Paul
Reynaud or M, Georges Mandel, their friends, would
not resign. But no news of resignations came from
Paris.

Late in the afternoon of Tuesday, September 2oth,
after sitting all day, the Czechoslovak Government sent
its answer to London and Paris. It was a refusal. It
could not well have been anything else. The Czech
people were solid against surrender, although they
knew perfectly well the consequences that might
follow from a refusal. In the agonising dilemma into
which they had been thrust, they went about their daily
work with calm and dignity. No run on the banks, no
queues in the food shops, only a heightened demand for
gas masks and newspapers. There was not even any
chauvinism, only a quiet determination to meet what-
ever fate lay in store for them. "This is our republic",
they said simply; "we shall defend it."

The Czechoslovak Note of September 2oth was a
long, reasoned, conciliatory but firm reply to the
British and French Governments, 1 It began by thank-
ing them, but saying that their proposals were "not
adapted to attaining the aim pursued by them in the
great effort they are making for peace". Then it
protested against action having been taken against
Czechoslovakia "without her being heard", and this
although the Czechoslovak Government 2 had given
notice that it could not take responsibility for decisions

1 We have seen it and we give a full translation at the end of this book,
in Appendix L
3 On Sunday, September i8th.

59

LOST LIBERTY?

made without it. Czechoslovakia was a democracy,
and a decision about its frontiers could not be made
without consulting Parliament. To accept these
proposals would be to mutilate the State "in every
direction", economically and strategically. Sooner or
later, if this were done, Czechoslovakia " would fall
under the total influence of Germany", Even if
"Czechoslovakia should decide for the proposed sacri-
fices, the question of peace would be in no degree
resolved". Many Sudeten Germans, preferring the
democratic atmosphere of Czechoslovakia to the Reich,
would emigrate, and this would create new difficulties.
The laming of Czechoslovakia would seriously disturb
the balance of forces in Europe, with far-reaching
consequences, especially for France. The Czecho-
slovak Government appreciated highly the offer of a
guarantee, which "could certainly open the way to an
entente between all the interested parties, if the present
nationalities' dispute were to be arranged amicably and
in such a way as not to impose upon Czechoslovakia
unacceptable sacrifices". Czechoslovakia had given
many proofs of devotion to peace. "On the insistence
of her friends" she had gone very far in concessions to
the Sudeten Germans ; besides, the British Government
had emphasised that these should not go outside the
limits of the Czechoslovak constitution. In spite of a
rebellion "fomented from without", the Czechoslovak
Government maintained its proposals and it "still
considers this procedure capable of realisation". And
Czechoslovakia had been faithful to all her engage-
ments to her friends, to the League of Nations and its
members, and to other nations too. The arbitration
treaty of October i6th, 1925, had been recognised as
still valid by the present German Government, and the

60

THE BETRAYAL

Czechoslovak Government now requested that this
treaty be applied, promising to accept the arbitral
sentence.

Why was this the Czechoslovak answer left out
of the British Government's White Paper?

Chapter IV

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

jEFORE two o'clock on Wednesday morning the
British and French Ministers in Prague tele-
phoned to the Hradcany to ask for an audience
with President Benes. The President had gone to bed
only a short time before, not having slept at all for two
days and two nights. He got up and received them at
2 A.M. What had they come to say? Had the well-
based reasoning of the Czechoslovak reply persuaded
France and Great Britain to support Czechoslovakia in
her appeal to arbitration? On the contrary: M. de
Lacroix and Mr. Newton had come with an ultimatum.
Germany had found it a paying method to force grave
decisions upon the world during week-ends; now the
two great democracies of Western Europe had in-
vented a refinement of this technique they fell upon
an exhausted Government in the small hours of the
morning.

Already at 5 P.M. the day before, when Dr. Krofta
had handed to the British and French Ministers the
Czechoslovak Note refusing the Anglo-French plan
and proposing arbitration, Mr. Newton had threatened
that Great Britain would declare herself disinterested
if Czechoslovakia maintained this refusal ; and M. de
Lacroix had made no protest against this threat. Now,
at two in the morning of September 2 1 st Mr. Newton

62

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

handed to President Bene a Note about which he had
had from London these instructions : *

You should at once join with your French col-
league in pointing out to the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment that their reply in no way meets the critical
situation which the Anglo-French proposals were
designed to avert and if adhered to would, when
made public, in our opinion, lead to an immediate
German invasion. You should urge the Czech
Government to withdraw this reply and urgently
consider an alternative that takes account of realities.
The Anglo-French proposals remain, in our view,
the only chance of avoiding an immediate German
attack. On the basis of the reply now under con-
sideration I would have no hope of any useful result
ensuing for a second visit to Herr Hitler and the
Prime Minister would be obliged to cancel the
arrangements for it. We therefore beg the Czech
Government to consider urgently and seriously
before producing a situation for which we could take
no responsibility. We should of course have been
willing to put the Czech proposal for arbitration
before the German Government if we had thought
that at this stage there was any chance of its receiving
favourable consideration, but we cannot for a moment
believe that it would be acceptable now. Nor do we
think that the German Government would regard the
present proposition as one that is capable of being
settled by arbitration as the Czech Government sug-
gest. If on reconsideration the Czech Government
feel bound to reject our advice they must of course

1 As stated by Mr. Butler, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, in the
House of Commons on October 5th, 1938. Hansard, col. 450.

63

LOST LIBERTY?

be free to take any action they think appropriate to
meet the situation that may thereafter develop.

The French Minister, M. de Lacroix, added a verbal
statement, in which he said that if war broke out because
of the Czechoslovak refusal, "la France ne s'y associera
pas". President Benes wrote this dow r n in front of the
two Ministers, and later asked that the French Govern-
ment should itself let him have its demarche in writing.
Some time on September 2 ist he received a Note whose
wording was milder than the words used by M. de
Lacroix, but whose contents were the same. 1

"The Czechoslovak Government", said Mr.
Chamberlain later, "was urged to accept the Anglo-
French proposals immediately. " 2 This "urging" was
done by the French and British Ministers in two inter-
views, the one with Dr. Krofta at 5 P.M. on September
2oth, the other with President Benes on September 2 ist
at two in the morning. At these two interviews much
of what the two Ministers said was spoken after verbal
instructions, not read out from a detailed telegram.
There exists a ciphered telegram in which the Foreign
Office in Prague informed some of its representatives
abroad of the main contents of both interviews, tele-
scoping the two together. On the "basis of this tele-
gram Professor Seton- Watson published the following
summary of what the two Ministers said in the two
interviews :

(i) Britain and France have the duty to prevent
an European war if humanly possible, and thus an
invasion of Czechoslovakia.

1 See the article by Vindex in The Nineteenth Century and After, February,
X 939-

2 House of Commons, September 28th, 1938; Hansard, col. 17.

6 4

;r,5|? r r;]\i"ffi,pfy,

President Benes

Centrof>re$$i Prague

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

(2) They wish the Czech Government to realise
that if it does not unconditionally and at once accept the
Anglo-French Plan, it will stand before the world as
solely responsible for the ensuing war.

(3) By refusing, Czechoslovakia will also be
guilty of destroying Anglo-French solidarity, since,
in that event ^ Britain will under no circumstances march)
even if France went to the aid of Chechoslovakia*

(4) If the refusal should provoke a war, France
gives official notice that she will not fulfil her treaty
obligations. 1

If the first point is an expression of a sentiment with
which nobody would quarrel, the second is an out-
rageous ultimatum. France and Great Britain were
pressing the Czechoslovak Government to accept a plan
for its country's dismemberment "at once", that is,
without consulting Parliament or public opinion in any
way; and they were actually threatening to exonerate
the German Government publicly from all blame.

Even this is not all. "From the attitude of the two
Ministers . . . there was no doubt that Berlin was
aware that her way was unopposed, to proceed against
Czechoslovakia without fear of interference from the
Western Powers. It was also obvious that both War-
saw and Budapest were acquainted with this." Such
is the testimony of Hubert Ripka, then diplomatic
editor of Lidove Noviny and in close touch with Presi-
dent Benes. 2

France and Great Britain thus used the cruellest
pressure they had in their power in order to make
Czechoslovakia accept a dismemberment that must

1 See Munich and the Dictators (Cambridge University Press, 1939).

2 See Four Days (Heinemannj 1938).

65 F

LOST LIBERTY?

mean the loss of her independence. And yet, when
President Benes, full of bewilderment and anguish,
replied that "he was being given a cruel ultimatum",
he was told that "it was rather a matter of 'pressing
friendly advice' 'V

As soon as Mr. Newton and M. de Lacroix had left
him, the President called his weary Cabinet from their
beds. Soon after three o'clock they began to arrive
at the Castle. The discussions were still going on at
eight in the morning, interrupted by frantic telephone
calls from the British and French Ministers reminding
them that they were keeping Mr. Chamberlain waiting.
At 4 A.M. Mr, G. E, R. Gedye wired to the New Tork
Times that the Czechoslovak Cabinet would resist, and
that if Hitler wanted to talk to Benes as he had talked
to Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden he would have to
fight his way to Prague. Nobody believed that the
Czechs would surrender.

At eight o'clock in the morning we left the suburb of
Prague where we were staying and went into the town
to buy gas-masks and warm clothes for the war. We
knew that something had happened at 2 A.M., but we
had no details. We knew, too, that the Cabinet was
still sitting, but we were convinced that the Czech re-
fusal was definitive and inevitable. At nine, just as we
were beginning breakfast in the sun outside the Hotel
Esplanade, the telephone rang. It was the Czecho-
slovak Foreign Office. "La situation est comfletement
changee! Nous sommes obliges de capituler. Cest a
cause de la Pologne" More he would not say. He
only repeated again and again that it was * 'because
of Poland".

We were bowled over. For days, indeed for weeks,

1 See Four Days (Heinemann, 1938).

66

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

we had thought and said and written that the Czechs
would fight to the last man, woman and child for their
independence, even if they were left entirely alone and
surrounded. That may seem an odd belief now, to
people who were not there. But everyone who knew
the mood of the Czech people after the invasion of
Austria and May 2ist, after the torment of u going to
the limit of concessions", still more everyone who had
studied their superb army, thought the same thing.

By eleven o'clock there was still no decision. A
majority in the Cabinet and among the leaders of the
Coalition parties l was for capitulation, but a large and
powerful minority was against: there were some threats
of resignation. We found out that a communication
had come in the small hours of the morning with a
Russian request that Czechoslovakia should appeal to
the League of Nations under Article XI or Article XVI
of the Covenant : Russia would then fulfil her League
obligations to Czechoslovakia even if the French Gov-
ernment should dishonour its pledges. Many people,
in the Cabinet and in the Foreign Office, believed that
this was merely a polite way of leaving Czechoslovakia
in the lurch; others thought that Russia's purpose was
to be able to stand by Czechoslovakia without giving
any excuse to Germany or her friends in Britain and
France for an anti-Bolshevik crusade. 2 They were
right. Because it was essential both to Czecho-
slovakia and to Russia to give Germany, Great Britain

1 That is, the parties supporting- the Government.

2 The Prague correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported later in the
day that "some of the Cabinet wished to put a direct question to Russia: 'If
we are the victims of unprovoked aggression would you support us in all
circumstances?* The putting of this question was opposed by the supporters
of capitulation on the plea that it would only precipitate a German invasion"
(Daily Telegraph, September 22nd, 1938).

6 7

LOST LIBERTY?

and France no chance of making Czechoslovakia a
second Spain, Russia's policy was to help Czecho-
slovakia not only by arms but by discretion. But that
Russia was really willing to help the Czechs militarily
to resist a German attack, even if France did not, is
clear, for at about 5 P.M. on September 2ist a telegram
reached Prague from the Czechoslovak Minister in
Moscow, asking the Czechoslovak Government to send
an aeroplane to Kiev at once for the Russian liaison
officers.

But by three o'clock in the afternoon these members
of the Cabinet who had stood firm were worn down by
their colleagues and by the continued cruel pressure
from the British and French Ministers. A Note was
prepared accepting the Franco-British proposals as
a basis of negotiation, subject to the consent of the
Czechoslovak Parliament. This was not enough. At
four o'clock new threats, new pressure from the British
and French Governments. They could not wait for
Parliaments. Czechoslovakia must accept all, im-
mediately.

At five o'clock Dr. Krofta, the Czechoslovak Foreign
Minister, handed to Mr. Newton and M. de Lacroix
the text of Czechoslovakia's submission. He could
not make the usual polite speech to them, he handed
them the Note with a few bare words. He looked,, we
are told, as though he would commit suicide. For this
honest, gracious, cultured man, the greatest modern
Czech historian, the student of Bohemian-German
culture, an unshaken believer in the League of Nations
and in democratic ideals, the devoted follower of Bene,
for him, too, this was a shameful betrayal.

This Note also was omitted from the British White
Paper. It is worth a careful reading :

68

Dr. Kamil Krofta,
Former Foreign Secretary of Czechoslovakia

) Prague

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

Force far les circonstances et les insistances excessive-
ment pressantes et a la suite de la communication des
Gouvernements franfais et britannique du 21 Sep-
tembre de Fannee courante dans laquelle les deux
Gouvernements ont ex-prime leur maniere de voir au
sujet de r assistance a la Tchfcoslovaquie si elle refusait
d* accepter les propositions franco-britanniques et serait a
la suite de cela, attaquee par FAllemagne, le Gouverne-
ment de la Republique tchecoslovaque accepte dans ces
conditions avec des sentiments de douleur les propositions
franpaises et britanniques en supposant que les deux
gouvernements feront tout pour les fair e appliquer avec
toute sauvegarde des interns vitaux de FEtat tcheco-
slovaque. II constate avec regret que les propositions
ont ete elaborees sans la consultation prealable du
Gouvernement tchecoslovaque.

Regrettantprofondement que sa proposition d j arbitrage
n* ait pas ete acceptee y il les accepte comme un tout en
soulignant le principe de la garantie comme elle est
formulee dans la Note et les accepte en supposant que les
deux gouvernements ne tolereront pas F invasion alle-
mande sur le territoire tchecoslovaque qui restera tcheco-
slovaque jusqu'au moment ou le transfert du territoire
apres la fixation de la jrontilre nouvelle par la commis-
sion Internationale dont on parle dans les propositions
pourrait Stre effectuL

II est d'avis que la proposition franco-britannique sup-
pose que tous les details de la realisation pratique des
propositions franco-britannique ser ont fixes d* accord avec
le Gouvernement tchecoslovaque.

The crowds were already gathering in the streets.
By half-past six the Vaclavsk^ Namesti, the long, wide
main street of Prague, was grey with thousands.

LOST LIBERTY?

Policemen swarmed. They did not threaten; they
walked with the crowd and discussed with them.
They, too, could not understand this capitulation.
Many stood quite still, silent, mournful, grim, men as
well as women weeping; some stumped angrily up and
down; some gathered in little knots around a speaker
or a policeman trying to reason it out.

In Prague at this time there were loud-speakers
along all the main streets, and at eight o'clock ^they
gave out a message from the Propaganda Minister,
Vavrecka, read by the actor Stepanek :

"Dear fellow-citizens! In the course of history
our nation has suffered catastrophes and horrors
without number. ... It has often seemed that
our people was exterminated and destroyed . . .
and yet our nation has always risen up again. . . .

"To-day such a catastrophe threatens our State
and our nation anew. You have heard the official
news of the Great Powers* demarche to our Govern-
ment. You have heard how, in a way for which
there is no example in history, our allies and friends
dictated to us sacrifices such as are laid upon the
vanquished and defeated.

"But we are not defeated and if our Government,
completely united, with the President of the Re-
public at its head, had to decide to accept such terrible
demands, they did it because they wished to save
the whole nation from vain bloodshed.

"It is not lack of courage that has brought our
leaders to this decision, to a decision that lies heavy
on all our hearts. Even the bravest can find
himself in a situation where he must draw back
before the avalanche that rolls upon him. God

70

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

knows that often greater courage is needed for life
than for suicide. God knows that there can be no
man of honour in the world who can declare that we
were afraid and cowardly when to-day we em-
powered our Foreign Minister to inform France and
Great Britain: We have decided to sacrifice our-
selves for the sake of peace in the world, as centuries
ago the great Saint sacrificed himself on the cross
for the sake of mankind.

"Dear brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children!
To-day we will make no reproaches towards those
who left us alone. History will have its say about
these days. Our duty is to look to the future, to
watch and protect the nation, which must and will
live. Now we shall be among ourselves, we will
be strong and it rests with you whether we rise
again. We are not going down, and we will keep
our country. We face the future with our heads
high. Nazdar!"

There was no revolution in Czechoslovakia. The
thing that happened in the next twenty-four hours had
nothing whatever to do with economic or social dis-
content. Between the police and the people there was
no enmity, nothing but peaceful arguments about the
political situation. What happened was an irresistible
outburst of a people's indignation, a people that
remained all the time disciplined and humane a
people, never a mob. After months of nerve-racking
strain, ending in a terrible day of foreboding and
rumours, the will of the Czech people suddenly pro-
claimed itself for what reason? Because the news
was out that their Government had accepted the
peremptory demands of the German, French and British

7 1

LOST LIBERTY?

Governments for a partition of the Republic, the end
of its independence.

But there was something more than that, something
that made this manifestation truly heroic. Everyone
who took part and all classes, men, women and
children took part had read the Government's
communique or had heard the broadcast in which the
Government's decision was explained, or at least knew
what was in it. They understood, all of them, that
the Czechoslovak Government had accepted this
ultimatum because it believed that Czechoslovakia was
alone, surrounded by enemies, so that resistance
would almost certainly mean extermination. And yet
every one of them turned out into the streets in order
to show somehow, as best they could, one thing that
they would rather fight and die for their Republic,
even if the cause were hopeless.

That was the sole aim of the rising of the Czecho-
slovak people. It was the unmistakable indication of
an open-eyed choice, not an outbreak of violence. In
the Deutsches Haus, the former headquarters of the
Henlein party, one pane of glass was broken. A great
crowd burst into Radiojournal, the Prague broadcasting
station, breaking a little glass in the process. But
once inside, did it loot and smash as a revolutionary
mob would have done? No. All it asked was to
be allowed to speak through the microphone to the
peoples of the world, to explain to them that it would
rather die than yield.

This we saw. We were in the broadcasting station
that evening. At a quarter to nine, as we came
downstairs from the studio into the main hall, we found
all the doors shut, with a huge crowd outside crying
to be let in, The doors were glass doors, and there

72

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

was one policeman on duty. Hysterical high officials
ran hither and thither, shouting at the tops of their
voices, telephoning for more police who could not
be spared and lugging around fire hoses which they
wanted to turn on the crowd. That indeed would
have been lunacy. Luckily Otakar Jeremias, the
musician, and an official from the Foreign Office,
calmed down the bureaucrats, to whom their own
people was a new and frightening fact.

When the crowd broke in, they streamed up the
main staircase; looking for microphones. They were
so singleminded that when they found we were English
they did not attack us or spit at us (we should not have
blamed them if they had), they were interested merely
for a moment, then went on looking for their micro-
phones. Later one of them did manage to speak
a few sentences into the microphone, claiming the
people's right to defend itself, demanding a military
dictatorship, and accusing the Agrarians, but he was
soon cut off.

Later still a few soldiers arrived. The sight of
them seemed to make the people less unhappy. One
of them happened to be a young officer whom we knew,
attached to the General Staff. He wanted to take us
home, because he thought it was not safe to be French
or English in Prague that night, and there was a long
and rather comic discussion as to whether we should
pass as Swiss or Belgian we must not belong to any
Great Power. "With me", he said, and it was clearly
true, ''the only danger is that the people may want to
carry me about on their shoulders." He told us that
at Geneva M. Litvinov had been threatened that if
Czechoslovakia and Russia fought together against
Germany, Great Britain would intervene on Germany's

73

LOST LIBERTY?

side. This seemed to us nonsense: even if such a
threat had been made, how could anyone take it
seriously? You can make peace against the will of the
people, but not war, for war demands of the people
sustained collaboration, not simply acquiescence. All
this we said in answer to the Czech officer. But later
we came to believe that a menace of this sort had been
made and taken seriously.

Out in the streets again, we found the lower part of
the town quieter; people still stood in little groups on
the pavement and talked to each other, or to the police;
Vdclavske Nameski was still thinly covered; but the
crowds had by now swept up to the Castle and to the
building of the General Staff. "Long live the Army! 77
they cried. "Long live General Syrov^!" "Long
live General Krejci!" "Give us a military dictator-
ship!" "Give us arms and we will defend ourselves;
don't be afraid!" "Give us arms, we have paid for
them!" "Long live the U.S.S.R.l" "We will de-
fend our Republic!" One after another members of
the Cabinet, the Mayor of Prague, Dr. Zenkl and the
beloved General Syrovjr begged them to be calm, to be
quiet and disciplined. At last, long after midnight,
they began to go towards their homes, but the streets
did not clear all through the night.

Next morning, September 22nd, from the very
early hours the demonstrations continued. Great
masses of people marched in orderly columns into
the centre of the town from the outer suburbs and
even from the countryside. All of them carried the
Czechoslovak flag, a few of them the red flag too.
Many of them were workers who had given up a day's
pay to take part, and working women climbed on to
the steps of the statue of St. Wenceslas Bohemia's

74

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

national saint and unfurled a banner, "We women
want to protect our families from fascism". By nine
o'clock the big square before the Parliament was black
with people standing in a thick mass, nearly a quarter
of a million of them. They cried their slogans, they
shouted for the army, and "Down with the Govern-
ment of the capitulation". Many were still weeping.
Then, a little after ten, they heard the news through
the loud-speakers that the Hodza Government had
resigned and that a Government of National Defence
would succeed it, with a soldier at its head. It seemed
as if the cheers would go on for ever. Then members
of all parties and all groups came on to the balcony
to speak to the crowd Catholic, Agrarian, Fascist,
Slovak, Conservative, Communist. The leader of the
Conservative National Union, Dr. Ladislav Rasm,
whose father Alois Rasin, the Republic's first finance
minister, had been murdered by a Communist in 1923,
turned to the people, saying: "In this hour there is for
me no difference between my party and the Com-
munists ; we all love Czechoslovakia, we are all willing
to die for its independence. I, the younger Rasfn,
stretch out my hand to the Communists." Ex-
General Gajda, the Czech Fascist, appeared: there was
the beginnings of a demonstration against him; but
when he explained that he was there as a soldier and
a legionary, not as a party man, the noise died away.
An Agrarian deputy tried to speak, but he could not
make himself heard at first above the howls and
cat-calls. "Traitors!" they shouted. "Who helped
Henlein?" "Who murdered the police?" "Who
gave in to Hitler?" "Down with the capitulation."
Then a Socialist came forward and begged the crowd
to listen, first because the Agrarian deputy was a

75

LOST LIBERTY?

Slovak, 1 but also because at this time "bourgeois,
workers and peasants must stand together". The
people listened quietly. Last of all. General Obratilek
came forward in uniform, with a declaration from
General Syrovy: "The army stands, and will stand,
on the frontier, and it will defend our liberties to the
very end. Here in Prague, keep calm, keep good
nerves that is all we ask of you. The time may
soon come when I shall call upon you to take a more
active part in the defence in which we all long to join.'*

The people sang "Kde Dornov MAj" and the old
"Hej Siovane"; they swore the oath of allegiance to
the Republic. And then this great crowd began to go
quietly back to homes and factories. Within a couple
of hours most of the workers in the factories around
Prague were back at work again, many were digging
trenches for protection against bombs. All of them
believed that they had got what they wanted ; a Govern-
ment that would defend the Republic, defend its
independence, whatever the consequences. 2 These
were the demonstrations that the German wireless
described as "horrible anti-German outbreaks", with
"blood flowing in the very centre of Prague".

At half-past one in the afternoon General Syrov^
spoke to the people by wireless. The General said:

"Citizens! In this fateful hour for the State
and the Nation, I ask you to hold to your places : the
soldier by his weapon, the peasant by his plough, the
workmen in their factories and workshops, the clerks
in their offices. The army is watching over the

1 The Slovak Agrarians were thought to be more Liberal and less corrupt
than the Czech wing.

3 They realised quite clearly that it was not a question of ceding a little
patch of ground to Germany, but of Czechoslovakia's whole independence.

7 6

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

security of the Republic, and it can carry out its work
only if the nation stands behind it, calm and united.
Demonstrate your determination by your work for
the State. Each one of you, go back to your
duties, for only so can the defence of the State be
ready. All demonstrations now are work for the
enemy."

Why did the Czech people believe in General
Syrovy? Why had this stout, mild, bull-necked, one-
eyed Dorfonkel this hold over them? Firstly, of course,
because he was Inspector-General of their beloved army,
but secondly because he personified their struggle for
liberty during the World War.

Jan Syrov^, a young student in Warsaw when the
War broke out, entered the Russian Army as a volun-
teer, and joined the Czechoslovak Legions. At twenty-
nine he was a Colonel and the commander of the Czech
Infantry regiment " George of Podebrad". In 1918
he became Commander-in-Chief of all the Czechoslovak
troops in Siberia about 90,000 men and on October
2nd the Allies made him Commander-in-Chief of the
allied armies in Siberia Czechs, Slovaks, Bohemian
Germans, Poles, Roumanians and Jugoslavs. He led
the Czechoslovak Legions on that famous Anabasis,
when this handful of troops gained control of the whole
Trans-Siberian railway, and fought its way against
German and Bolshevik troops right across Siberia to
Vladivostok. (His men organised a Chamber of Com-
merce, a savings bank, a bank, Workers' Associations
and a military postal service, in the wilds of Siberia).
Mr. Lloyd George wrote to the Czechoslovak National
Council in September, 1918:

On behalf of the British War Cabinet I send you

77

LOST LIBERTY?

our heartiest congratulations on the striking successes
won by the Czechoslovak forces against armies of
German and Austrian troops in Siberia. The story
of the adventures and triumphs of this small army is,
indeed, one of the greatest epics of history, It has
filled us all with admiration for the courage, per-
sistence and self-control of your countrymen and
shows what can be done to triumph over time, dis-
tance and lack of material sources by those holding
the spirit of freedom in their hearts. Your nation
has rendered inestimable service to Russia and to
the allies in their struggle to free the world from
despotism; we shall never forget it. 1

Is it surprising that the Czech people could not believe
that General Syrovy, one of the creators of the Republic,
would not defend the Republic now?

Early in the evening General Syrovy formed his
Government; only Dr. Krofta, the Foreign Minister,
and Dr. Kalfus, the Finance Minister, remained from
Dr. Hodza's Cabinet. Otherwise the new Cabinet was
made up of civil servants and of trusted people like
Dr. Zenkl, the Mayor of Prague, and Dr. Bukovsky,
the leader of the Sokol movement. "It is clear that the
Czech people", the Berliner Tagellatt commented, "will
no longer be ruled and led by Czechs, but by the
deputies of Stalin.'' And this at the time when the
Czech Prime Minister was a general who had fought
against the Bolsheviks, and when there was not a single
Communist in the Czechoslovak Government.

At^five minutes past seven on that moving day Dr.
Benes spoke over the wireless to the nation. Fanfares

1 Quoted by President Masaryk, The Making of a State (American
edition), pp. 276-7.

78

ULTIMATUM AND RISING

from Smetana's Libuse preceded his speech. 1 The
President, calm and courageous as ever, said:

" Great changes are taking place throughout
Europe. It is not only a question for us. . . , In
other places they will come in different forms, and
we shall live through many anxious moments before
we in these parts of the world will have lasting
peace and quiet. It is therefore important for us,
in all circumstances, to remain calm, steadfast and
united. . . ,

"I have said already that I have never been afraid
in my life, and I do not fear to-day for our State. I
have my plan for all eventualities, and I do not allow
myself to be disturbed by anything. We desire an
agreement, an agreement towards which we are
working to-day, an agreement between the greatest
nations of the world; if this happens, and this agree-
ment is an honourable one, for our people there will
be advantage in it; and it will contain within it a
general reconciliation between England, France and
Germany, our reconciliation with Germany and our
neighbours, and our co-operation with other States,
especially those in Eastern Europe. , . .

"Our people have always understood that it is
sometimes necessary to negotiate and sometimes
to fight. If we must fight, then we will fight to
the last breath. If it is necessary and possible to
negotiate, then we must negotiate. . . .

1 LibuSe, besides being perhaps Smetana's greatest opera, is the very heart
of Czech patriotism. LibuSe, the legend runs, was a Bohemian princess of
the tenth century, who married a peasant, Pfemysl, and with him founded
the Pfemyslid dynasty, which ruled Bohemia for nearly four centuries.
The opera ends with Libuse's prophecy, in which, after foretelling the
glories of Czech history, she says: "There are dark clouds, I can see no more,
but one thing I know, my dear Czech people will not perish".

79

LOST LIBERTY?

"I repeat, I see things clearly and I have my
plan. , . . Let us spare our strength, for we shall
need it; I repeat, spare our strength, for we shall
need it. ... You do not need to fear, there have
been worse times, and there have soon been better
times afterwards. The new government has now
been formed. It was formed with the co-operation
of all parties. The political parties will stand
firmly and loyally behind it, national solidarity will
manifest itself in it. And lastly, in this moment let
me give you a warning: each of you stick to your
post like a soldier. So you can best serve the
State, And secondly: from somewhere in Europe
alarming and incredible news is spread about; be
careful of it, and calm those who believe it. Be
careful, too, of provocateurs,

". . . Do not fear for the Nation and the State.
They have deep and firm roots. As Smetana's
Libuse prophesied, 'My dear Czech people will
never perish'. No, it will not perish, it will outlive
all fears and horrors gloriously."

The people were satisfied. After the speech of the
President and the statements of General Syrovy they
believed ^they had got what they wanted, and that the
capitulation was repudiated.

80

Chapter V

TO ARMS!

ELLOW citizens! The most decisive, the
most earnest, moment has come. Success de-
pends on every one of you. Do not falter in your
duty; be calm, determined, faithful and reliable. . . .
Our battle is a righteous one. All in a single front
for the freedom of our fatherland! Long live free
Czechoslovakia!" The Prague announcer's voice
stopped. Another voice began to read the President's
proclamation, this time in Slovak, then in German, in
Magyar, in Ruthene, in Polish all the languages of
the Republic. Then it began again in Czech. It was
the proclamation of a general mobilisation for Czecho-
slovakia, broadcast at twenty minutes past ten on
Friday night, September 23rd,

During the day news had slowly trickled through
from Godesbeirg. Nothing was officially made known,
but many people knew that Hitler had made new de-
mands which seemed to have startled Mr. Chamber-
lain into resistance. We ourselves watched the effect
these scraps of news from Godesberg had on Herr
Kundt and Dr. Neuwirth, leaders of the late S.d.P.
They had for some reason known only to themselves
for it is an entirely Czech hotel made their head-
quarters at the Hotel Esplanade in Prague. They
were nervous and worried. They sat in a corner and
huddled over their papers, rushing every now and then

81 G

LOST LIBERTY?

to a telephone-box. Kundt drank several brandies.
We came out into the hall at one moment and heard
a loud, harsh, hysterical voice yelling in German. For
an instant we thought it was the Reichsgerman wireless.
But we listened in vain for applause. It was Dr.
Neuwirth telephoning to the German Legation for in-
structions. There were incidents in Eger. Should
they stay in Prague or should they fly to Berlin? Had
the Legation an aeroplane?

There was good news in the afternoon. At four
o'clock that morning M. Potemkin, the Assistant Com-
missar for Foreign Affairs, had warned the Polish
Charge d'Affaires in Moscow that, if Polish troops
violated the Czechoslovak frontier, the Russo-Polish
non-aggression pact of 1932 would no longer be valid.
Roumania replied late in the afternoon with an un-
conditional "Yes" to the Czechoslovak Government's
question whether she would fulfil her obligations under
the Little Entente treaties; and even M. Stojadinovid
promised to consult his Chief of Staff. News came
from Geneva that M. Litvinov had declared that, even
after Czechoslovakia's submission to the Franco-British
ultimatum x the Soviet Government would carry out its
engagements if negotiations failed and Czechoslovakia
were attacked.

And General Faucher, the head of the French Mili-
tary Mission in Czechoslovakia, had (it now became
known) resigned from the French Army and placed
himself at the disposal of the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment. The joy which this news gave to the Czechs is
indescribable, for it made them feel that even in France
they had not been wholly deceived.

inn : 2 f h t Vakia > **?* of the Berchtesgaden proposals was tanta-
mount to a denunciation of her alliance with the U.S.S.R.

82

TO ARMS!

The Czech people did not realise at all that the
capitulation of September 2 1 st had not been repudiated
by the new Government. Now came events which
made this question seem past and immaterial. The
conversations at Godesberg had broken down, and at
five o'clock the British Minister in Prague delivered an
amazing message. This is the report of it, made by
Dr. Krno of the Czechoslovak Foreign Office:

The British Minister (Newton) handed to me at
17 o'clock on the 23rd the following communication
which arrived from London by telephone (according
to Troutbeck) at 16.30 o'clock: "We are agreed
with the French Government upon informing the
Czechoslovak Government that the British and
French Governments can no longer take the re-
sponsibility of advising Czechoslovakia not to
mobilise".

The English Minister read to me this short addi-
tional document from his dossier: "it is necessary
to emphasise that such a measure might very easily
result in action by others; therefore, it might be
advisable for the Czechoslovak Government to avoid
all superfluous publicity".

Mr. Newton also said that he still did not exclude
the possibility of an agreement in Godesberg, but
that in spite of that the situation was extremely
serious.

And here is Dr. Krno's report of his interview with
the French Minister, M. de Lacroix, at 6.15 P.M. on
the same day:

"The French Government (said M. de Lacroix)
can no longer take the responsibility of continuing

83

LOST LIBERTY?

to give the advice which it had given to Czecho-
slovakia for the duration of the Franco-British
negotiations. From this moment the Czechoslovak
Government is free to take the measures which seem
to it necessary if the situation should deteriorate
afresh."

The Minister added that M. L6ger had made the
following remarks: (i) That from the military point
of view the French Government had no disturbing
information, and (2) that it advises the Czechoslovak
Government to take the necessary measures with
the greatest possible discretion.

That evening we were in the Hotel Esplanade,
dining with a French journalist and a Czechoslovak
diplomat. At the next table sat Kundt, Neuwirth
and two Reichsgerman "journalists" who had arrived
that morning. All four of them looked harassed and
gloomy; Kundt and Neuwirth mumbled together, the
Reichsgermans munched silently. About a quarter
past nine we were called into the hall. There we
found two friends. They told us that a general
mobilisation would be announced in an hour's time.
We ran back into the restaurant. Kundt and Neuwirth,
seeing the expected news in our faces, looked gloomier
than ever.

While we were talking in the hall, the reception
clerk a Sudeten German from Bodenbach came up
to us ^ and asked, "Is it true that there is a general
mobilisation?" We said, Yes, it was quite true.
"Oh," said the clerk, "I must go at once. Good-
bye." A few minutes later we saw him, a brown-
paper parcel under his arm, hurrying off towards the
Wilson Station across the road. Waiters scattered in

84

TO ARMS!

all directions. At one moment one saw an ordinary
hotel restaurant with waiters serving dinner or coffee;
the next minute, with scarcely a word, they had left the
room, and a few minutes later one saw them slipping
out of the building with their parcels or their \itde
cases. Some of them even ran out into the street as
they were, tail coats, white ties and all. Herr Kundt,
who had ordered coffee, saw his waiter appear at the
other end of the room with the tray, then suddenly
stop dead, bang the tray down on the first table he saw,
and scurry out of the room. When he asked what had
happened, he was told "There is a general mobilisation.
Your waiter has gone to join his regiment." The
clammy faces of the Sudeten German ex-leaders grew
clammier still a few minutes later, when two policemen
walked into the hotel and arrested a German air force
officer who was sitting in the hall. Soon afterwards
they came back again and took away the two German
journalists and a Czech woman spy. Kundt and
Neuwirth were left alone with their jitters.

In the streets there was no fuss. Everything was
businesslike, quick. There were none of the noisy
jubilations and partings, parades and marches-past and
send-offs, that were still the fashion in 1914. There
was perfect discipline not the discipline of people
who need to march in fours under the eyes of a martinet,
but the discipline of people who are disciplined even
when they are left to themselves and are doing things
in their own way. A very few minutes after the news
came through, all Prague was full of men hurrying
towards the railway stations, each carrying a little
package or a small suitcase. Here and there one
heard cheering, or saw a leave-taking, but it never
lasted for more than a minute or two; every man was

85

LOST LIBERTY?

competing to get to his place in the shortest time by
the best route. Police and A.R.P. volunteers were
stopping cars, asking them to take soldiers on their
way, or were stationed at the stopping-places of trams
to see that soldiers had first call on all the places
available. In a few minutes, too, the whole of Prague
was black. The street lights were darkened or
extinguished altogether, the lights on cars and trams
were shaded to a thin blue trickle, all lights in windows
were put out, or black curtains were drawn over them.

We drove slowly up through the town to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cernin Palace, near
the Castle. Inside all was darkness. We talked with
the porter, a legionary. He walked outside the door
with us. "England goes with us," he said. "France
goes too, Russia too, Roumania too." He suddenly
clenched his fists and raised them towards the sky.
"Ouf," he said.

Ouf! at last!" That seemed to be the general
feeling. Not that the Czechs wanted a war : far from
it. They were realists; no dictatorship had soaked
their minds with propaganda pretending that war is
noble and that might is right, they understood well
that war is not a joke, they had no taste for violence,
destruction. Nor were they chauvinists, and in spite
of all the efforts made by German propaganda to
create an impassable opposition between Germans and
Czechs, the Czechs did not hate Germans the warmth
of their welcome to the German democrats who were
refugees from the Sudetenland proved that.

But the Czechs, while the philosophy of Masaryk
had touched them very closely, so that they respected
reason and human individuality, were no Tolstoyan
pacifists. They were prepared to resist evil. Those

86

a
a

TO ARMS!

who were responsible for training the Czechoslovak
Army did not think it necessary to saturate the soldiers
with the lie that war itself is noble : on the contrary, as
a high officer in the General Staff told us, the soldiers
were taught that war is terrible, beastly, wasteful and a
disgrace to humanity, but one kind of war is necessary
& war whose purpose is "to prevent a murderer from
committing his crime". These last months, when the
Czechoslovak people saw its country the target of
continual menaces, lies and incitements to hatred and
revolt, pressed to make concession after concession to
a party led by terrorists and traitors, rewarded by an
invitation to dismember itself, these last months had
created in everyone a profound and firm conviction
that there was something even worse than war. In
the streets one saw a few people weeping most of
them women but on the day when the Hodza
Government had accepted the Franco-British ulti-
matum Prague had been filled with people, men as well
as women, weeping without concealment. The Czechs,
a pacific and humane people, responded to the mobilisa-
tion call with quiet joy.

Chapter VI

WAITING FOR THE RAID

THERE was no raid that night. We all expected
one and waited for one, and in the very early
hours of the morning the first alarm came
through. We sat in pitch darkness in our coats, holding
our gas-masks ready; but a quarter of an hour later all
was over, and we took off our coats and went to bed,
leaving our gas-masks by the side of the bed. We put on
a small feeble lamp, smothered in scarves and sweaters,
but after a few minutes there came a fiendish ringing
at the bell, and we had to go down to pacify an angry
air-raid warden who told us to put our light out at once.
The whole air seemed humming with the sound of
engines not aeroplane engines but the engines of
lorries and motor-cars busy in the mobilisation. And
still no raid. So to sleep.

The next day all was quiet. Nothing seemed
greatly changed, except that there were scarcely any
taxis to be found, and horse-drawn carriages had come
out of their hiding-places to enjoy a sudden boom.
Stout old policemen who had retired for ten years or
more had been brought back with them, and were
trying painfully to deal with modern traffic problems.
Everywhere elderly men were digging trenches; we
counted eighty of them working on the half mile or so
of straight road just below the villa where we were
staying. Tiny street lamps designed for black-outs

WAITING FOR THE RAID

appeared, two or three inches high above the pavement,
painted bright red and blue shaded, lighted with a
single candle, and more and more windows were
criss-crossed with bars of white and brown paper to
stop the glass from splintering in a raid. But so little
seemed really different. Nobody rushed to the banks
to withdraw their money not that they could have
done so, had they tried, for the regulations about
withdrawing money were stringent and relentless
and nobody scrambled for food. The only shops that
had queues before them were those for gas-masks or
for electric torches.

That Saturday morning, September 24th, the
Godesberg demands arrived, and their unashamed
exhibition of Hitler's predatoriness startled even the
Czechoslovak Government, for the Godesberg Memo-
randum was an ultimatum with a time-limit of eight
days. Hitler no longer demanded merely all the
Czechoslovak territories where there were 50 per cent
of Germans he was not so modest; he demanded
many districts where well over half the people were
Czech. From all these districts the Czechoslovak
Army and police were to be withdrawn by October ist.
Although Germany's propaganda and that of her
English friends had invoked the principle of self-
determination of peoples, the Godesberg Memoran-
dum rode rough-shod over the Czech people's right
to self-determination. The territory which Hitler
claimed had 3,736,037 inhabitants; 816,359 of them
were Czechs. Four hundred and fifty communes
were purely Czech. As for the territories in which
Hitler demanded a plebiscite, they contained 1,1 16,084
Czechs and 144,711 Germans. Economically the
''new frontiers" were just as outrageous. All the main

LOST LIBERTY?

roads and railways would be cut, Czechoslovakia would
lose not only its chief industries, but most of the raw
materials it needed even for the industries which re-
mained. The natural frontiers and the fortifications
would be lost, the war industries taken away, there
would be several narrow waists of territory left, none
of them more than sixty kilometres wide, and no
Czechoslovak Army could move from east to west or
from west to east of the mutilated country. Defence
would be impossible, independence non-existent for
the poverty-crushed inhabitants of Hitler's Czecho-
slovakia.

Though the Czech people did not know these details,
they did know that at Godesberg Hitler had made
demands so monstrous that even Mr. Chamberlain
would not ask Prague to accept them, and that both
France and Great Britain had explicitly allowed them to
mobilise. They forgot September 2ist as if it had
been only a bad dream, and they never asked themselves
if the Franco-British terms bound their new Govern-
ment. They thought that Hitler had saved them by
irrevocable intransigence. Life seemed simple now,
no longer concessions and capitulations, only defence.
For four hours that night we sat in the darkened
Cernin Palace, waiting with English, French and
American journalists, for some ways of communicating
with the outside world to be found. The Germans had
cut the telephone lines between Czechoslovakia and the
West, perhaps because the news from Prague seemed
to them too good. The Slovak opposition had agreed
during the morning to join General Syrovy's Govern-
ment; two members of the Slovak People's Party,
Professor Karvas and Professor Cermdk, had already
entered the Cabinet. At the same time the Council

90

WAITING FOR THE RAID

of the Slovak People's Party had agreed to continue
negotiations with the Government "for the settlement
of the whole mutual relationship between Czechs and
Slovaks", and it issued an appeal to the Slovak people
"to set an example by loyally and courageously ful-
filling its duties to the Republic* '. How many times,
in Hungarophile circles in England and in Hungary,
had we not been told that all Slovaks were wishing to
get away from the Czechs, and would betray them at the
first opportunity! In the German districts Henlein's
frantic appeals for desertions had fallen very flat. A
few Henleinist recruits in frontier districts fled to
Germany, but over 90 per cent joined up at once and
the German Democrat students in Prague sent a
deputation to the Ministry of Education to offer them-
selves for the defence of the Republic.

By Saturday, too, foreign volunteers were beginning
to appear. The Bulgarian students in Prague offered
themselves for service, so did fifty-eight Bulgarian
gardeners, who asked to be allowed "to exchange their
spades for arms". German and Austrian refugees
volunteered in hundreds. Fifty Roumanians appeared,
travelling from their villages in goods trucks and on the
couplings of trains. In Jugoslavia, volunteers, deputa-
tions, telegrams and letters were flooding the Czecho-
slovak Legation and Consulates. In Zagreb a
"National Council for the defence of Czechoslovakia"
was busy organising volunteers in towns and villages.
In the cafes only the Prague wireless station was to be
heard, and "Hej Slovane" was sung everywhere. The
Jugoslav intellectuals sent a message to the Czecho-
slovak writers, declaring that "All Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes feel the same boundless sympathy for Czecho-
slovakia now, and for her struggle for right, as the

LOST LIBERTY?

Czechs and the Slovaks before and during the World
War had felt for Jugoslavia's fight for freedom and
independence. They support Czechoslovakia in her
struggle now with all their strength, for they are con-
vinced that in so doing they serve truth and brother-
hood, as well as the interests of their own people."

All of them, Sudeten German democrats, German
emigres, Bulgarians, Jugoslavs, realised quite clearly
what many people in England and France had not yet
realised: that if Czechoslovakia were deserted and dis-
membered it might well mean the end of individual
liberty in the whole of Europe. As the great theo-
logian, Karl Earth, wrote to a Professor of the Hus
Faculty in Prague University, "the most frightful
thing is the possibility that England, France and
America, and even we in Switzerland, might forget that
with the freedom of your people stands and falls to-day
the fate of man's liberty in Europe, and perhaps not

only in Europe Every Czech soldier who struggles

and suffers will struggle and suffer for us too, and also
(I say it to-day without hesitation) for the Church of

God."

The Czechoslovak Government of course rejected

the ultimatum of Godesberg. It did so in a letter
which Mr. Jan Masaryk, son of President Masaryk and
Czechoslovak Minister in London, handed to Lord
Halifax on September 25th. But this letter ' included
a fatal sentence: "My new Government, headed by
General Syrovy, declared that they accept full responsi-
bility for their predecessors' decision to accept the stern
terms of the so-called Anglo-French plan". We
vividly remember how at the time this seemed to us

* For the full text, see the British White Paper of September (Cmd. 5847),
pp. 16-18. See also below, Chapter VIII, p. iii.

92

WAITING FOR THE RAID

fatal, how we already smelt Munich in the air, for it was
clear to us that as long as Czechoslovakia consented to
the proposals of September igth Hitler had only to
come a Little way back towards them and he would find
Great Britain and France once more on his side against
the Czechs. This he could do at any time and he
would almost certainly do it. Nobody else seemed to
think so. Alas that we were right.

93

Chapter VII

SELF-DETERMINATION

MEANWHILE what effect did the betrayal
committed by France and Great Britain, on
September I9th, have in the Sudetenland?
Lord Runciman wrote on September list: "Unless,
therefore, Herr Henlein's Freikorps are deliberately
encouraged to cross the frontier, I have no reason to
expect any notable renewal of incidents and disturb-
ances, In these circumstances the necessity for the
presence of State Police in these districts should no
longer exist." While he was writing that judgment,
two factors were encouraging a "notable renewal of
incidents and disturbances". Herr Henlein's Frei-
korps were, in fact, breaking across the frontier, and
the treachery of the Western Powers had revived the
Neapolitan courage of some of the late Sudeten party's
hooligans.

All through the agonising days of diplomatic ne-
gotiation, the Czechoslovak Government was harassed
by continual reports from the Sudeten districts : armed
bands had crossed the frontier, burnt down customs-
houses and police stations, killed or carried off to
Germany the frontier guards and customs officers.
The Government and the General Staff were between
two fires. The British and French Governments were
constantly urging them to avoid incidents by not taking
military measures; at the same time any disorder, if they

94

SELF-DETERMINATION

let It develop, would be used against them. At the
very moment when Mr. Chamberlain, according to the
Prague correspondent of the Daily Telegraphy was ask-
ing the Czechoslovak Government to "make a general
appeal to the population, particularly in the mixed
language areas, asking them to avoid incidents", and
when Mr. Newton was telling Dr. Smutny 2 that the
Czech people must not "take vengeance on their Ger-
man fellow citizens" at that very moment Czechs
were being wounded and murdered by German Storm-
troopers and by Henlein's Freikorps.

The police in Falkenau reported to Prague on
September 2oth at 1.30 P.M. that

As far as it has been ascertained, it is to be ex-
pected that both the Gendarmes Sergeant Eduard
Simon and Sergeant Jan Samko (Slovak) have been
carried off to Germany, and with them the Customs
Inspector Frantisek Reach. The customs-house
is burnt to the ground. At the time of the attack
a gendarmerie guard was in or near the customs-
house, which was attacked from several sides, and
shot at from machine guns and rifles. Powerful
detonations at the time when the attack began show
that the attackers used hand grenades, or that the
besieged defended themselves with them. During
the attack the Customs Officer Fendrych, who was
in the customs-house, managed to escape through
the window. One Customs Officer is said to be
wounded, and four people from the S.O.S. 3
guard. 4

1 Daily Telegraph, September 24th, 1938.

2 A high official of the Czechoslovak Foreign Office.

3 A frontier defence organisation.

* Ministry of the Interior, Document 43/1938, Section B.

95

LOST LIBERTY?
At 2.45 in the afternoon, Jicin reported:

As to the attack on the customs-house in Mala
0pa, I beg to report that the Commander of the
S.O.S. battalion. Major Wurm, made inquiries on
the spot: (i) He confirms this morning's report on
the attack on the customs-house in Horni Mala Opa
in full detail; (2) as for the two gendarmes and the
Customs Officers who have disappeared, it cannot
be ascertained whether they have been burnt to
death in the building, as it is impossible to enter the
customs-house for the heat, or whether they have
been carried off to the Reich. Of the three wounded
Customs Officers, one is slightly and two are seri-
ously wounded, though they are not in danger.
The defenders' situation was difficult, as the
customs-house is directly on the frontier, and they
were not allowed to shoot across the frontier, and
also because a crowd of women and children blocked
their way. 3

The same day Strakonice reported at 3.30 P.M.:

To-day, 20/9/1938, at 13.30 P.M., citizens from
ZcLarek (political district of Prachatice), S.d.P. mem-
bers who had fled across the Bavarian frontier,
inveigled the citizen Fuchs from Zclarek, a German
Social Democrat, into the forest across the German
frontier. They shot at him five times it is not
known whether from rifles or pistols and have
wounded him very seriously (one shot through the
lungs). The citizen Fuchs dragged himself across
into our country, where the Customs Officers looked
after him and noted the names of the four attackers,
according to Fuchs's information. With the help

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document 38/1938, Section 142.

9 6

SELF-DETERMINATION

of other Customs Officers they took Fuchs home and
called a doctor. 1

From Falkenau on the evening of September 2ist
the garrison commander's office reported at 9.25 P.M.:

The Commander of the S.O.S. battalion in
Falkenau reports at 20.45 : The situation is develop-
ing; the Henlein people are demanding at the police
station that the town should be given up. As soon
as the first shot is fired, the Sudeten Legions will
cross the frontier. As to the Ministry of the
Interior's orders that weapons are not to be used
against the demonstrators, and owing to the brain-
lessness of the political offices, I have ordered that
members of the S.O.S. should do their duty and
should use arms against anyone who crosses the
frontier. . . . The garrison Commander in Eger will
also not capitulate. 2

On Thursday and Friday, September 22nd and 23rd,
according to the Daily Telegraph correspondent In
Prague, "what was in progress along the Sudeten
frontier . . . was something which in any other circum-
stances could be called German guerilla warfare".
He goes on :

At a number of points German Storm-troopers
and members of the Sudeten German "Free Corps",
formed and armed in Germany, made attacks on
Customs posts, post-offices, and other public build-
ings along the frontier. In some cases these
marauding bands sent in by Germany received the
assistance of local Nazis. . . .

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document 43/1938, Section I4B.
a Ministry of the Interior, Document 53/1938, Section

97

LOST LIBERTY?

Arrested Storm-troopers who were masquerading
as Sudeten Germans, expressed general astonish-
ment at finding the Czechoslovak police on duty and
defending themselves. They said they had all been
told in Germany that Czechoslovakia had handed over
the territory and they would meet with no resistance.
The following are the official details of the
casualties in what the German official reports de-
scribe as massacres by a brutal Czech soldiery of
"defenceless Sudeten men and women".

In Schluckenau, German Black Guards and
Storm-troopers crossed the frontier, but withdrew
promptly when gendarmerie arrived. In Ceske
Hamry ten Czechoslovak frontier guards and eight
soldiers were attacked by a band of Nazi raiders
from Germany and inflicted casualties the number
of which is unknown.

At Libenau, a policeman named Jakl was cap-
tured and murdered by the Nazis. German Nazis
throwing hand grenades and firing revolvers at the
frontier post in Weipert killed a Czechoslovak
Customs Officer.

In similar attacks from Germany, delivered on
posts at Jachymov, Vidnava, Kladruby, Annenthal
and Bromau, there were altogether thirteen persons
killed and twenty-four badly wounded. One of
those killed was a Czechoslovak sentry who was shot
from behind while on guard. . . .

It would appear that Mr. Chamberlain is not
aware that the recent skirmishes were not incidents
between Czech and German citizens of this Repub-
lic, but were deliberately launched from German
soil. 1

1 Daily "Telegraph, September 24th, 1938.

SELF-DETERMINATION

Launched from German soil, and armed from
Germany that they were. The Commander of the
S.O.S. battalion in Moravski Ostrava reported by
telephone at 4.20 P.M. on September 2 1 st :

On September 2ist, 1938, about i.2o A.M., the
S.O.S. guard inspector Josef Holbach and Inspector
Karel Vidlak, noticed lantern signals from the out-
skirts of the commune of Tfebofi. As they were
examining the cause of these signals they met at the
edge of the village with a group of about 1015
men, who moved suspiciously towards them. The
S.O.S. guard fired to give the alarm; they were im-
mediately attacked, about twenty shots from guns
and pistols were fired at them, and they were forced
to retreat. When the attackers no longer had the
S.O.S. guard in front of them they withdrew into
the village, but at a bend in the road they met
another S.O.S. guard, composed of three inspectors,
who were coming to help the first guard. The
attackers called out "Halt" and at once there was a
roar of guns and automatic pistols from the ditch.
A member of the guard. Inspector Stanislav Dobry,
threw a hand grenade at the attackers and the other
members of the guard returned the fire. The
grenade had no results, as it fell behind the group.
The whole scene was illuminated by flames, which
the attackers made use of to aim better; they
fired about thirty shots. Inspector Dobry threw
another grenade, the explosion of which forced
the attackers to retire. At the same time a cry
of pain was heard; one of the attackers lay dead,
struck by the exploding grenade. The dead man,
whose identity could not be discovered, had in his

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pocket several Reichsgerman cartridges, 7-90 mm.
in calibre.

Shortly before this battle there was another battle
at the other end of Trebon, near the customs-house,
where there was a cross fire from two S.O.S. guards
who had been attacked by a pistol shot. The num-
ber of the attackers is not known. The guard
fired about four shots, and the attackers ran away.
In the fields west of Tfebon, in the early morning,
another dead man, whose identity is unknown, was
found.

The finance controller 1 Emil Vodicka, who was
asleep in his private house near the place of the first
struggle, went mad during the night; the full cir-
cumstances are not yet known.

At the spot where the battle took place and the
grenade exploded, there were found twelve cart-
ridges of Reichsgerman origin also an automatic
pistol of Reichsgerman origin marked "Waffenfabrik
Mauser Uberndorf a. Neckar", 852,116 calibre
about 8 mm. with nine cartridges. 2

Sudeten German Social Democrats have told me
that Henlein's Freikorps had machine-guns and hand
grenades galore but no artillery. The German
Army, in the days before Munich, sat on the frontier
watching the Czechoslovak soldiers, with their
tanks, clearing up Warnsdorf, Rumburg and the
frontier towns. It had strict orders not to fire a
single round with its artillery, for that might have
meant war. Murder done with machine-guns,
rifles, hand grenades, Storm-troopers, means nothing,
but artillery means war.

1 A minor Civil Service officer.
2 Ministry of the Interior, Document 83/1938, Section 143.

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SELF-DETERMINATION

The Poles were not slow to imitate the Germans.
On September 26th Moravska Ostrava reported to
Prague at 5 P.M.:

On the 25/9/1938, at 21 o'clock, the S.O.S.
guard No. 108 Cerna Zastavka was attacked by
civilians (Poles); one of the attackers was killed,
another wounded.

During the night of the 2 5th to 26th September,
1938, 40-50 people under the command of the
teacher Sf kora crossed the Czechoslovak frontier
from Poland. Their instructions were to divide into
three groups (Jablunkov, Mosty, Navsi), and to
slaughter the Czech inhabitants. The S.O.S. guard
was informed of this in time and resisted the attack,
a platoon lying in wait for the group in the forest.
They captured nine civilians, taking from them
thirty-three hand grenades, seventeen pistols, eight
kilograms of cartridges, and bandages for wounded, 1

Mr. Chamberlain in Godesberg wrote to Herr Hitler
that he could "ask the Czech Government whether they
think there could be an arrangement under which the
maintenance of law and order in certain agreed Sudeten
German areas would be entrusted to the Sudeten Ger-
mans themselves by the creation of a suitable force, or
by the use of forces already in existence, possibly acting
under the supervision of neutral observers 1 '. 2 En-
trusted to the Sudeten Germans to which Sudeten
Germans? To the million loyal Germans within the
Republic, or to Henlein's freebooters? "By the crea-
tion of a suitable force, or by the use of forces already
in existence* ' what forces were likely to be suitable

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document 88/1938, Section 142.
2 British White Paper, Cmd. 5847, September, 1938.

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to the purposes of a Hitler? Can Mr. Chamberlain
have been so wholly ignorant of what was really hap-
pening in the Sudeten German districts as this proposal
suggests? Surely he must have known that throughout
the Sudetenland, except for the frontier districts, there
was perfect order, and that in the frontier districts it
was a struggle not between Czech and German fellow-
citizens, but between the Czechoslovak authorities and
invaders from the Reich. Mr. Chamberlain appears
to have been either ill-informed or disingenuous.

All through the week before Munich, and especially
after Hitler's speech of September 26th, the attacks
went on. Reports of them poured into the Ministry
of the Interior. Ceske Budejovice reported on Sep-
tember 29th, at 9.30 P.M., that there were constant
attacks from across the frontier, always on isolated
S.O.S. units.

The attacks are led [the report went on] by greatly
superior numbers of men in civilian clothes and in
khaki uniforms, equipped with light and heavy
machine-guns. The S.O.S. divisions are exhausted
by these uninterrupted attacks. Nobody on our
side has been killed or wounded, but many are ill.
The enemy takes all his wounded back with him.
As a result of these attacks, our reconnaissance line
has been pushed back. 1

On the same day, at 6,55 in the evening, Falkenau
reported :

At 9 o'clock Kraslice reports that according to
reliable information the families of those S.O.S.
members who remained behind have to cross the

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document 108/1938, Section 148.

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SELF-DETERMINATION

frontier by tomorrow afternoon, and Kraslice must
be taken and occupied without regard to the results
of Munich. At 10.30 Franzensbad reports that
during the occupation of Horni Loman by our units,
who drove back the attackers, there was a cross fire
between our units and uniformed F.S. men, of whom
three were killed. The identity of the killed is being
ascertained. At n o'clock Joachimsthal reports
that according to reports from the people of Cesky
Wiesenthal eight dead were found after the attack of
September 2yth near Cesky Wiesenthal. Among
them a reserve N.C.O. of the Czechoslovak army,
Techner, the son of the school teacher in Cesky
Wiesenthal, who took part in the military measures
in May of this year, but later fled across the frontier
as an S.d.P. Ordner* Franzensbad further reports at
18.20 o'clock that from Antonienhohe the enemy is
advancing in considerable force along the ditches
towards Horni Loman. There has been no fighting
yet. 1

And on September 28th and 2 9th, at Plesna (near
Eger), which was captured by the Freikorps, " every man
between 18 and 50 years old was mobilised for Hitler's
foreign legion 1 '. 2

In spite of this terror, in spite of a campaign of abuse
from the official German Press and wireless which for
sheer beastliness has never been equalled, on Septem-
ber 2yth a group of Sudeten German leaders in Czecho-
slovakia issued this proclamation :

We express the feelings of over a million Sudeten
German democrats, Catholics, Socialists, Commun-

1 Ministry of the Interior, Document No. 107/1938, Section 143.

2 Ministry of the Interior, Document No. 102/1938, Section 143.

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ists, and one hundred thousand former members
of the Henlein party. . . .

We solemnly declare that the majority of our
Sudeten German people are opposed to joining
the third Reich. We are completely united with
Czechoslovak democracy in the will to defend the
Republic, its democratic institutions and its terri-
torial integrity, against any attack. . . . Henlein has
no right to proclaim in the name of the Sudeten
Germans, Hitler's plan for the dismemberment of
Czechoslovakia. The 'votes which were given to the
Henlein party never authorised him to carry through
an Anschluss, far less to do it by provoking a world
war.

Inside Czechoslovakia its German citizens were offer-
ing themselves not in thousands but in hundreds of
thousands for its defence.

And yet Lord Runciman wrote of the "predomi-
nantly German" areas of Czechoslovakia that "a very
large majority of their inhabitants desire amalgamation
with Germany".

104

VIII

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

wo lien Krieg, wir wo lien Krieg" (We want
war, we want war) this was the cry heard
from the assembly of Nazis who listened in
organised devotion" to Herr Hitler's speech in the
Berlin Sportpalast on September 26th, 1938.* "I have
made Herr Benes an offer", Hitler shouted, "it is
g nothing other than the realisation of what he himself
has promised. Now he has war or peace in his hands.
J, Either he will accept this offer and give the Sudeten
Germans freedom at last, or we will come and fetch
this freedom. . . . Benes will have to hand over this
territory to us on October ist." To most Czechs it
looked as if Hitler had committed himself, this time
irrevocably, to a demand which nobody would expect
them to accept. And it seemed that war must be
C really coming. Would they be alone? They could
not believe they would.

On the morning after Hitler's speech they read in
their newspapers the "authoritative statement" which
the British Foreign Office had issued the evening be-
fore: "If, in spite of all efforts made by the British
Prime Minister, a German attack is made on Czecho-
> Slovakia, the immediate result must be that France will

1 Not widely reported in the British Press, but mentioned hy the Prague
wireless and confirmed by many who listened to Hitler's speech.

105

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be bound to come to her assistance and that Great
Britain and Russia will certainly stand by France 7 '.
Their own mobilisation was complete, their frontiers
ready, every Czechoslovak soldier already at his post;
France had extended her mobilisation measures; on the
evening of the 2yth Great Britain had announced the
mobilisation of the fleet. From Moscow, the same
day, came a Havas dispatch declaring that the Soviet
government "is determined to fulfil all its engage-
ments, and to intervene on behalf of Czechoslovakia
with all its force" and "is also willing to open military
conversations with France and England for a close
military co-operation", 1

Roumania and Jugoslavia had threatened Budapest
that they would march if Hungary attacked Czecho-
slovakia. Bulgaria and Jugoslavia were already "bru-
derlich an Seite Prags". When the first group of
Czechoslovak and Bulgarian volunteers left Sofia there
was a huge demonstration. The whole Czech colony,
with the Minister at its head, and thousands of Bul-
garians went to the station ; the Bulgarians sang Czech
and Slovak songs, shouted to the volunteers, "Return
soon victorious", and when the train left, Bulgarian
students seized the Czechoslovak Minister and carried
him shoulder-high through the streets. In Jugo-
slavia the Sokols sent to M. Stojadinovic a message
declaring that they were "ready for all sacrifices" for
Czechoslovakia and believed in "a victory for right and
justice", and the same day the leader of the United
Serb opposition handed a message of sympathy, friend-
ship and loyalty to the Czechoslovak Minister. From
all over Jugoslavia came messages and volunteers; it

1 Prager Tag-Blatt, September 28th, 1938, Prager Presse, September
1938.

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THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

was quite certain where the Jugoslav people would be
if war started.

Even with Poland relations seemed better. The
Czech people knew that direct negotiations had been
begun with Poland, and they hoped that at last this
bitter and futile quarrel would be brought to an end.

And the Slovaks? On the evening of Tuesday, the
27th, Karel Sidor, the editor-in-chief of Slovak^ and the
most violent, radical and unscrupulous of all Slovak
autonomists, broadcast to the Slovak people. "I tell
you, Slovaks", he said, "that the deputy leader of the
Slovak People's party, Dr. Josef Tiso, has twice been
in contact with President Benes, and has achieved
everything that our Slovak people needs to live in its
own way in its country and in Czechoslovakia".
Earlier in the day the Slovak writers had issued a
proclamation :

The Czechoslovak State has opened the way to a
free national existence to us Slovaks. Within it we
began a life which will bring us as equals into the
cultural community of free peoples. With it we
live and fall. We feel the fateful necessity for the
closest co-operation with the Czechs in the task of
defending our State. We call to all Czechs and
Slovaks; "We would rather not be than be slaves".

And the Slovensky Denik^ in its leading article on Sep-
tember 29th, furiously denounced Hitler's attempt to
divide the Slovaks from the Czechs. It wrote:

Hitler declared . . . that it is a lie to speak of unity
between Czechs and Slovaks. He even said that it
is a lie which our present President, Dr. Benes, has
fathered. Both the one assertion and the other are

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shameful untruths. We do not demand of Hitler
that in these mad and hectic times he should take a
book in his hand and inform himself as to the real
facts. We do not demand that he should read care-
fully what our immortal Slovak hero. General
Stefanik, wrote and said about this question. We
do not demand of him that he should study the
whole history of our twenty-year-old Czechoslovak
State, and of the life together of the Czechs and
Slovaks within this state. . . . But we do demand of
him that he should speak the truth. If he does not
know the truth, then let him keep silence. . . .

We Slovaks went into our State all together, and
we mean to go on with the Czechs for ever in this
way, just as our brothers, the Legionaries, decided
to go; just as the nation decided on May ist, 1918;
just as we ourselves decided on October 3Oth, 1918
all of us, without exception. If anybody, either
abroad or at home here, from ideological concep-
tions tries to forge himself a weapon against the
Czechoslovak Republic from the party political
squabbles which prevailed among us a short while
ago, or from the ideologies which opposed Slovak
peculiarities to Czech idiosyncrasies, he is making
the greatest possible mistake. That will succeed
for nobody, and not even for Hitler.

So much for Slovak disloyalty.

September 28th was St. Wenceslas' Day, the day of
Bohemia's national saint, the Bohemian prince mar-
tyred in the tenth century. All day crowds gathered
round his statue in the Vaclavske Ndmesti, crowds of
women and children and soldiers. Flowers covered
the steps of the statue, were hung on the figure itself

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flowers in opulent bouquets and wreaths, flowers in
tight bunches, flowers in a handful tied with string,
single flowers scattered. This was not a yearly custom ;
in former years there had been two or three flowers, no
more. In the cathedral the faithful crowded in prayer
before the saints' relics his skull, his golden crown,
his helmet, his sword and his coat of mail. His
sword should have been given that day to General
Syrovy. At the last moment the ceremony was put
off. Was it a bad ornen? Nobody thought so. They
were so sure that no new sacrifice could be demanded
of them.

Imagine that in between the rejection of Godesberg
and the news of Munich nothing had happened, except
what we have told already in this chapter. Imagine
how wholly senseless and cruel the news of Munich
would then seem. Many Czechs, it is true, wondered
uneasily why Hitler's bombers had not come during
their mobilisation: something must have happened; he
must have some ground for thinking he could still get
all he wanted without war. But to most Czechs, in
those days between the mobilisation and Munich, it
seemed as if God was in his heaven once more, as if
even though the irreplaceable beauty of ancient Prague
might be bombed to ruins all was right with the
world; perhaps the terrible sacrifice they had made to
the cause of world peace at the eleventh hour had won
over Great Britain and France to stand by them, and
perhaps Great Britain and France had at last under-
stood that in Czechoslovakia the issue was the future
of freedom in Europe, Then suddenly a new, brutal
betrayal. Why? Why?

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All this time diplomacy was feverishly busy. Al-
though the British Minister handed on the Godesberg
Memorandum to the Czechoslovak Government "with
the additional information that His Majesty's Govern-
ment is acting solely as an intermediary and is neither
advising nor pressing ... in any way", 1 the Czecho-
slovak Government was, in fact, under pressure again
from its apparent friends. Even when he was still at
Godesberg and was asked if the situation was hopeless,
Mr. Chamberlain replied: "It is up to the Czechs
now" a remark whose only effect could be to lessen
the sympathy of public opinion for a Czech refusal of
demands he dared not formally press them to accept.
Formally, too, as soon as the Syrov^ Government was
formed, President Benes had been pressed for an
assurance that the new Government also accepted the
Anglo-French plan. The President gave this assur-
ance. Of this the Czech people knew nothing, 2

On Sunday, September 2,5th, the Czechoslovak
Government received a British communication which
said:

The Prime Minister hopes that any reply of the
Czechoslovak Government to the German memo-
randum will be transmitted through him. If the

1 CmcL 5847, 1938, Document No. 7.

3 We ourselves heard of it on September 29th. Mr. Chamberlain told
the House of Commons on September 28th: "It has been emphasised in
Prague that this Government (the Syrovy Government) is not a military
dictatorship and has accepted the Anglo-French proposals'*. And accord-
ing to M. Paul Allard (on p. 164 of his book Le Quai cTOrsay), M. Bonnet
gave "imperative instructions" to the French Minister in Prague to inform
Dr. BeneS that "the French Government, and the British Government
likewise, would disinterest itself in the events that might follow if the new
Czechoslovak Government did not keep the engagements made by the old
one". (M. Allard says this happened on the night of September 2Oth-2ist,
but this is clearly a slip.)

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THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

Czechoslovak Government finds it possible and de-
sires to send a representative to London to treat this
question, we shall welcome him gladly, on Monday
if possible, 1

Already on the Sunday afternoon Mr. Jan Masaryk
handed to Lord Halifax the letter in which the Czecho-
slovak Government rejected the Godesberg demands.
What were its reasons? The letter says:

The proposals go far beyond what we agreed to in
the so-called Anglo-French plan. They deprive us
of every safeguard for our national existence. We
are to yield up large proportions of our carefully
prepared defences, and admit the German armies
deep into our country before we have been able to
organise it on the new basis or make any preparation
for its defence. Our national and economic inde-
pendence would automatically disappear with the
acceptance of Herr Hitler's plan. The whole pro-
cess of moving the population is to be reduced to
panic flight on the part of those who will not accept
the German Nazi regime. They have to leave their
homes without even the right to take their personal
belongings or, even in the case of peasants, their
cow. 2

But this Czechoslovak reply contained something else
of great importance a reminder:

His Majesty's and the French governments are
very well aware that we agreed under the most severe
pressure to the so-called Anglo-French plan for
ceding parts of Czechoslovakia. We accented this

1 Translated back into English from the Czechoslovak Foreign Office
version. a Cmd. 5847, 1938, Document No. 7.

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flan under extreme duress. We had not even time to
make any representations about its many unworkable
features. Nevertheless, we accepted it because we
understood that it was the end of the demands to be made
upon us, and because it followed from the Anglo-
French pressure that these two Powers would accept
responsibility for our reduced frontiers and would
guarantee us their support in the event of our being
feloniously attacked. . . .

My new Government, headed by General Syrovy,
declared that they accept full responsibility for their
predecessors' decision to accept the stern terms of
the so-called Anglo-French plan. 1

Yet, in spite of this reminder and in spite of the Czecho-
slovak Government's Note of September 2ist 2 (which
had accepted the Franco-British proposals as a whole
and on the assumption that territories to be ceded
should remain Czechoslovak until the proposed inter-
national commission had fixed the new frontiers finally),
Mr. Chamberlain told the House of Commons on
September 28th that the Czechoslovak Government

had accepted the Anglo-French plan "uncondition-
ally"^

Why did the Czechoslovak Government accept the
Anglo-French plan, reject the demands of Godesberg?
The Anglo-French plan, too, was a grave menace to
Czechoslovak independence, strategic and economic,
since the areas it would have transferred included most
of the natural frontiers of Bohemia and a great deal of
its industry and raw materials; and the Anglo-French
plan was already a violation of self-determination, since

1 CmcL 5847, 1938, Document No. 7. Our italics.
z Quoted above, Chapter IV, p. 69.
3 Hansard, col. 17.

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in the areas It would have transferred not only were
half the people Czech but of the other half many were
anti-Nazi or non-Nazi.

The truth is that the Czechoslovak Government
accepted the Anglo-French plan because it was forced,
and rejected the Godesberg demands because it was
allowed. The Czechoslovak Government refused the
Godesberg demands not for its own reasons but for
Mr. Chamberlain's. And what were his? Not sym-
pathy for Czechoslovakia : if he had cared for the Czechs
or for the non-Nazi Sudeten Germans he would hardly
have imposed the Anglo-French plan. Mr. Chamber-
lain's reason for risking war to reject the demands of
Godesberg but not those of Berchtesgaden was fear of
public opinion. He told the House of Commons:

"I dwelt with all the emphasis at my command on
the risks which would be incurred by insisting on
such terms, and on the terrible consequences of a
war, if war ensued, I declared that the language
and the manner of the document, which I de-
scribed as an ultimatum rather than a memorandum,
would profoundly shock public opinion in neutral
countries. . . ." I

And he wrote to Hitler at Godesberg :

I do not think you have realised the impossibility
of my agreeing to put forward any plan unless I have
reason to suppose that it will be considered by public
opinion in my country, in France, and indeed, in
the world generally, as carrying out the principles
already agreed upon in an orderly fashion and free
from the threat of force. 2

1 Hansard, September z8, 1938, col. 21.
2 Cmd. 5847, 1938, Document No. 8.

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Public opinion would accept the idea of cutting from
Bohemia the districts where half the people were
German, because at first sight a fifty-fifty division always
looks fair, and the man-in-the-street of distant countries
would not know or be quick to imagine what it is like
to be an anti-Nazi German or a Czech whose home
is suddenly in the land of concentration camps. But
public opinion would not swallow the predatory
frontiers of the Godesberg memorandum or an immedi-
ate military occupation not, at least, till after a full-
scale war scare. This was the reason why Czecho-
slovakia could reject the Godesberg demands; the
determining factor was not right but might, the actual
balance of forces, political as well as military.

And yet for Czechoslovakia too not only for Mr.
Chamberlain there might have been a real difference
between the demands of Godesberg, and the Anglo-
French plan as Prague had accepted it. But Great
Britain and France did not respect the conditions on
which, under extreme duress, the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment had accepted their proposals of September i gth.
That same afternoon, September 25th, Mr. Chamber-
lain sent through Mr. Jan Masaryk a question to
Prague. If Mr. Chamberlain were to make a last
effort to persuade Herr Hitler to consider another
method of peaceful settlement, this time through "an
international conference attended by Germany, Czecho-
slovakia and other Powers which would consider the
Anglo-French plan and the best method of bringing it
into operation", would the Czechoslovak Government
be prepared to take part? l This question was in effect
something very like a trap. How could the Czecho-
slovak Government refuse? Yet if it consented, to

1 Cmd. 5847, 1938, Document No. 8.

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what was it consenting? Who were the "other
Powers" to be? Would the Conference include Russia,
the United States or some Power that would really dare
to uphold the vital interests of Czechoslovakia? Or
would the "other Powers" be only the four, Germany,
Italy, France and Great Britain? This would mean in
effect a Conference between Germany, Germany, Ger-
many and Germany and Czechoslovakia, as the Con-
ference of Munich turned out to be, except that it
omitted the formality of admitting a Czechoslovak
delegate to its deliberations.

The Czechoslovak Government's answer reached
Lord Halifax next day. It ran :

The Czechoslovak Government would be ready
to take part in an international conference where
Germany and Czechoslovakia, among other nations,
would be represented, to find a different method
of settling the Sudeten German question from that
expounded in Herr Hitler's proposals, keeping in
mind the possible reverting to the Anglo-French
plan. . . . The Czechoslovak Government, having
accepted the Anglo-French Note under the most
severe pressure and extreme duress, had no time to
make any representations regarding its many un-
workable features. The Czechoslovak Government
presumes that, if a conference were to take place,
this fact would not be overlooked by those taking
part in it.

And Mr. Jan Masaryk, in his letter transmitting this
reply, added this sentence: "My Government, after the
experiences of the last few weeks, would consider it
more than fully justifiable to ask for definite and binding
guarantees to the effect that no unexpected action of an

LOST LIBERTY?

aggressive nature would take place during the negotia-
tions, and that the Czechoslovak defence system would
remain intact during that period.' 1 1 Here again are the
explicit conditions on which the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment had surrendered.

Next day, Tuesday, September 27th, Mr. Chamber-
lain telegraphed to Dr. Benes at 5.40 P.M. :

I feel myself obliged to communicate to you and
to the Czechoslovak Government that the informa-
tion which His Majesty's Government now possesses
from Berlin makes it clear that the German army will
receive orders to cross the Czechoslovak frontier
almost immediately if to-morrow at two o'clock the
Czechoslovak Government does not accept the
German conditions. This must lead to Bohemia
being militarily overrun, and nothing that another
'power or powers could do could prevent this fate for
your own country and people. And this remains
true whatever may be the final result of a possible
world war. His Majesty's Government cannot take
the responsibility of advising you as to what you
should do, but it considers that this information
should reach you immediately. 2

Some people will consider this a warning, others a
threat.

Close after this message a new British proposal, a
"time-table" for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Ger-
many, reached Prague. With it came a clear threat:

Please inform the Czechoslovak Government im-
mediately that now, when the Czechoslovak Govern-

1 Cmd. 5847, Document No. 8.

3 Translated back into English from the C2echoslovak Foreign Office
version. Our italics.

116

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

ment has given its agreement in principle to the
cession of the territory of Sudentenland to the
Reich, we find ourselves before the difficulty of
reaching agreement on the actual procedure for the
cession. The Czechoslovak Government has re-
fused to consider the proposal, which Herr Hitler
made, to occupy militarily the whole territory on
Oct. ist and His Majesty's Government is in agree-
ment with the Czechoslovak Government in con-
sidering that that is not reasonable.

The attached plan gives, in conformity with the
judgment of His Majesty's Government, the possi-
bility of elaborating measures which His Majesty's
Government considers as substantial conditions for
the transfer, and His Majesty's Government de-
mands very seriously that the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment should give its full co-operation with the aim of
realising this time-table. His Majesty's Govern-
ment is fully conscious of the difficulties which the
Czechoslovak Government may feel in accepting this
plan, and also the material difficulties which may
come to light during its execution. His Majesty's
Government has arrived at the conclusion that the
proposal must be accepted, and that it should hand
it on and take full responsibility for its execution.
The Czechoslovak Government must realise clearly
that the only alternative to this plan would be the
dismemberment of the country by violent means,
and while this might have as its consequence a
general conflict which would involve incalculable loss
of life, there is no possibility that at the end of this
conflict, whatever its outcome might be, Czecho-
slovakia might again have the present frontiers. 1

1 Re-translated into English from the Czech.

LOST LIBERTY?

The British "time-table" itself proposed that the
Germans should occupy the territory of Eger and Asch-
outside the Czechoslovak fortifications on October ist,
and that on October 3rd two commissions should meet,
a Boundary Commission and a Commission of Pleni-
potentiaries. Observers, a contingent of the British
Legion, and later four battalions of the British Army,
would be sent out and placed under the orders of the
Boundary Commission. The business of the Com-
mission of Plenipotentiaries would be to make arrange-
ments for the immediate withdrawal of the Czechoslovak
Army and State Police; to settle on general lines how
the minorities should be protected, a right of option
exercised and property removed; and to settle what
instructions should be given to the Boundary Com-
mission on the basis of the Anglo-French plan. On
October loth German troops should enter the districts
for which the arrangements might be declared complete
by the Plenipotentiaries Commission ; and the Boundary
Commission must have fixed the final frontiers by
October 3 ist, the Czechoslovak troops and police with-
drawing by this date. Later the Plenipotentiaries
Commission should meet to consider if the Boundary
Commission's frontier could be improved "taking
into consideration the geographic and economic neces-
sities in the various communes" and if local plebiscites
would be necessary or desirable. Later still "the stage
would be reached for negotiations between Germany,
Great Britain, France and Czechoslovakia about de-
mobilisation and a guarantee". 1

That same evening, Tuesday, the 27th, Mr. Cham-
berlain made his famous broadcast, in which he said:
"How horribly fantastic and incredible it is that

1 For full text of this time-table see Appendix I.

118

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-
masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away
country between people of whom we know nothing,
. . . However much we may sympathise with a small
nation confronted by a big powerful neighbour, we
cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the
whole British Empire in war simply on her account.
If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than

that. . . .

"If I were convinced that any nation had made
up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its
force, I should feel it must be resisted. Under such
domination, the life of people who believe in liberty
would not be worth living, but war is a fearful thing
and we must be very clear before we embark on it
that it is really the great issues that are at stake. . . ."

In Czechoslovakia the phrase, "people of whom we
know nothing" caused great anger. Not only that,
but people were bewildered, for as they said, "Can it
really be that Chamberlain still does not see that the
great issues are at stake now and that the rulers of
Germany are in fact bent on a domination of the world,
under which the life of people who believe in liberty
will not be worth living? How can he think that this
is just a frontier quarrel, many hundreds of miles
away?" The speech also contained a threat, where it
said of Hitler's attitude at Godesberg:

"If it arises out of any doubt Herr Hitler feels
about the intention of the Czech Government to carry
out their promise and hand over the territory, I have
offered on the part of the British Government to
guarantee their word, and I am sure the value of our
promise will not be underrated anywhere,"

119

LOST LIBERTY?

This threat made the Czech people begin to see that
they were in a trap, that the capitulation of September
2ist still bound them hand and foot for all their mag-
nificent manifestation of their will to face death and
bereavement and ruin for freedom. 1

Late that same night Dr. Krofta, Czechoslovak
Foreign Secretary, came back from the Cabinet meet-
ing, at which the President had presided, and spoke with
his collaborators in the Foreign Office. The following
is a jotting made by one of them at the time, of all he
told them:

(1) Mr. Newton brought to the President of the
Republic the communication, which the Lega-
tion had received at 17.30. According to this,
Mr. Chamberlain considered it his duty to draw
the attention of the Czechoslovak Government
to the danger of 2 P.M. on the 28th. 2

(2) When Newton, having made this communica-
tion, had returned from the President of the
Republic, he made a request from the Legation
for a new visit to Minister Krofta, saying that he
had a new dispatch from London. He was

1 Already in the small hours of September styth, after listening to Hitler's
bellicose speech, Mr. Chamberlain had given to the Press a statement con-
taining this threat: "It is evident that the Chancellor has no faith that the
promises made will be carried out. These promises were made, not to the
German Government, but to the British and French Governments in the
first instance. Speaking for the British Government, we regard ourselves
as morally responsible for seeing that the promises are carried out fairly and
fully, and we are prepared to undertake that they shall be carried out with
all reasonable promptitude, provided that the German Government will
agree to the settlement of terms and conditions of transfer by discussion and
not by force." Next day, in his message to Hitler, Mr. Chamberlain added
to this threat, saying: "You cannot doubt the power of the British and French
Governments to see that the promises are carried out fairly and fully and
forthwith". (The italics are ours.)

* See above, p. 116.

120

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

received by the Minister at 9.20 [sic] and
handed him a Note, containing a new British
proposal made to Hitler, of how to execute the
transfer in the spirit of the proposals of Berchtes-
gaden. (To give up on the 3rd of October the
region of Cheb, the Czechoslovak Commission,
the British Legion, afterwards our demobilisa-
tion, understanding on the guarantee.) 1 When
Newton received this dispatch he asked London,
as he told Minister Krofta, "ob es nicht uberholt
isf\ 2 He received the answer that he should in
any case give the communication.
(3) Finally Mr. Newton said to Mr. Krofta: "He
has instructions to draw the attention of the
Czechoslovak Government to abandon all poli-
tical manoeuvres and to begin immediately con-
versations with Poland about the cession of the
territory with a Polish majority. If British
mediation were necessary, the English are ready
to give it*"

Still further the British Minister read out an
instruction addressed to the Embassy in Berlin :
"The British Government recognises that it is
necessary to make the final attempt, and that
that which it proposes is in agreement with the
declaration of the Czechoslovak Government".
(This concerns the new proposals.) Hitler has
said that President BeneS and the Czechoslovak
Republic will not keep their word. For this
reason he 3 told Hitler in London that he should

1 See above, p. 118.

a Mr. Newton spoke in German and these words are given in German in
the text.

3 That is, Mr. Chamberlain in his statement commenting on Hitler's
Sportpalast speech. See the passage quoted above, p. 120, n. i.

LOST LIBERTY?

have confidence in England. Hitler wants to
occupy the Sudeten territory by the first of
October. For this reason it is necessary to act
quickly and the British Government proposes a
plan. Ambassador Henderson l must show it to
Hitler with the remark that the French Govern-
ment has given its consent in principle. London
is sending it at the same time to the Czechoslovak
Government with the observation that it is only
in this way that the cession of territory can be
carried out in an orderly way.

This document is worth study. It reveals the British
Government using two forms of pressure against the
Czechs. One is that the British Government had
hinted to Berlin that the Czechs would have France
against them if they did not accept the British time-
table unconditionally. A more direct incitement to
intransigence and greed could hardly be imagined.
The other concerns Poland. After September 2ist
the Czechs had had one hope of a way out from their
utter dependence on France and Great Britain, to win
over Poland, at least to neutrality. It may be that
President Benes himself always thought that, whatever
Poland might do, Czechoslovakia would have to give
in to Hitler if France deserted her; but certainly, to
many of the highest Czechoslovak soldiers the question
of Poland was decisive, for (they thought) against Ger-
many alone Czechoslovakia had a good chance of
holding her own, but not with Poland and Hungary
as well as Germany against her. Also, if Poland were
neutral or friendly, Germany and the Western Powers
of Europe would have found it much harder to whip up

1 Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador in Berlin.

122

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

an anti-Bolshevik crusade against the Czechs and the
Russians. President Benes (it is said) decided to
resign on September 2 2nd, after the capitulation;
everything was prepared, and then he put off his de-
parture. He put it off because there seemed to be a
chance of a settlement with Poland. Before Septem-
ber 2ist there had been no chance of settling the
question of Tesin by a territorial transfer because once
the principle of a change of frontiers was admitted in
favour of Poland, Czechoslovakia would have been
powerless against extreme German claims. After
September 2ist a friendly settlement with Poland was
just possible. President Benes tried. He failed.
The reason why he failed is said to have been that
already, behind his back, Dr. Hodza, the Czecho-
slovak Prime Minister, had promised Poland the
moon. Or it may have been simply that by leaving the
Czechs in the lurch Great Britain and France gave
Poland the chance to seize what she wanted without
giving the Czechs anything in return. But at least it
is already clear that the British Government did try to
interfere with the efforts the Czechs were making to
win the friendship of Poland: the Czechs "must
abandon all political manoeuvres". The motives of
this British intervention are not yet clear. Perhaps on
September 2yth the British Government really thought
it might have to fight a war on Czechoslovakia's side
and wanted to prevent Poland from fighting on the
other side, but in that case, why this peremptory
pressure? The Czechs were already doing all they
could; the "conversations with Poland about the
cession of the territory with a Polish majority " were
already being arranged. Was, then, the aim of the
British intervention to keep the Czechs dependent on

123

LOST LIBERTY?

Great Britain and France? Here is a pretty problem
for future historians.

On the morning of the 28th, Mr. Troutbeck, of the
British Legation, saw Dr. Cermak of the Foreign
office. He gave him the English translation of the
letter sent by Hitler to Chamberlain on September
27th, and an official telegram relating to Chamberlain's
broadcast. Also, "he stated that he, Mr. Newton, ad-
vised us to reply very quickly to the British time-table,
because the House of Commons was meeting again in
the afternoon'*.

The Czechoslovak reply to the British "time-table"
was not delayed. It was sent on the same day, Sep-
tember 28th. In it the Czechoslovak Government
agrees that the British and French Governments
should guarantee the fulfilment of the Franco-British
plan. The Czechoslovak Government "accepted in
principle the plan and the time-table" but objects that
"in certain points the time-table does not agree with
the Franco-British proposals". The Czechoslovak
Government "would accept any date for the definitive
evacuation if all the conditions were fulfilled" that is,
if the work of both the proposed Commissions were
done and the guarantees given. This date, it suggests,
should be not before October 3oth but not after
December i5th. But it "requests with emphasis"
that before the work of the Commissions is begun, it
should be fettled through diplomatic channels upon
what principles and material factors the new frontier is
to be based; for while the Franco-British plan had said
that the areas with more than 50 per cent of Germans
must be ceded, both the plan and the time-table had
suggested modifications which would take into account
geographical. and economic facts. The Czechoslovak

124

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

Government proposes that a French member be added
to the Commission and that questions on which agree-
ment cannot be reached be submitted to a representative
of the United States for arbitration. It rejects again
the plebiscites suggested in the Godesberg Memo-
randum. Above all,

Czechoslovakia cannot evacuate her territory, nor
demobilise, nor leave her fortifications, before the
future frontier shall have been precisely delimited and
before the new system of guarantees which have been
promised to Czechoslovakia in the Franco-British
proposals shall have been established and assured.

Lastly, the Czechoslovak Government "emphasises
that it would accept the submission of any difference
whatever to His Excellency Franklin Roosevelt", or,
" as the President of the United States himself pro-
poses", to an international conference called "in the
sense of the Note addressed on September 27th [sic]
by the Czechoslovak Minister Masaryk to Lord
Halifax".^

So, right up to the end of the days of suspense, the
Czechoslovak Government was trying, as its duty was,
to save something from the wreck which the ultimatum
and capitulation of September 2 1 st had made. Almost
certainly this was hopeless. But the fact remains that
the Czechs were betrayed yet again. Here, translated
back into English from the Czechoslovak Foreign
Office version, is an "English Communication con-
cerning the projected Conference of Munich":

The observations of the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment upon the proposed time-table have been com-
municated to the Prime Minister, who naturally

1 See Appendix I.

125

LOST LIBERTY?

will keep well in sight these points to which the
Czechoslovak Government attaches importance.

Mr. Chamberlain has already assured His Ex- .
cellency the President that he will fully keep in mind
at Munich the interests of Czechoslovakia, and that
he leaves for Munich with the intention of trying to
find accommodation between the points of view of
the German and Czechoslovak Governments so that
it may be possible to take measures for the orderly
and just application of the principle of the cession of
territory to which the Czechoslovak Government has
already given its consent.

His Majesty's Government desires to give expres-
sion to its firm hope that the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment will not render more difficult the already
so heavy task of the Prime Minister by formulat-
ing objections against the so-called time-table and
insisting on them. The Czechoslovak Government
must bear in mind, like all the others concerned, the
grave alternative to success during the search for a
new arrangement.

It is absolutely necessary that the negotiations of
Munich should obtain quick and concrete results,
which might lead to direct negotiations between
Germany and Czechoslovakia. This can be ob-
tained only if the Czechoslovak Government resolves
at this stage in the negotiations to give to Mr.
Chamberlain a wide discretion and not to bind him
by making absolute conditions.

September 29, 1938

Transcribed into Czech

at 21 o'clock 1

1 The Czech version quotes in English the phrases: "the grave alternative
to success" and " a wide discretion".

126

THE PRIMROSE PATH TO MUNICH

This document, like many others, has not been made
public, yet it is clearly material to any serious judgment
of September's grave decisions.

There is no evidence that the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment ever gave to Mr. Chamberlain "a wide discre-
tion"; the plain fact is that he took it. There is no
evidence that Czechoslovakia ever accepted the Franco-
British plan unconditionally on the contrary, the
Czechoslovak Government did its plain duty by insist-
ing again and again that the Czech defences must re-
main intact until the new frontiers were fixed and the
Powers had given the promised guarantee. Who will
say, especially after what happened at Godesberg, that
these conditions were unreasonable, a selfish preference
of Czechoslovak interests to the peace of the world?
The hard facts are that the Czechs surrendered on
conditions, and that Great Britain and France broke
these conditions.

#

To the House of Commons on September 28th Mr.
Chamberlain said:

"His Majesty's Minister in Prague was instructed
on the 22nd of September to inform Dr. Benes that
His Majesty's Government were profoundly con-
scious of the immense sacrifice to which the Czecho-
slovak Government had agreed, and the great public
spirit they had shown. . . . The Czechoslovak
Government's readiness to go to such extreme limits
of concession had assured her of a measure of sym-
pathy which nothing else could have aroused/'

Much good did this bring to Czechoslovakia.

127

Chaffer IX

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

FEEL certain that you can get all essentials
without war and without delay." Those were the
frank words that Mr, Chamberlain wrote to Hitler
on the eve of the Munich conference. It is doubtful
whether in the whole of modern history one partner to
a conference has given away so openly in advance all
that another partner could wish to grab but then it
was not his to give.

Hysterical relief in London and Paris, sickening mis-
giving in Prague, greeted the news that there was to
be a four-power conference in Munich on September
2 9th. Almost every Czech saw what it meant ; Great
Britain and France would buy a respite from war at
Czechoslovakia's expense; Hitler, after committing his
whole personal prestige to ultimatum after ultimatum,
could clearly not consent to a conference unless he were
sure in advance that he would get "all essentials without
delay".

Czechoslovakia was not to be represented at the
Conference. Even in his last letter to Hitler, Chamber-
lain had proposed "to discuss arrangements for transfer
with you and representatives of the Czech Govern-
ment, together with representatives of France and Italy
If you desire", but he did not insist that a Czech
delegate should be heard, and nobody in the House of
Commons raised the question. "The Czech Minister,

128

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

Mr. Masaryk, did inquire. He telephoned the Prime
Minister late in the day, and then sent him a letter.
The Prime Minister's decision was not made public. 1
After the Conference had opened 2 the Czechoslovak
Government was told that it might send "observers",
These were destined not to take part in the discussions,
but to "receive and pass on the decisions of the Con-
ference". 3

M. Mastny, the Czechoslovak Minister in Berlin,
and Dr. Masank of the Czechoslovak Foreign Office,
were the observers. Dr. Masank's report describes
their experience :

Our aeroplane took off from Ruzyne at 15 o'clock
[on September 29th]. After 80 minutes we arrived
in Munich. The reception given us at the aero-
drome made an extremely police-like impression.
In a police car, accompanied by members of the
Gestapo, we were brought to the Regina Palace
Hotel, where the English delegation also had put up.
Since the Conference had already entered upon its
labours, it proved difficult to come into contact with
the leading members of the French or English
delegations. None the less I called by telephone
out of the Conference first Rochat, then Gwatkin.
The latter told me he would at once speak with me
in the hotel.

^ At 19 o'clock I had my first conversation with
him in the hotel. Gwatkin was very disturbed and
very taciturn. From his extremely hesitant indica-

1 Hamilton Fish Armstrong. When there is no Peace.

2 Ibid.

* Frederick T. Birchall in the New Tork Times, quoted by Hamilton
Fish Armstrong, ibid.

129 K

LOST LIBERTY?

cations I concluded that a plan, whose details Gwat-
kin could not for the moment communicate to me,
was already in its broad lines complete, and that this
plan was much harsher than the Franco - British
proposals. I pointed out to him on our red map
our really vital interests. He showed a certain
understanding as far as the question of the corridor
was concerned, while he was not interested in the
other questions. According to him, the Conference
must finish at latest to-morrow, Saturday. Up to
now the negotiations had been about no other
question than that of Czechoslovakia. I drew his
attention to the internal consequences such a plan
would have in our country in the present situation
its economic and financial consequences. Gwatkin
answered that I seemed to overlook how difficult the
position of the Western Great Powers was and that
I could not understand how difficult it had been to
negotiate with Hitler. Gwatkin then went back to
the Conference, after he had promised to have us
called in at the first interval.

At about 22 o'clock Gwatkin took Minister
Mastny and me to Sir Horace Wilson's room, where
Sir Horace Wilson informed us, in the presence of
Gwatkin and on Mr. Chamberlain's instructions, of
the broad outline of the new plan, and gave us a map
showing the districts which were to be at once
occupied. Instead of giving me an answer to my
objections^ he twice declared that he could not add any-
thing to his explanation of the flan. He paid no atten-
tion to what we said about the places and districts that
were important for us. 1 Finally he went back to the
Conference and we remained with Gwatkin alone.

1 Our italics.
130

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

Both of us explained again in detail the necessity of
revising the plan. The most significant of his replies
was addressed to Minister Mastny and asserted that
the British delegation was favourable to the plan.
As he began again about the difficulties that had
revealed themselves in the negotiations with Hitler,
I said to him that all depended on the firmness of
the Western Great Powers. Gwatkin answered in
a solemn tone: "If you do not accept^ you will have to
settle your affairs with Germany quite alone. 1 Perhaps
the French will say this to you more nicely, but
believe me, they share our view. . , , They are dis-
interesting themselves. "

At half-past one in the morning we were led into
the room where the Conference took place. Here
were assembled Messrs, Neville Chamberlain, Dala-
dier, Sir Horace Wilson, L^ger, Gwatkin, Mastn^
and I. The atmosphere was oppressive: the judg-
ment was about to fall. The French, visibly troubled,
seemed to understand what this meant for French
prestige. Chamberlain announced in a short intro-
ductory speech the agreement that was to be con-
cluded, and handed to Minister Mastny the text of
the agreement, which he read aloud to him. During
the reading we asked for elucidations on certain
points of the text. For instance, I asked Leger and
Wilson kindly to explain to us the words "pre-
dominantly German character" in Article 4. Leger
said nothing of the percentage, he said only that the
majority would be a matter for discussion on the
basis of the proposals we had accepted. Chamber-
lain, however, indicated that he expected only the
carrying out of the proposals to which we had agreed,

1 Our italics.

LOST LIBERTY?

During Article 6, I asked Leger if we could interpret
it as a clause safeguarding our vital interests, as had
been promised to us in their proposals. Leger
answered : Yes, but only in a small degree, and the
question fell within the competence of the Inter-
national Commission. Minister Mastny asked
Chamberlain if the Czechoslovak member of the
Commission would have the same voting right as
the other members, and Chamberlain promised this.
On the question whether international or English
troops would occupy the plebiscite zones, we were
told that this was not yet fully settled and that they
had in mind the participation of Belgian and Italian
troops. While Minister Mastny conversed with
Mr. Chamberlain about small details (Chamberlain
yawned continuously without bothering himself in the
least\ l I asked Daladier and Leger if they expected
any declaration or answer from our Government to
the agreement. Daladier, visibly troubled, did not
answer. Leger, on the contrary, answered that the
four statesmen had not much time. He added quickly
that no further answer from our side was expected^ that
they regarded the flan as accepted^ and that our
Government was to send its plenipotentiary to
Berlin the same day, by 1 7 o'clock at latest, to the
sitting of the International Commission, lastly that
the officer whom it was to send was to arrive in
Berlin on Saturday in order to agree at once upon
the details of the evacuation of the First Zone. The
atmosphere began to be really heavy for all present;
he spoke with us in a quite ruthless way, and this
was a Frenchman, handing out this condemnation
without right of appeal or possibility of modification.

1 Our italics. a Our italics.

132

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

Chamberlain no longer hid his fatigue. After the
reading of the text we were given a slightly corrected
map. Then we took our leave and departed. The
Czechoslovak Republic, as it was determined by the
frontiers of 19183 had ceased to exist. ... In
the hall I had more talk with Rochat, who asked
me about the possible internal repercussions I
answered shortly that I could not exclude the worst
and that it should be reckoned with.

DR. HUBERT MASARTK
Munich, September 3Oth,
4 in the morning

Comment is hardly necessary. This document, like
many others we have quoted, speaks for itself and is
harder to challenge than any comment could be.

Not many people slept in Prague on that night of
September 29th to 3oth. The front pages of the
newspapers, censored almost blank, suggested already
that the final perfidy was in progress. On the Friday
morning, the 3Oth, M. Mastny and Dr. Masaffk came
back with the text of the Munich agreement and the
new maps. Comment was useless. There was noth-
ing to be done now except the heartrending, onerous
and perilous work of breaking the news to the people
and inducing the army to withdraw. The German
Charge d' Affaires had already, before the Czech
"observers" returned, called on Dr. Krofta at 6,30 A.M.
to discuss the decision. The Italian Charge d j Affaires
called later in the morning to offer the condolences
of his Government. The Czechs received the Italian
condolences not as one more insult, but as a sincere
expression of Italian sympathy with Czechoslovakia for
having had such an ally and such a friend. Last of all

133

LOST LIBERTY?

came Mr. Newton, with a message from Mr. Chamber-
lain saying that he expected to receive the Czech reply
by noon. And at noon

After deliberating and examining from all sides
all the pressing recommendations which have been
handed to the Government by the British and French
Governments, and in full consciousness of its his-
torical responsibility, the Czechoslovak Government,
in complete agreement with the responsible factors
in the political parties, has decided to accept the
resolutions of the four Great Powers at Munich.

They have done this in the knowledge that the
Nation would be preserved and that today no other
decision is possible.

The Government of the Czechoslovak Republic
at the same time, whilst taking this resolve, protests
to the world against this decision, which was made
one-sidedly and without its participation.

At five o'clock General Syrovy spoke to the Czecho-
slovak people, "I am living through the worst
moment of my life," he said. "I am carrying out the
most painful task of my life, for it would have been
easier to die." He went on:

"My highest aim is, as it is of every single one of
you, to preserve the life of the nation. This duty
we received from the hands of our forefathers, they
who lived harder lives than we, for they were not
free. And we must carry out this mission not only
with loving hearts but with a clear understanding.
In this fateful hour our duty is so : Weigh all, see all,
and know clearly which way will lead us to this high

134

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

aim. As a soldier, and in full consciousness of my
responsibility, I declare: It is the way of peace. The
way of peace, because we go into our new life with
undiminished national strength, and with the know-
ledge that we shall build a State nationally closer
knit, and therefore stronger.

" Before I said these words, I considered every-
thing. During these days I have thought over the
whole past of our battles and struggles and from
them I have gained the belief that the way upon
which I lead you is the only good and right way, for
only this way leads to work, from which the new
strength of our nation can grow.

"In Munich four European Great Powers have
met together and agreed to summon us to accept the
new frontiers which cut loose the German districts
from our State. We had the choice between a
desperate and hopeless struggle, the victims of which
would be not only the ripened generation, but women
and children too, and the acceptance of terms which,
in their lack of consideration, and since they were
imposed by force and without war, have no parallel
in history. We wished to make our contribution to
peace, and we would gladly have done so, but not in
the form in which we were compelled to do it.

"However, we were deserted, and we stood
alone. . , .

"We shall carry out the demands which were
forced upon us. We ask our people, our nation to
overcome its bitterness, its disappointment, its pain,
and to help to assure the future inside our new
frontiers. We are all on one ship, and each of us
must help if we are to come safely into the haven of
peace. . . . We rely on you trust us."

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LOST LIBERTY?

General Syrovy was followed by the Commander-in-
Chief, General Krejci, who read an order of the day to
the army: "A true soldier must be able to bear failure.
In that, too, there can be great and true heroism. Our
army was not defeated, it has preserved its good name
in the fullest measure. It must preserve it fully for
better times. The Republic will need us again, and it
will need our whole strength."

The moving voices ended General Syrovy's quiet,
sober, gentle, General Krejci's sharp, hard, unmusical
with emotion. We sat there in the Hotel Akron,
English and American journalists, two men from the
Czechoslovak Foreign Office. On the table lay the
Daily Telegraph and the News Chronicle, rejoicing over
the peace. Then from the wireless came the sound of
the Czechoslovak National Anthem first the plaintive,
mournful "Kde Domov Muj" and then the confident
"Hej Slovaci", its confidence hollow at this moment.
We stood up. The young American journalist by the
window was crying quietly. Then we went out into
the street.

Vaclavske Namesti was leaden grey, under a leaden
sky. A few knots of people were gathering together,
and as we watched, a handful swung down the road
together, yelling, "Down with the Government!"
"Down with the capitulation!" But they were so piti-
fully, futilely few. Those who would have demon-
strated, those who had saved the situation on September
2 ist, were gone, they were dispersed on the frontiers.
We walked back to our hotel. Nobody spoke.

Then we wrote straight off and delivered a broadcast
to England and to America. It represents faithfully
what we and most English or American people who had
stayed on in Prague felt at the time. It is not a recon-

136

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

struction, but a record, and for this reason we quote it
in full :

"You, English speaking listeners, are most of you
rejoicing to-day. I am sure you are, for it seems as
if the terrible black lowering threat of war, which
appeared to be just upon you, has lifted again at
least for some months. Mothers cease to fear for
the lives of their children. The flight from London
has slowed down. The Stock Exchange has
bounded up. When Mr. Chamberlain told the
House that he was going to meet the dictators of
Italy and Germany at Munich, members of Parlia-
ment shouted, 'Thank God for the Prime Minister!'
And when the news of the bargain signed at Munich
came out a joyful crowd mobbed Mrs. Chamberlain
outside the Abbey. No wonder you are glad, for
peace, even a few months of it, even a short respite
from the bloodshed, the bereavement, the waste, the
maiming, the hatred-mongering lies of war, especially
of modern war, is a gain and a relief which no
one can measure. And yet will you please listen
patiently and try to bear with what I am going to
say? The news of your rejoicing makes ghoulish
reading here in Prague. You have peace a few
months of it at least but at a heavy price. And
the price of your peace is being paid by others, at
least the crushing first instalment of the price of
your peace.

"I wish I could convey to you how much human
suffering it is costing at this moment to buy your
present relief from suffering. Imagine these
people, all classes of them, know quite clearly that
they have lost their national independence. National

137

LOST LIBERTY?

fl

independence! Two long and clumsy words, yet
they express something for which you, like the people
of Czechoslovakia, would most of you be willing to
face even the horrors of war, from which you are at
this moment so glad at being released. If your own
country's shores or frontiers are actually threatened
with invasion, and your cities with bombs, perhaps
even some of you if one of your dominions or
colonies is threatened, you will deliberately choose
to fight rather than to submit; you will suddenly
discover that there is something even worse than
war, something worse even than modern war. That
something, which causes human beings so much
suffering that again and again throughout history
they have preferred to it all the horrors of war that
is what you are now imposing on the Czechoslovak
people in order that you may live a little longer
in peace,

"Two things make the loss of independence even
worse for the Czechoslovak people than it would be,
for example, for English people. One is the history
of the Czech nation. For many hundreds of years
the Bohemian people lived here, within these very
frontiers which are now to be so lightly changed.
This was the first Protestant nation. Then, for
three hundred years, it was under foreign domina-
tion, some of that time under frightful persecution.
Last century, by a strange process, like that of a tree
putting forth leaves again after a long winter, the
Czechoslovak nation, with its language and its
culture, revived. It gave birth to a fresh literature,
to the magnificent music of Smetana and Dvorak
and finally to Thomas Masaryk, a man who, although
he was the leader only of a small nation, was the

138

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

greatest statesman of modern Europe, for he was
utterly honest, skilful and farsighted, the true
"philosopher king". In the Great War the Czecho-
slovak people put into the field six whole divisions
on our side on your side on the side of Great
Britain and France, who now betray them. And
so, in 1918, they became independent once more;
and since then, for twenty years all but a few weeks,
they have built up the Czechoslovak republic.
Now they are losing, the people of Czechoslovakia,
not only their independence, but an independence
and a republic which is doubly theirs for they
themselves made it, they themselves built it up.

"The other thing that makes this disaster even
worse for Czechoslovakia than it would be for you
is this : that those who have inflicted it upon them
were their trusted friends. They have not been
defeated, they have been betrayed. How many,
many times has Czechoslovakia received the most
solemn assurances from France! How sincerely
did Masaryk and Benes base their policy on co-
operation with Great Britain as well as with France,
not simply out of self-interest for in fact they had
an alternative but because they had an ideal in
common with the western democracies. Mr,
Chamberlain, leaving for Munich, quoted from
Shakespeare; he should have quoted this passage,
'Blow, blow thou winter wind, thou art not so
unkind as man's ingratitude 7 .

"Not only this fine people's freedom, not only the
whole system of collective security and international
justice, but faith in human nature and in free peoples
is wounded to death to-day. Think that over, and
I believe you will come to agree.

139

LOST LIBERTY?

"But are you I can't see you, I don't know you,
but I imagine each of you as an ordinary, honest,
honourable person going to be content to remain
forever in debt to the Czechoslovak people? Are
you going always to live on their misery? No, you
would be ashamed as I am. Will you resolve to
pay the debt one day? I will tell you how you can
pay it. There are two things you can do. Write
them down, so that you may never forget them,
One is, you can promise now that, when the Czecho-
slovak people begin to suffer the things that have
already happened in Austria this spring, you will do
all you can to expose and to relieve their sufferings.

"The other is more important still. Please
write it down. Write: 'I promise that, if the peace
bought by the Munich bargain is not permanent, I
will, at the end of the next war, do all I can to see
that the whole Czechoslovak people is restored to
its full independence T "

From the Sudetenland, that Friday evening, the
flight of Czechs, Jews, German Social Democrats and
anti-Nazis had already begun. By Saturday morning
thousands had reached the interior. What were they
to do? Where were they to go? They could think
only of getting away, of fleeing before they were put
into concentration camps, or shipped to the Rhine
frontier to work on fortifications, or beaten up by
Henlein's Ordners. The democratic statesmen in
Munich had not very effectively considered the fate of
these^ people, when they handed over the First Zone
to Hitler at 2 P.M. on October ist, Zone II the next
day, Zone III the next. As the Czech police and

140

BY FORCE AND WITHOUT WAR

soldiers left the frontiers, and before the German
police and the Reichswehr arrived, Henlein's F.S.
burst into the ceded districts, and Henlein with
uncharacteristic candour had warned his opponents of
their fate.

"We shall imprison them", he said on September
3Oth on the German wireless, "until they turn black"
"These men", he said again at Reichenberg, in his
speech of triumph on October 8th, "have no right to
pardon. I will give them none. I have decided to
have them shut up." Many who tried to escape could
not; they had not time; they were not allowed into
Czech territory, or they were told to stay for the pro-
posed plebiscites thousands were caught in the mouse-
trap. But for them few people cared. They must
rely on the International Commission; that is, in
practice, they might stay and "turn black".

141

Chapter X

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

Treaty of Munich was a dream come
true. The dream had been dreamt again and
again, and told to the world with all the
paraphernalia of prophecy, by The Times and the press
of Nazi Germany. It was the dream of making peace
treaties without war that is, in less idealistic but more
truthful language, the ideal of redrawing the map of
the world and partitioning the smaller countries in
accordance with the changing balance of forces and in
answer to threats of war, without an actual clash between
the full forces of the Great Powers. Changes in the
map, it was argued, are inevitable, because the relative
strengths of different nations are always changing, but
why should these changes in the map always be made
at the expense of war between the Great Powers ? Why
not make the changes by agreement in good time, and
so cut out the war? Would not that be pure gain?
And it was added would not these warless peace
treaties be also far less unjust and harsh than the
treaties that are made at the end of a war? For the
peace that ends a modern war is made by victors who
are vindictive because of their sufferings and the
hopes and hatreds they have propagated to keep up
their people's morale; but a warless transition from
peace to peace would be made in an atmosphere of
calm. Such was, and is, the theory.

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FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

At Munich it was put into practice. The Times and
the dictatorships had their way. The Munich Agree-
ment was the perfect experiment in the revision of
frontiers without open hostilities between Great Powers.
It showed, once and for all, that what was called the
peaceful revision of treaties is really the partition and
enslavement of small countries in answer to the threats
of those great ones which are unscrupulous enough to
risk modern war; it showed also that the peace so
gained is neither just nor stable. For what do we see?
Was this agreement of Munich concluded in a calm
atmosphere of unhurried wisdom? Far from it. It
was drawn up and signed in a few hours, hastily as
M. Daladier explained with emphasis to the French
Parliament 1 under the threat, whether real or ap-
parent, of an imminent aggression ; and it was sprung
on the peoples of the Western democracies as a fait
accompli. The treaty, in fact, was concocted and signed
in a hurry and in secret, under pressure of military
threats; it was presented as &fait accompli to the peoples
at a moment when a wave of fear swept the world,
and the victim had no chance of appeal. This was
the only way by which the peoples and parliaments
of the still free nations could be induced to accept
a treaty so wholly unjust, so utterly unjustifiable
economically, strategically, or on a basis of self-deter-
mination.

On all these three grounds the Treaty of Versailles,
though made by nations nearly maddened by suffering,

1 Speech before the Chamber and the Senate, October 4th, 1938. "Nous
nations plus que quelques heures deuant nous. . . . II ne s*agissait pas de
faire de la procedure, ou de formuler des centre-propositions. II s'agissait de
sau<ver la paix que d*aucuns awaient deja pu croire definitivement detruite*
J*ai dit 'ouf etje ne regrette rien. J^eusse prefers" que toutes les puissances
intsressees fussent presenter. Mais ilfalktitfaire tres <uitc. . . ."

H3

LOST LIBERTY?

was a miracle of wisdom and justice compared with
this Treaty of Munich.

Here is a summary of the Munich terms. Czech
troops were to begin leaving the Sudetenland on
October ist and to continue in four swift stages, the
fourth zone to be occupied by the Germans on October
7th; meanwhile an international commission composed
of representatives of Germany, Italy, France, Great
Britain and Czechoslovakia was to lay down the "con-
ditions governing evacuation" and to delimit "forth-
with" a fifth zone to contain "the remaining territory
of preponderantly German character", so that this, too,
might be taken over by German troops on October loth.
The Czechoslovak Government was to be held re-
sponsible for any damage to "existing installations",
an ambiguous and elastic term. The final delimitation
of the frontier was a matter for the International
Commission. In certain "exceptional cases" the
Commission might recommend to "the four Powers,
Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy"
(not, of course, Czechoslovakia), "minor modifications
in the strictly ethnographical determination of the zones
which are to be transferred without plebiscite". After
the five zones had been occupied, the Commission was
to determine the territories in which a plebiscite should
be held. The plebiscite must take place by the end of
November, and the plebiscite areas would be occupied
by "international bodies" until the completion of the
victory. There was to be a right of option into and
out of the transferred territories, to be exercised within
six months from the date of the agreement, a German-
Czechoslovak commission being left to "consider ways
of facilitating the transfer of population and settle
questions of principle". And within four weeks the

144

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

Czechoslovak Government must release from the army
or police force any Sudeten Germans who wished to be
released, and to set free any Sudeten Germans im-
prisoned for political offences. In return, Germany
gave no guarantee that the Czechs in prison in the
Reich, or in the hands of the Gestapo, would be freed.
The Prime Minister and his colleagues in the House
of Commons, M. Daladier before the Chamber, made
great play with the differences between Munich and
Godesberg, and with the powers of the International
Commission, that fig-leaf. Munich, Mr. Chamber-
lain declared, was a reversion to the Anglo-French plan,
an "orderly instead of a violent method of carrying
out an agreed decision". "Fictoire humaine egalemenf\
said M. Daladier, "puisque l y accord de Munich^ grace &
des concessions reciproques et a la bonne volonte de tous, est
en progres certain sur le memorandum de Godesberg. II
contient des stipulations organisant pour les individus le
droit d' option^ il elimine toutes les dispositions qui eussent
pu Jigurer dans F armistice qu y un <uainqueur impose a un
vaincu." I Mr. Chamberlain 2 explained his claim by
saying that Munich provided for German military
occupation in "five clearly defined stages" the line "up
to which German troops will enter into occupation"
would now be a line fixed by the International Com-
mission on which "both Germany and Czechoslovakia
are represented". M. Daladier explained that "une
commission Internationale a ete creee en *uue d'e'viter farU-
traire de decisions unilaterales* AUK solutions deforce, on
peut esperer ainsi substituer les pratiques du droit" Under
the Munich Agreement, said Mr. Chamberlain, all

1 For the full text of M. Daladier's speech see "La Bataille pour la Paix",
published by Le Temps, Paris, 1938.

2 For Mr. Chamberlain's speech see Hansard, October 3rd, 1938, cols.
40-50.

145 L

LOST LIBERTY?

I

plebiscite areas were to be defined by the International
Commission; its criterion was to be "the predominantly
German character of the area", the interpretation of this
phrase being left to the Commission. "I am bound
to say", he added, "that the German [Godesberg] line
did take in a number of areas which could not be called
predominantly German in character. " The conditions
of evacuation, which under the Godesberg Memoran-
dum were to be settled by Germans and Czechs alone,
"an arrangement that did not give the Czechs much
chance of making their voices heard 17 , were also to be
"laid down in detail by the International Commission* 1 .
How Mr. Chamberlain reconciled his remark that
a German- Czechoslovak Commission "did not give the
Czechs much chance of making their voices heard"
with clause 7 of the Munich Agreement, by which a
German-Czechoslovak Commission should "determine
the details of the option, consider ways of facilitating
the transfer of population and settle questions of prin-
ciple arising out of the said transfer" he did not explain.
And what, in the light of this same remark, are we to
think of the threat which Mr. Ashton Gwatkin made
to the Czech observers at Munich: "If you do not
accept you will have to settle your affairs alone with
Germany"?

Yet again and again, whenever a question was asked
about the fate of the non-Nazi Germans in the Sudeten-
land, about their right of option, about the use of the
1910 census figures, about the seizure of wholly Czech
villages by Germany, the reply came pat: "That is
a matter for the International Commission". The
phrase runs like a refrain through the parliamentary
debates of the last five months: "That is a matter for
the International Commission". "The Munich agree-

146

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

merit", said the British Prime Minister, "is no longer
an ultimatum, but it is a method which is carried out
largely under the supervision of an international
body." Sir Samuel Hoare 1 took up the same theme :
"I say that in the circumstances it was a great credit
to the two Prime Ministers that they were able to sub-
stitute for unlimited and uncontrolled military invasion,
a limited and controlled cession of territory under the
supervision of an international body". The magic
phrase "an international body" served its purpose;
it lulled the scruples of many people who still clung
to the principles that had given rise to the League of
Nations.

What, in fact, was this International Commission
set up at Munich? Baron von Weiszacker of the
German Foreign Office, the British, French and Italian
Ambassadors in Berlin, and Dr. Mastny, the Czecho-
slovak Minister. When he heard of its composition
a Czech Foreign Office official said to us bitterly, "And
our only friend will be von Weiszacker". He was
wrong. The Czechs had no friend. Or, rather, they
had as before, two false friends. For what actually
happened? The Commission met in Berlin on October
5th and 6th. The Germans presented monstrous
demands. The British representatives then met the
Czechs, agreed with them that the German demands
were monstrous, urged them to resist and promised to
support them. The Commission sat again, the Czech
protest was made, and the British spoke on the Czech
side. The Commission adjourned for a short while.
When it met again the German delegate turned to the
Czech, and said, "Well, what would you like done?"
The Czech delegate replied that he would like a vote

1 On October 3rd, 1938.

H7

LOST LIBERTY?

to be taken. The German said, "By^all means, if you
think it is worth while", and as he said it he showed a
paper in which the proposed frontier the Fifth Zone
was given; and there, at the bottom, were the
signatures of the British and the French delegates.
The Czechoslovak Government protested by telegram
to Mr. Chamberlain, but in vain. Mr. Ashton
Gwatkin had threatened the Czechs at Munich, "If
you do not accept you will have to settle your affairs
alone with Germany ". That is exactly what the
British and French governments in fact left the Czechs
to do. Great Britain and France used this threat to
force a new surrender from the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment. Having compelled the surrender, they were
bound to protect the Czechs against the fate they had
threatened. This obligation also they dishonoured.

The Czechoslovak Government might have known,
the French and British peoples should have known,
and the British and French Prime Ministers must have
known, that this would happen that the International
Commission would be a fraud. For France and
England, having accepted the terms of Munich because
they refused to face the risk of war, were hardly likely
to face that risk at this stage in order to defend a
Czechoslovakia they had just made impossible to de-
fend by forcing her to give up her natural and fortified
frontiers. But this is exactly what President Benes did
know, and foresee, and try to prevent. The Czechs
had always attached conditions to their acceptance of
the Anglo-French plan. They had done so on Sep-
tember 2ist, on September 25th, on the 2,6th, and
on the 28th. 1 They surrendered on definite terms;
Great Britain and France took their surrender and then

1 See above. Chapters IV and VIII.

148

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

broke the conditions upon which it was made. The
essential infamy of Munich the thing that made it
simply a disguised Godesberg was this : it forced the
Czechs to give up their defences with all the military
secrets they contained, before the new frontiers were
fixed and guaranteed. By doing this, the agreement put
the Czechs wholly at the mercy of the Germans, and
so was directly responsible for their enslavement and
for the persecution of the non-Nazis in the Sudeten-
land,

The Treaty of Munich and the "zones" are indi-
visible, and it is a fallacy to judge Munich by its bare
terms, apart from the Fifth Zone and the Sixth. Mr.
Chamberlain on October 3rd went so far as to declare
that "on the difference between those two documents
[Godesberg and Munich] will depend the judgment as
to whether we were successful in what we set out to do,
namely, to find an orderly instead of a violent method
of carrying out an agreed decision". But what, in
fact, were the differences? They were differences for
the worse.

The British Prime Minister claimed that Munich
provided for the German occupation not "in one opera-
tion by ist October", but "in five clearly defined stages
between ist October and loth October". The timing
of the occupation was a vital factor, not only because if
Hitler were allowed to sweep in with a rush he would
have the whole country at his mercy before the new
frontiers were fixed, but also because, in the words of
the Czechoslovak letter of September 25th 1 words
quoted with apparent approval by Mr. Chamberlain
himself in the letter he sent to Hitler on the 26th
"The whole process of moving the population" would

1 See above, Chapter VIII, p. in.
149

LOST LIBERTY?

P

be "reduced to panic flight on the part of those who will
not accept the German Nazi regime ". The terms of
Munich did not prevent either of these things from
happening. The "five stages" were, if anything, a
concession to Hitler rather than to the Czechs, for they
made the German occupation easier, and it could hardly
have been quicker. "There are five stages," said
Mr. Duff Cooper, 1 "but those stages are almost as
rapid as an army can move."

And the new frontiers themselves? In his denun-
ciation of the frontier demanded at Godesberg, Mr.
Chamberlain declared that it took in "a number of areas
which could not be called predominantly German in
character". But what did the Berlin commission do?
It even "improved" upon the Godesberg line. The
Fifth Zone decision, announced on October 6th,
handed over to Germany not isolated communes but
whole districts either purely Czech, or containing a
Czech majority. Here are some instances. Policka,
a town with forty times as many Czechs as Germans,
was handed over to Germany because it contained a
powder factory. In the Litomysl district the Reich
annexed Pohodli, Benatky, Nova Ves and Pazucha,
with 1436 Czechs and 257 Germans; in the Usti nad
Orlici district they took Rviste, Dobra Voda, Reeky and
Oldfichov, with 1092 Czechs and 189 Germans, and
in the Dvur Kralove district two communes with 286
Czechs and one German! To bring the frontier as
close as possible to Plzen (Pilsen) with its Skoda arma-
ments factory, the Germans were allowed to swallow
up the communes of Litice, Dobfany, Robcice and
Lhota villages which had had Czech majorities as
far back as 1910 and in 1938 formed a compact area

1 Hansard, October 3rd, 1938, col. 37.

150

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

with 5982 Czechs and 3773 Germans. Bfeclav, with
its vital railway junction, where the lines from Vienna
and Bratislava meet those from Prague, Poland and
Silesia, was handed over to Germany with the whole of
its surrounding iron-working district a district con-
taining 1 8, 1 20 Czechs and 1808 Germans. Vitkovice,
with the second greatest steel-works in the Republic,
was not given to the Germans. It was only three-
quarters surrounded, although this meant putting inside
Germany Svinov, with 4319 Czechs and less than 800
Germans but then Svinov had the transmitters for the
Moravska Ostrava broadcasting station. In the Zabf eh
and Sumperk district, Germany received seventy-three
communes, with 53,534 Czechs and less than 30,000
Germans. Czechoslovakia's already dangerously nar-
row "waist" was tightened still further by the German
annexation of the district of Moravsky Krumlov, in
Southern Moravia a district with 3047 Czechs and
349 Germans. Even the Godesberg line had not taken
in Moravsky Krumlov. And at Bratislava Germany
took the suburb of Petrzalka l why? Because it con-
tained the Danube bridgehead and the transmitters of
the Bratislava wireless station.

So the Berlin Commission that "international
body" to which Mr. Chamberlain gave his blessing and
handed over the Czechs delivered up to the Third
Reich in the name of the self-determination of peoples
719,000 Czechs, not, as Mr. Chamberlain told the
House of Commons on November ist, 1938, "some-
thing like 580,000".* In order to liberate 2,806,000
Germans, less than one-twenty-fifth of the people of

1 Petrzalka was Hungarian before 1918.

2 On what this figure was based we cannot discover. Mr. Chamberlain
gave it almost a month after the Fifth Zone was fixed, and so when all the
facts were known. Yet it is a large error.

LOST LIBERTY?

Germany, the Treaty of Munich and its International
Commission placed In the land of concentration camps
nearly a tenth of all the Czechs in Czechoslovakia
and at least 300,000 anti-Nazi Germans and Jews. It
deprived the remaining six and a half million Czechs
of nearly all effective independence. At the same time
it left within the mutilated republic 250,000 Germans,
whom Germany began at once to use to blackmail the
Czechoslovak Government and to impair the little that
remained of Czech liberty. If the bargain of Munich
really averted an imminent war, perhaps the enslave-
ment of the Czechs and the persecution of many
thousands of Sudeten Germans and Jews may be held
a price well worth paying for this; but for heaven's
sake do not let us pretend that it was "self-determina-
tion" or "change without violence".

That there should still have been a quarter of a
million Germans left in Czechoslovakia, after a partition
in which Germany had been given the benefit of every
doubt, brings out very clearly the truth, which the
critics of the Versailles settlement and the advocates
of a "homogeneous" Czechoslovakia should have
known all along, that it is quite impossible to draw a
frontier answering to the distribution of races in a
district where races are mixed. Strangely enough,
nothing had happened since the Treaty of Versailles
to make a problem which was baffling in 1919 simple
in 1938.

On what principle were the new frontiers those
of the Fifth Zone supposedly based? First on the
ethnographical principle, but this according to long-
out-of-date figures that had always been false. The
Germans, refusing to accept the Czechoslovak census
of 1930, insisted that the Austro-Hungarian census of

152

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

1910 be taken as the true criterion of how many
Germans and how many Czechs there were in each
district. The International Commission gave them
their way. It was a monstrous demand and a mon-
strous decision, for the census of pre-war Austria had
been hopelessly rigged against the Czechs. In the
census of 1910 the nationality of each person was
counted by the Umgangssprache, that is, not by the
mother tongue, but by the language of everyday use.
The Czech miner in Northern Bohemia, who was com-
pelled to speak German with his employers, and who
in any case would lose his job if he registered as Czech;
the small Czech official, who had to use German because
it was the State language; the Czech shopkeeper, who
spoke German with his customers all these people
were registered as Germans. All Jews were registered
as Germans. And Mr. Wickham Steed, in a letter to
The TimeS) has described how he, an English journalist,
figured in the census as a Viennese German. He had,
of course, declared himself British, but a census official
came to call on him to ask him what was his Umgangs-
sfrache what language did he use in his daily work?
Mr. Steed replied that he used German, "Also
Deutsch" (Therefore German), said the official, and
Mr, Steed was carefully entered on the list as a German.
The census of 1910 was faked; it was also out of date.
The population in the Sudetenland had become steadily
more Czech in the twenty-eight years since 1910 and
especially in the twenty years since the foundation of
the Republic in 1918. Apart from the inevitable in-
crease of Czech officials after the war, many Sudeten
Germans had left the country for Austria; Czech labour
had in many places replaced German labour; Czech
peasants had settled in the land which had belonged

153

LOST LIBERTY?

to German feudal landlords until the Czechoslovak land
reform. For instance, in the eleven years between
1910 and 1921 (the date of the first Czechoslovak
census) alone, the Czech population in Brtlx (Most)
increased from 278 to 465 per thousand inhabitants;
in Teplitz-Schonau (Teplice-Sanov) from 129 to 2,27
per thousand; in Aussig ("Osti n/Labem) from 54 to 166
per thousand, and in Komotau (Chomutov) from 18
to 72 per thousand. And in Znojmo, in Southern
Moravia, where by the 1910 census there were 13 per
cent of Czechs, by the 1930 census there were 52 per
cent. Why, as the Czechs bitterly asked, should a
census made after three centuries of Austrian rule be
considered fairer or more reliable than a census made
after twelve years of Czech rule? *

But unjust and unfavourable to the Czechs as the
1910 census was, it was not unjust or unfair enough
for Germany's needs: the Reich received 215 com-
munes which had a Czech majority even in 1910.
Bfeclav, with its four adjoining villages, had had in
1910, 1 1, 1 86 Czechs and only 6421 Germans; nine
villages around Lanskroun had been Czech for cen-
turies; and in the Hranice district in Moravia Germany
annexed seven villages (Spalov, LubomSf, Heltinov,
Jindfichov, Partutovice, StfitSz and Vysoka) which

1 One argument which the Germans used for taking the census of 1910
as the basis for the new frontiers is a historical curiosity. The Munich
Agreement, in its fifth paragraph, cited "the conditions of the Saar plebis-
cite" as the basis of the conditions on which the proposed plebiscites in
Czechoslovakia were to be held. The German delegate claimed that not
only the proposed plebiscites but all ethnographical questions in dispute
even those that were specifically covered by articles in the Munich Agreement
which said nothing about the Saar be settled on the analogy of the Saar.
As the Saar plebiscite used a voters* list at the time of the signature of the
Treaty of Versailles, and as there were for the Sudetenland no figures referring
to this date, the Germans demanded that the Austro-Hungarian figures of
1910 be taken as the basis for drawing the frontiers.

154

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

according to the 1910 figures were purely Czech, with
4027 Czechs and 115 Germans thirty-five times as
many Czechs as Germans. How was the Berlin
Commission, with its British and French representa-
tives, persuaded so flagrantly to violate self-determina-
tion in the name of self-determination? The only
reason that has been given is that the Germans pointed
out that in various parts of Czechoslovakia there were
still islands of territory Jihlava (Iglau), for example
inhabited largely by Germans, and it was as com-
pensation for these islands that they demanded terri-
tories purely or almost purely Czech, a cession un-
justifiable even by the cooked figures of 1910. Thus
the Commission of Berlin put the clock back 123
years. For the first time for over a century human
beings in Europe were bartered about like cattle and
taken as "compensation" something which Europe
had not seen since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Mr, Chamberlain's ''international body" had proved
wholly useless as a guarantee of justice for Czecho-
slovakia, and as the French weekly U Europe Nouvelle
wrote on October i^th, 1938, "Mieux eut valu peut-etre
qy? aucune commission d'ambassadeurs ne vinf decorer cette

brutale conquete des attributs af parents de la justice ou de

/> / , />>
equite .

But even the Fifth Zone was not the end. On
November 2oth Czechoslovakia signed a bilateral
agreement with Germany, an agreement where Czecho-
slovakia could only gratefully accept the German
demands, ceding a Sixth Zone to the Reich for
"reasons of traffic policy". 1 The International Com-
mission did nothing but take note of this agreement

1 This euphemistic phrase was applied to it by the Prager Presse, the
official Czech Government organ.

155

LOST LIBERTY?

and declare the frontier final. Czechoslovakia was

handed back 27 villages and Germany took 73 more,

with 40,000 people of whom 29,000 were Czechs

Czechs whose forefathers had lived there for centuries.

All the territory ceded to Germany made the Reich's

road and rail communications easier; Czechoslovakia

had yet another strip of railway (from Plzen south-east

into the Bohemian forest) cut, but this was of no

account to anybody. In the Bf eclav district Germany

took all the forests of the Lichtenstein estates, forests

which were a great loss to the impoverished Republic;

on the Slovak bank of the Danube she took Devin, a

strategic stronghold dominating the confluence of the

Danube and the March, as well as the southern outlet

of the projected Danube-Oder canal. (The Germans

began at once to fortify it.) And a detail Germany

received 3750 hectares of forest land around Domaz-

lice, in the Bohemian forest, with a population that had

been Czech for hundreds of years. This land had

been part of the estates of the Countess Schonborn

and had been split up by the Czech agrarian reform

after the war. Now that lucky lady, who had fled

to Munich early in September, received her Czech

villages back.

On the same day, November 2oth, by a second
"bilateral agreement" Czechoslovakia gave to Germany
the right to build a new autostrada, a great motor road
cutting clean through Moravia to connect Breslau
with Vienna. The road was to be extraterritorial
German property, a German corridor across a nominally
sovereign State, crossing Czech soil for 65 kilometres,
built by German and Czech labour jointly, but by a
German company. Germany would police the road
inside Czechoslovakia as well as outside ; Germany was

156

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

to have judicial sovereignty over it, and German
citizens might use it without passports, Germany
would, also, at any rate ostensibly, pay for the road. 1
The great "Moravian Gate'* was wide open for a
German drive to the east, and Germany had now
complete control of the outlets to Central Europe, the
Adriatic and the Mediterranean.

A third "bilateral agreement" regulated the building
of the Danube- Oder Canal, to be built and administered
by Germany and Czechoslovakia, each country bearing
the cost of its own stretch of the canal. With the
German scheme for canalising the Upper Elbe and
joining it to the valley of the March, it would give the
Reich complete control of the main waterways between
the Baltic, the North Sea and the Black Sea, Though
it could bring no special benefits to Czechoslovakia,
Czechoslovakia would have to pay for it. On the
three "agreements" General Goring's newspaper com-
mented gleefully:

It is worthy of note that these far-reaching
agreements, which at last bring the normalisation
of the relations between Czechoslovakia and Ger-
many, were concluded without the interference of
the International Commission. ... It was soon
apparent that the work of the International Com-
mission had become superfluous, since Berlin and
Prague met for direct negotiations which are dis-
tinguished by a common will for collaboration, 2

So much for the International Commission. That
farce had served. The French and British Govern-

1 It now appears, however (February, 1939), that Germany has demanded
that Czechoslovakia should pay 30,000,000 crowns towards the cost.
z Essener National Zeitung, November aznd, 1938.

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ments now scarcely bothered to pretend that they
had not first deprived the Czechs of all means of de-
fence, then left them to settle their affairs alone with
Germany.

But if Germany received the lion's share of the
Munich booty, Poland and Hungary, the jackals, had
also to be satisfied. That, too, was provided for in the
Munich Agreement, where Italy and Germany "for
their part" declared themselves ready to "give a
guarantee" to Czechoslovakia "when the question of
the Polish and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia
has been settled". Poland arrived on the scene first,
for as Colonel Beck explained, "Nous vivons & une
epoque ou il faut savoir affirmer ses interns d'une fapon
farticulierement courageuse". A Polish Note, sent to
Prague on September 3oth and couched in arrogant
and hostile language, demanded the immediate cession
of the districts of Tesm, Bohumin-Frystat and Jab-
lunkov, as well as the Karvinna mining basin* (The
Poles also demanded a plebiscite in the Czech districts
of Slezska Ostrava and Frydek.) Next day Czecho-
slovakia agreed to give up Tesin, Frystat, Jablunkov
and Karvinna, and the Polish army scrambled into its
new territory, terrified lest the Germans should get
there first. 1 The Czechs lost the vital railway junc-
tion of Bohumin (a town with an infinitesimal Polish
minority) so that their only east-to-west railway be-
tween Prague and Slovakia or Ruthenia was cut once
more and they lost their best mines of hard coal. But
what could they do but accept the Polish terms? The

1 "Taut cela a<vec une mise en scene ihe&trah" commented UEurope
Nouvelle, bitterly. "Uarmee polonaise s'est Ibranlee sur rordre de; '
a<vant> marcher crie far k marechal Smigly Rydx et repfrt dans tons les lieux
par des haut-parleur$> Voila a quoi servent les armes fournies par la France
en vertu de I accord de Rambouiltet de sepUmbre 1936."

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FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

Treaty of Munich had left Czechoslovakia no power
even to bargain, let alone to resist. In November,
19385 Poland seized still more territory in Moravian-
Silesia and in Northern Slovakia, Including the railway
junction of Cadca, and her final booty was 972 square
kilometres of territory, with 132,000 Czechs and
Slovaks, 20,000 Germans and 77,000 Poles. Self-
determination of the 1938 model had handed over
another complex of minorities to the country that had
already the .argest, and the worst-treated population
of minorities in Europe.

With Hungary, Czechoslovakia was not even
allowed to settle things alone. After some weeks of
futile and angry negotiations between the new auto-
nomous Slovak Government and the Hungarians, the
two parties asked Germany and Italy to "arbitrate"
there was no longer even any mention of their two
fellow-signatories of the Munich Agreement. The two
dictators thus had a chance to show what they meant
by that justice for which they had always cried out.
They took once more the census of 1910 as the
theoretical basis for the settlement. There was even
less excuse for using this census in Slovakia than in
Bohemia and Moravia, for the Magyar census of 1910
was even more faked than the Austrian. It, too, was
based on the Umgangssprache, but in addition, it was
taken when Hungary's policy of Magyarisation had
reached its high-water mark, so that almost every mem-
ber of a subject nationality was persuaded, cajoled or
dragooned into declaring himself a Magyar. "To be
just," wrote the Central European Observer on Novem-
ber i ith, "not the now dead souls of thirty years ago
but those still living should have been taken into
consideration." The German-Italian decision, given

159

LOST LIBERTY?

out in Vienna on November 2nd, 1938, handed over to
Hungary 1,035,279 people, of whom two-thirds only
were Magyars 289,392 were Czechs and Slovaks,
51,034 were Jews, and 127,814 Ruthenes. In Slo-
vakia, towns with Slovak majorities, such as Kosice,
where according to the 1930 census there were 66 per
cent of Slovaks and only 1 8 per cent of Magyars, or
Lucenec, with 8725 Slovaks and 4007 Magyars, went
to Hungary. Czechoslovakia was shut away from the
Danube except at Bratislava, her roads and railways
in Slovakia and Ruthenia were cut to pieces. As for
Ruthenia, its fate was terrible. Cut off from its fertile
southern plain, pushed back into its mountains and
forests, deprived of its only two towns, Uzhorod and
Mukacevo neither had a Hungarian majority, or any-
thing like one deprived of its administration, it was
left the prey of its own poverty and of German

imperialism,

Ruthenia at the end of the World War, after cen-
turies of Hungarian rule, had been a country only to
be compared in misery and confusion to the remote
parts of the Turkish Empire or to the Papal States
before the Risorgimento. The Czechs in twenty years
raised it up from its misery, giving to its pitifully back-
ward people schools, education, hospitals, co-operative
societies, good and decent government. All that was
over. Part of it must go back to Hungary, part of it
must remain ostensibly independent and "autonomous",
really the base for Germany's drive into the Ukraine,
and therefore full of German agents and influence.

The Munich Agreement and the Anglo-French Plan
had encouraged the Czechs to believe that once their
new frontiers were settled, however unjust those
frontiers might be, however painful the operation, they

160

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

would receive a guarantee from England, France,
Germany and Italy. The British and French Prime
Ministers had both been at great pains to flourish this
International guarantee'' at their political opponents.
M. Daladier assured the Chamber:

"Nous avons af forte a rtat Tcheque des assurances
de garanties Internationales. La France et la Grande-
Eretagne s'engagent sans reserve ni delai a s* associer a
une garantie Internationale des nouvelles frontieres de
I'Etat Tchecoslovaque contre toute aggression non -pro-
voquee^ FAllemagne et TItalie s*engageant d*autre fart
a donner leurs garanties des que la question des minorites
po/onaise ethongroise en Tchecoslovaquie aura etereglee"

"Without reservation or delay/' And Mr. Chamber-
lain said:

"The joint guarantee which is given under the
Munich Agreement to the Czechoslovak State by
the governments of the United Kingdom and France
against unprovoked aggression upon their bound-
aries, gives to the Czechs an essential counterpart
which was not to be found in the Godesberg
memorandum,"

"An essential counterpart." And Sir Thomas Inskip,
in the House of Commons on October 4th 5 went
further :

"The House will realise that the formal Treaty
of guarantee has yet to be drawn up and completed
in the normal way, and, as the Foreign Secretary
has stated in another place, there are some matters
which must await settlement between the Govern-
ments concerned. Until that has been done, tech-

161 M

LOST LIBERTY?

nically the guarantee cannot be said to be in force.
His Majesty's Government, however, feel under a
moral obligation to Czechoslovakia to treat the
guarantee as being now in force. In the event,
therefore, of an act of unprovoked aggression against
Czechoslovakia, His Majesty's Government would
certainly feel bound to take all steps in their power
to see that the integrity of Czechoslovakia is pre-
served."

What, in fact, happened? In the original Anglo-
French proposals of September igth the British
Government " would be prepared, as a contribution to
the pacification of Europe, to join in an international
guarantee of the new boundaries of the Czechoslovak
State against unprovoked aggression". This offer
was already, by bad drafting or by intent, vague and
misleading enough, but the Munich Agreement
which relegated the whole question of the guarantee to
an "annex" was even more vague and far more mis-
leading.

The British and French Governments declared that
"they stand by the offer ... of the Anglo-French pro-
posals . . . relating to an international guarantee of the
new boundaries of the Czechoslovak State against
aggression". As for the Germans and Italians,
"When the question of the Polish and Hungarian
minorities in Czechoslovakia has been settled, Germany
and Italy for their part will give a guarantee to Czecho-
slovakia". The French and British Governments
could therefore shelter first behind the Polish and
Hungarian minorities, then behind the fact that the
proposed guarantee was joint and depended on Ger-
many and Italy. Germany and Italy meanwhile had

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FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

merely promised to give a "guarantee", time and
extent wholly unspecified.

The French and British Governments, in short,
when they extracted from the Czechs assent to the
Anglo-French Plan and to the Diktat of Munich,
promised in return to give a guarantee for the inde-
pendence of the new Czechoslovakia at least they
seemed to ordinary people to be making this promise,
and they used this semblance of a promise to impress
most effectively their own and neutral public opinion.
The Czechs had the right to expect that at least this
promise would be kept. But no. Great Britain and
France defrauded them of this too, the "essential
counterpart" of their sacrifice. Already on November
ist Mr. Chamberlain was telling the House of Com-
mons that the question of the guarantee could not be
"cleared up" until the whole question of the minorities
of Czechoslovakia had been settled. "What", he said,
"the terms of that guarantee will be and who will be
partakers in that guarantee is not a question on which
I can give the House any information to-day." In any
case, he added, Great Britain had never engaged to
give a guarantee of the new frontiers, but only a
guarantee against unprovoked aggression, which was
"quite a different thing". It was, indeed. It is, of
course, quite true that every mention made of a possible
guarantee, whether in the Anglo-French Plan of Sep-
tember 1 9th, in the Munich Agreement, or in the
speeches of Messrs. Chamberlain, Daladier and Inskip,
has a loophole: Great Britain and France engage only
to associate themselves in a joint guarantee. So it may
be held that, in not at once guaranteeing independence
to the new Czechoslovakia, Great Britain and France
broke no promises. But that does not dispose of the

163

LOST LIBERTY?

question, Why did they introduce this loophole, and so
studiously maintain it? If it was accidental, then there
is no excuse for using it to escape an intended and
deserved promise. If it was not accidental, what pur-
pose can it have had except to deceive public opinion
in their own countries and elsewhere? Perhaps their
guarantee, if given, would have proved worthless ; but
the whole history of this proposed guarantee is an
exceptionally pure example of fraud committed by
Governments, and its consequences will be worth
tracing.

As for the plebiscites, with which Mr. Chamberlain
made great play, Germany at once "persuaded"
Czechoslovakia to renounce them, and areas where
plebiscites should have taken place were simply given
to Germany at four days' notice as part of the Fifth
Zone, What did this mean? Self-determination of
peoples, if it can be applied, is not only just but sensible,
since it must tend to reduce the causes of war. But
self-determination is very hard to apply in practice; to
apply it exactly is of vital moment in cases where it may
mean transferring people to a country in which there
is persecution ; and the only way to apply self-determina-
tion exactly is to take a vote of the people concerned.
Yet the history of Europe after the World War showed
again and again that plebiscites themselves are a danger
to peace and are not even just, since their results depend
on intimidation. Perhaps then the Four Powers were
right to abandon the plebiscites. But in that case it
was wrong to use the idea of self-determination to
prepare public opinion for the Anglo-French proposals
and the Agreement of Munich. What is more, if
plebiscites were impracticable, they should never have
been proposed only to be abandoned, for this action

164

FOUR-POWER JUSTICE

cost many thousands of innocent people their liberty,
some their lives. These people were told to stay in
these districts to do their duty in the plebiscites.
Suddenly they found the plebiscites cancelled and
themselves trapped. Only a few had the time or the
chance to escape.

But, it will be argued as Sir John Simon argued in
the House of Commons as late as February I3th, 1939
there is a clause in the Munich Agreement giving
these people the right of option, the right to be-
come Czechoslovak citizens within six months. Mr.
Chamberlain and Lord Halifax made capital of this
clause in their speeches, though they did not say that
the details of the option were to be decided not even
by the International Commission, but by a German-
Czechoslovak Commission. On November 2oth Prague
was "persuaded" into an agreement on the right of
option. The right did not apply to Germans or to
German Jews. They were left to Hitler and Henlein,
for ' 'regeneration" in Dachau or Oranienburg, or per-
haps in one of those brand new concentration camps set
up in the Sudetenland. How can a person in a con-
centration camp exercise a right of option? If a few
managed to escape, how could the Czechs be expected
to risk building up a new German minority, to risk the
displeasure of the Reich by harbouring them, to find
place for them in a country impoverished and already
jammed with refugees? As for the Czechs of the
Sudetenland they, it is true, could opt for Czecho-
slovakia, they were not even compelled to do more than
leave all their capital behind them. In short, the right
of option also proved to be a swindle.

Chapter XI

PAYING FOR PEACE

Czech people after Munich had one hope
left that their army would refuse to obey its
orders. How could the soldiers retire from
their fortresses without firing a shot and not rebel?
The Czech Army knew that it was the most up-to-date
army in the world; it had always been ready to fight
against overwhelming odds; it had always believed the
German Army to be far from invincible. But hour
after hour passed and no news came to Prague of
rebellion at the front. What had happened?

Cut off in the field and scattered, not knowing the
exact terms of the Munich Agreement or the full extent
of the new betrayal and the new capitulation, always
believing, as the order came to give up each zone, that
this must be the last, that their Government could not
have agreed to give up all their prepared defences, that
they would keep at least some of the fortifications intact,
the army was helpless, blinded, deceived. Many of
its commanders thought seriously of revolt at the start,
but for some unexplained reason a series of accidents
prevented them from getting into touch with the com-
manders on their right or left flanks until it was too late.
When at last they returned to Prague there were terrible
scenes in the building of the General Staff, officers back
from the front bitterly reproaching General Krejf and
other generals, not with the capitulation but with not

1 66

PAYING FOR PEACE

having seized power and led a revolution. The men who
made these reproaches were not dictatorial hotheads with
communist sympathies. They were sober, intelligent,
hard-working, realistic professional soldiers who had
learnt from Masaryk to respect democracy.

What was this unfought defeat like for the Czech
Army? We quote Captain Coulson, one of the British
observers sent to the Sudetenland to see the Munich
terms fulfilled. We quote him because nobody can
accuse him of being biased against the Munich Agree-
ment, for he begins his story by saying that September
29th had left him "as much relieved as anyone else in
England". Captain Coulson and his fellow-observer
(for the observers worked in pairs) had attached to them
"an obviously good-natured, unsophisticated-looking,
rather bucolic Czech colonel" whom they christened
Stanislaus ; and here is the account of their first meeting
in a hotel in Prague:

At the beginning, Stanislaus held himself aloof,
coldly and rigidly. Speaking rather poorer German
than ourselves, he talked stiffly of his country's
humiliation, and as he spoke his stiffness turned to
angry bitterness. This grew . . . until it reached
a point at which it was painful to us. He clapped
his hand to his pocket and, stumbling in his speech
through using an unfamiliar language, declared in a
wild whisper that he would shoot as many Germans
as he could and then himself before he allowed a
yard of his country to be handed over to them. With
that his anger was spent and he became apologetically
silent. . . .

They first went to Ceske Budejovice, a town in South
Bohemia, and this is how they found it:

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LOST LIBERTY?

The troops manning the barricades stared curi-
ously and sullenly at us and our Union Jack as we
crawled through the narrow openings and passed
them. The great open space in the centre of the
town, as large as Trafalgar Square, was packed with
a vast crowd, wandering about in uneasy, restless
silence. Troops were everywhere. The doors of
the hotel in the square that we were making for
were surrounded by refugees who were obviously
very poor, . . .

The Czech troops had retreated from the frontier
in order to avoid the danger of a clash with the
German Army and occupied a line a few miles south
of the town. Beyond that line, between the Czech
troops and the frontier, there was chaos. It was a
no-man's-land in which the Czech civil authorities
and Sudeten Germans struggled for control. In
some towns and villages the Czechs managed to
maintain control. In others the Sudeten Germans,
reinforced by armed units of Free-corps organised in
Germany, had driven out the Czechs. In other
places guerilla warfare was going on and there was
no authority whatever. Many had been killed or
wounded.

. . .

Captain Coulson and his companion then went to
Tireboft and set out to visit all the Czech commanders in
their area. The first one they saw, who commanded a
regiment, was typical :

The time was past, he said, when we could give
him any help. He and his country were now
beyond outside help. They would have to help
themselves. "That is our only help," he suddenly
barked, pointing to a map on his table. . . .

1 68

PAYING FOR PEACE

"Every dot you see there is a block-house. And if
we are asked to evacuate these, we won't. Even if
we, the officers, wished to evacuate them, our men
would not obey. We have drummed it into their
heads for months that they must die in these
defences. And they will die in them." . . . Why,
why, why, he called repeatedly, why had his people
been encouraged to oppose Germany, why had they
been dissuaded from making terms with Germany,
when France and Britain did not intend to stand by
them? His men would never leave their block-
houses, he declared. They would fight no matter
what happened afterwards. . . .

"The discipline of the Czech Army is surely too
good for the men to refuse to withdraw/* I remarked
at random. He gave me a dazed look, then smiled
as though he suddenly saw an escape from his
miserable situation. "Yes," he replied proudly,
"you are right. The men will do what we tell
them, and we shall discharge our duty in full order.
Few armies could be subjected to such a moral
strain and remain unbroken." His whole manner
altered. . . , He began evidently to recover his
self-respect and a purpose in life once more. He
saw the task before him in a new light; as a feat of
endurance, an honourable achievement. . . , l

We ourselves remember painfully the shock of seeing
one of our friends, a Czech staff officer, when he
returned from the front at the end of October. It
was only a little over a month since we had seen him,
but in that month he had aged at least ten years. He
was tormented by the thought that he ought to have
disobeyed.

1 Quarterly Review, January, 1939.

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Among the officers there were some suicides a few.
Other officers were prevented from killing themselves
by their men. The men themselves wept and raved
when the orders first came through, but then bravely,
grimly, they set to work dismantling the fortifica-
tions, so that nothing that could be moved should be
left inside them. Men struggled along mountain
roads loaded like mules, carrying five machine-guns,
an incredible weight for a man to carry. As they
marched they said to each other: "Well, we did this
before. We marched half-way across Siberia, and we
gave up our arms, and then we began to fight. Per-
haps it will be like that again."

Many Germans of the Sudetenland came pleading
to the army, terrified and astounded by the news of
Munich. "We have been betrayed, we have been
betrayed; we are the people who will really suffer,"
they cried. They had not wanted union with Ger-
many. "We have been rich in Bohemia and poor in
Bohemia, and we want to stay in Bohemia. We are
not Nazis." They could not do enough for the
Czech Army, for the brutal "Soldateska", the "gang
of murderers", the "Hussite Bolsheviks", as the
German wireless called them in its sober honesty. In
some German districts Czech soldiers who went to
buy hay for their horses found it given to them at one-
third of the price they had paid for it in a Czech
district. Czech soldiers would go to a German
tobacconist to buy cigarettes, and would be charged
for a box of matches but given their cigarettes for
nothing. Always they heard the same story: "They
have sold us to the Reich. You are Czechs, you will
at least have a country of your own. But we, we shall
have nothing. We are the victims of Munich."

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PAYING FOR PEACE

On the afternoon of October 5th President Benes
resigned. His fortifications were in Germany's hands,
and all the protests, all the conditions he had made,
were absolutely unheeded. If he remained. Hitler
would threaten his country still further, would demand
still more. Already in his own country which he
with Masaryk had made, people were turning against
him, reproaching him for his foreign policy, for
having bound Czechoslovakia to Western democracy
instead of making an easy bargain with Nazi Germany.
His speech of resignation, addressed to his "dear
fellow-citizens and friends*', was simple and free from
acrimony, and he, whose whole life-work seemed in
ruins, made at this moment no personal apology, spoke
only of the people's future:

"I was elected to my present position at an essen-
tially different period. As a convinced democrat, I
believe I am right in resigning. . . . The crown of
the tree has been cut off, but the roots of our people
go deep into the soil. Let us return to those roots,
and put into them all our forces, as we have often
done in past history. The topmost branches will
after a time put forth new shoots. . . .

"I close with the expression of my deep faith in
the eternal strength and endurance of our people, in
its energy, toughness and endurance, and above all
in its devotion to the ideals of humanity, freedom,
right and justice, for which it has so often fought
and suffered and with which it has always conquered
in the end. I too fought for them and shall remain
true to them."

The resignation of President Benes was the first clear
sign that Czechoslovakia's independence was now

171

LOST LIBERTY?

merely a name, that all the conscience-comforting
visions conjured up in England and France of a
country stronger though smaller, happier because more
homogeneous, were hollow lies. His fate was not just
a personal misfortune. It was a sign that the ideals
for which millions of Englishmen, Frenchmen and
Americans had died in the Great War were effectively
betrayed, and that a new era of tyranny had begun for
all Europe, and perhaps for the world.

The day after the President's resignation the Fifth
Zone was announced. Czech indignation was bitter.
It was aimed far less against Germany than against
Great Britain. People said, "If Henderson and
Fran?ois-Poncet spend the rest of their lives trying to
atone for this, they will not succeed". Ndrodni Osvo-
bozen{> the paper of the Czech Legionaries, wrote:
"We hear from the west that we have been saved from
the destruction that threatened us, and the leading
statesman of the greatest world Power pursues his
policy with success. His own country and, still more,
France accept this policy, but the consequences of it
are felt by a nation in Central Europe which never
ceased to work for a good understanding with every-
one." Prdvo Lidu, the Czech Social Democratic
newspaper, remarked bitterly: "It sounds like a mock-
ery when the British Prime Minister declares that
Czechoslovakia was saved from disaster. It is as
though one should say after amputating a man's arms
and legs and cutting out his lungs that he had been
saved from death." It did indeed sound like a
mockery.

Captain Coulson describes the effect the Fifth Zone
decision had on the officers with whom he was in
contact. On October yth he was in Jindfichuv

172

PAYING FOR PEACE

Hradec in South Bohemia, with the garrison com-
mander. The new frontier line was not yet known.
Would Germany demand the little group of three or
four German villages south-east of Jindfichuv Hradec,
and seize a great belt of purely Czech territory in order
to get them? Everyone was waiting:

Suddenly there was a commotion outside the
room. The door was flung open, followed by the
entrance of the Corps Commander and his Chief of
Staff. . . . They were silent and composed, but had
they been waiting and wringing their hands they
could not have expressed despair more painfully or
clearly. . . . [The Chief of Staff] silently opened a
large map and spread it on the wall. On it appeared
a thick blue line I had not seen before. It was the
new frontier . . . main roads, main railway-lines would
be cut; towns separated from their countrysides;
country districts sundered from their towns ; whole
villages, even whole towns of the Czechs, included
in the ceded territory. . . . "No!" he exclaimed in a
rising voice. "We never bargained for this! We
have been doubly betrayed induced to accept cer-
tain terms, and then, once we have abandoned our
fortifications on the basis of those terms, these have
been enormously raised. Had we known what we
would have to give up, we should have fought, with
allies or without them. We are ruined. What can
we do now? . , . We are defenceless. Economically
our position is hopeless. We have only one course
open. We must go with Germany.'* As he said
this he glanced at me apologetically, as though he
had said something mean.

That glance of apology was perhaps the most

173

LOST LIBERTY?

uncomfortable of my many uncomfortable recollec-
tions of Czechoslovakia. This man found it in
himself, even then, to be ashamed because his
country had to turn from its former allies. u Do
you know what the worst of all this is?" he went on.
. . . "It is that we no longer have any clear dis-
tinction between Right or Wrong. We have lost
our faith in the Tightness of Right. We can only
believe in Force, and make our terms with it. And
are we mistaken? Let us be realists. What plays
the ultimate role, what is the supreme value of the
world today but sheer, brutal, naked force?" I pro-
tested that we British, at any rate, recognised other
and higher values. "Yes," he agreed, but it seemed
rather acidly, "that may be. You can afford that
luxury. We cannot."

It was on the same day that, meeting an English friend,
a journalist, in Prague, we asked him if he would now
go home to fight for his King and country. "Rather
against them," he replied. He had fought for them
in the trenches for four years in the World War.

* * *

Slowly Czechoslovakia settled down to a poor,
cramped, fettered existence. The alterations in the
map had deprived thousands of people of their homes.
A steady stream of refugees, Czechs, Slovaks, German
Socialists, Hungarian Socialists and Jews poured into
the country at this moment when the whole economy
of the State was in ruins, when it had lost at least 40 per
cent of its revenue and an enormous amount of State
and private property. 1 In 1937 Czechoslovakia had

1 The Prague banks, which had advanced large sums to distressed Sudeten
German industries, were particularly heavy losers.

'74

PAYING FOR PEACE

been the sixth Industrial State in Europe 3 with an export
trade amounting to 84,000,000. She lost at Munich
almost all her leading export industries. The State-
owned radium mine at Joachimsthal went to Germany.
Half the State forests went to Germany, Poland and
Hungary. Practically the whole of the china and
porcelain industry, and two-thirds of the glass industry,
had gone. Of the great textile industry, employing
nearly 400,000 people, two-thirds were lost, and of the
chemical industry, which had its centre in Aussig, 39
per cent. 1 Most serious of all, Germany and Poland
took 90 per cent of Czechoslovakia's lignite (or brown
coal) and over half her hard coal.

The loss of the lignite and hard coal was a terrible
blow to Czech independence. Lignite was the fuel
basis for Czechoslovak industry, for the railways, for
the country's electricity supply, for the heating of its

houses. Since Germany also took all the chief electric

*

power stations, towns like Prague and PIzen were now
entirely dependent upon German good-will for their
electricity supply. They must either buy their elec-
tricity from a station in Germany, or buy from Germany

1 The statistical office in Prague gives the following figures for the losses
in Czechoslovakia's annual industrial production (percentages of the former

annual output):

Stone industry

China

Fine porcelain

Sheet glass

Glass jewellery

Hollow and pressed glass

Heavy chemical industry

Oils, fats, soap, candles

Dyes

Mineral waters .

Yarns

Hosiery .

Haberdashery, buttons

Per Cent

53-5
98-0

89-9

IOO-O

89-6

62-5

39-8
62-7

50-8
73'4
39* 2
75*4

Lace, embroideries

Cellulose, cardboard

Paper

Wooden articles

Bentwood furniture

Musical instruments

Toys

Fish preserves .

Vegetable preserves

Hats

Leather articles .

Umbrellas

8 6' 7 Artificial flowers, feathers

'75

Per Cent

74'5
60-5

62-8
53'S

86-2
63-0
66-4

57"4
42*6

51-9
48-0

92-4

LOST LIBERTY?

the lignite to make it. It is not surprising that Prague
was not very well heated or well lighted that winter.

Financially Czechoslovakia lost 40 per cent of her
revenues, without any compensation from Germany,
Poland or Hungary. On top of this, she remained
responsible for her State debts, her small post-war
foreign debt, and the 42 per cent of the old Austrian
debts and 1 6 per cent of the Hungarian for which she
had been made responsible in 1919. Neither Germany
nor Hungary showed the slightest inclination to take
over these obligations, as in justice they should have
done, and the Essener National Zeitung flatly declared
that Germany would not take over any responsibility
for Czechoslovak State debts since the money had been
spent to construct a Maginot line.

Germany also acquired about 30,000,000 worth of
Czech currency circulating in the Sudetenland. The
German authorities fixed the rate of exchange at 12
German pfennigs to the Czech crown, which made the
value of the crown in marks about 20 per cent higher
than it was in any other currency. The Sudeten
Germans at once converted all their crown into marks
just as the German Government had intended, so that
Germany had suddenly a huge sum in Czech crowns
which could be presented to the Czechoslovak National
Bank for redemption in gold or "value receivable' '.
The National Bank simply did not possess enough gold
or foreign assets to redeem such a sum. Germany
therefore had yet another weapon for political or eco-
nomic blackmail. The Reich then not only refused to
compensate the Czech owners of property or businesses
in the Sudetenland, 1 but actually proposed that these

1 For example, the SivnostenskA Banka, the largest Czech bank, had to
sell its properties in North Bohemia, the NordbOhmische Bergbau A.G.

176

PAYING FOR PEACE

losses be set against the ^30,000,000 worth of Czech
currency, and against the claim that the Czechs should
make good the "losses and injustices" suffered by the
Sudeten Germans since 1919. The Reich took no
account of all that the Czech Government had spent on
schools, hospitals, roads and railways in the Sudeten-
land since the War.

Is it surprising that many people in Czechoslovakia
denounced democracy and the Western Powers, de-
nounced also President Benes and his whole foreign
policy, which seemed to have brought them only^to
this miserable catastrophe, and demanded a "realistic"
co-operation with Berlin. On October 5th Colonel
Emanuel Moravec, a well-known Czech military
writer, published an article in the Liberal Lidove
Noviny which showed plainly what was in many people's
minds. He said:

German policy has succeeded in paralysing us
completely from a military point of view. Do not
let us have any illusions about that reality. That is
why our policy must, whether we like it or not, find
means of bringing about good relations with Ger-
many, with whom we should long ago have come to
an agreement if the "chivalrous" Western Powers
had not ceaselessly threatened to repudiate their
alliance with us.

The same paper had already, on the day before, pub-
lished an article by "Petr Bily", even more bitter;

and the Briixer Bergbaugesellschaft which together had a. value of one
milliard crowns, to the I.G. Farbenindustrie for 150 million crowns. The
I.G.F. bought up a great number of important Sudeten German concerns in
this way, including the great chemical works in Aussig.

177 N

LOST LIBERTY?

All that we know is that there has arisen in our
neighbourhood a great power with whom our State
must not again enter into conflict. We played the
role of the policeman keeping Germany in order for
long enough, and when the decisive hour came we
were abandoned. Good! If it is true that the
world must be dominated not by right but by force,
then our place is where the force is strongest and the
resolution firmest. Let us seek we can no longer
do anything else for an entente with Germany, let
us become, like Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, her provider
and her customer, and let us say "No** to any man-
oeuvre which might range us in an anti-German
front. Let us come to agreement also with all our
other neighbours, and let us build up our security
on their security and their interests. We wished to
fight for the good of humanity, we have been shown
that such a fight does not pay; well, let us occupy
ourselves with our own good, let us think of ourselves
and only of ourselves.

And these articles appeared not in the gutter Press, but
in the newspaper which had always been democratic,
pro-French, the principal supporter of the policy of
Benes. Then a few days later Ndrodni Politika y with
the largest circulation in Czechoslovakia, wrote:

The visit of the German Minister of Economics,
Herr Funk, to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey
indicates how great is the defeat of France and
Britain. Diplomatically it shows more or less that
the French and British guarantee of our frontiers
will not for long have any special value, and that
direct political and economic collaboration with
Germany, and Italy's interest in Czechoslovakia,

PAYING FOR PEACE

will be far more profitable. Our national life will
on the one hand have to adapt itself to direct col-
- laboration with the German Reich, and on the other
not lose sight of our own national interests. We
shall know how to value good relations with Ger-
many.

Friendship with Germany, the end of the Benes re-
gime, no ties with France or England these were the
new notes. The new Foreign Minister, Dr. Chval-
kovsky, and various Ministers and bankers, hastened to
Berlin to show their country's * 'loyal attitude" towards
Germany. Legionaries sent back their war medals
and decorations to England and France. The Czech
Fascist and Agrarian (Right Wing) Press opened a
virulent ^ and disgusting campaign against President
Benes, his family, his friends and his supporters. They
accused Benes not only of having pursued a blindly
wrong^ policy, but of having taken State money, placed
only his creatures in high positions and obstinately re-
fused to listen to the advice of his Ministers abroad, the
chief Minister in question being the Agrarian, M.
Osusky, Czechoslovak Minister in Paris. Portraits of
President Benes and even of President Masaryk were
taken down from the walls in schools and public build-
ings, even in private houses. Dr. Chvalkovsky and the
Prime-Minister-to-be, M. Beran, even (it is said on
good authority) made the proprietor of a restaurant in
Prague take down the pictures of Masaryk and Benes
from ^the walls, and that Dr. Chvalkovsky himself,
laughing, hid them behind a cupboard. In the lounge
of the Hotel Esplanade the two pictures were replaced
overnight by three hunting prints, less offensive to the
members of the Gestapo, who flocked there to hold their

179

LOST LIBERTY?

conferences and to take photographs of the pitiful
Sudeten German or German refugees who came to see
us. In the faculty of philosophy in the University
where he had taught, certain students smashed the bust
of Masaryk, throwing it down the stairs. October
28th, the twentieth anniversary of the creation of the
Republic, was celebrated officially without one word for
Masaryk and Benes, the two men who most of all had
made the State. Dr. Alice Masaryk (daughter of the
President-Liberator) was compelled to resign from the
presidency of the Czechoslovak Red Cross. She left
without receiving for twenty years of devoted work one
word of thanks from women who, six months before,
had courted and flattered her, falling over each other to
speak even a few words to her. Now they turned their
backs on her at the last meeting at which she presided.
The Fascists, the Right- Wing Agrarians, all the re-
actionaries dared at last to come out into the open and
display their hatred for Masaryk and Benes and for all
they had stood for. These very same Agrarians who
had sabotaged every attempt to come to terms with the
Sudeten Germans, helped Henlein to power and promi-
nence in the hope of making an alliance with him
"against Bolshevism", opposed all territorial conces-
sions to Hungary while there was still time, abused the
Weimar Republic, screeched with delight at the seizure
of Tesin which had embittered the Poles these were
the people who now came out of their hiding places to
show their "loyalty to Germany'* and to cast the blame
for all their own mistakes upon the shoulders of Benes.
These people showed that surrender degrades, just as
war degrades, and in both cases it is much the same
people that are degraded.

Germany must be placated, therefore reaction could

180

PAYING FOR PEACE

triumph. On October 2oth the Communist party was
"invited to dissolve" Itself in Bohemia (it had already
been dissolved In the now autonomous Slovakia), and
Its newspapers were prohibited. The democratic Ger-
man paper, Prager Minag^ had the day before ceased to
appear. In Its final number it wrote:

The world which the Prager Mittag loved. In which
spiritually It breathed and worked, is no more. . . .
It would have had to discontinue its struggle, to be-
come an organ for the colourless and lukewarm trans-
mission of official news. It would have been its
bitter duty to damn what It formerly praised, and
praise what it formerly damned. Our friends will
understand that we forgo this. . . .

They now demand the closing down of a paper
whose loyalty to democracy, whose work for a true
friendship between Czechs and Germans of this re-
public, spoke from every page that it ever published.
And now we are told that precisely for this reason we
are unpopular, even a hindrance on the new way
which must be followed. That is the point at
which we must resign. Resign and renounce the
right to say what should still be said.

Early In November came a serious attack upon free-
dom of thought and expression; the Qsvobozene
Divadloy the "Liberated Theatre", was closed. This
may seem a small thing, comparatively unimportant at
a time when thousands of people were homeless, suffer-
ing and hungry. But the Osvobozene Divadlo was not
just a theatre, it was the heart of Czech culture; it stood
for the whole stubbornly democratic, courageous, free
philosophy of the ordinary Czech people. It was one
of the outstanding theatres In all Europe. Two young

181

LOST LIBERTY?

men, Voskovec and Werich, who are among the finest
clowns of our time, with strongly contrasted yet har-
monising temperaments, made it, created all its pieces,
and acted them together with a company that they had
built up. We ourselves, the first time we went to it,
knew no Czech at all, yet it amused and delighted and
impressed us. Its greatest achievement was its public.
It was a real people's theatre, crammed every night with
butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, artists, writers,
professors, students, soldiers, businessmen, clerks,
waiters, everyone except the Fascists and the near-
Fascists, all following with shouts of laughter each turn
of wit and political allusion. Political satire was its
speciality. Voskovec and Werich had no more love
for Fascists and Agrarians than most decent Czechs.
They had therefore many enemies in the Czech Right-
Wing parties who joyfully seized upon their country's
tragedy to take vengeance.

Voskovec and Werich should have opened their new
season in October, 1938, with the revue they had
played in the summer. But this- piece was too full of a
spirit of brave optimism from the old Republic to be
anything but a tragic irony after Munich, so they de-
cided not to play it. They began writing a new piece
based on Bohemian history, but they soon saw that the
'censorship would never allow it. Finally they decided
to open with a new version of an old 'Vaudeville*',
wholly innocent of politics. They felt absolutely bound
to play, partly because they had contracts with their
actors and with the management of the theatre, and
partly on principle, since their special and devoted
public was waiting impatiently to see what line they
would take in the new situation.

Even before the date of the first night was announced

182

PAYING FOR PEACE

the Right-Wing newspapers in Prague published
violent attacks on Voskovec and Werich, describing
them as Jews, "corrupters of the nation's youth",
"murderers of the national spirit' *, "cultural Bol-
sheviks", "professional cynics", and demanding that
such "calumniators of the national interests should be
silenced once and for ever". As soon as the actual date
of the first night November I ith, 1938 was known,
groups of young Prague fascists, chiefly students of
medicine and law, began to organise themselves for
demonstrations and for personal attacks on Voskovec
and Werich. In a secret meeting of medical students
tear-gas bombs were handed out for the evening of the
premiere.

On November 7th Voskovec and Werich learned
from the Prague Police Department, to which they had
sent the text of their piece as usual, that very probably
the censorship would have no objections to make, and
that the piece could be played without alterations.
They were, however, given friendly advice to call at the
Zemskj Urad 1 and inquire about their licence, 2 The
same day they asked the head of the theatrical office
in the Zemskj "Of ad if they could count on being able
to open on the 9th. This official replied that he could
not, at the moment, give them a definite answer.

V. <y W. : "But our piece has nothing wrong with it
in the eyes of the censorship, and our licence runs
to the end of the year 1938. We think therefore
that two days before our premiere^ supposing that

1 Zemsky Urad was a kind of central administration for each of the pro-
vinces of the Republic, below the Ministry of the Interior. The Police
Department was subordinate to it.

2 In Czechoslovakia nobody had the right to open a theatre without a
licence; the licence was valid for one year, and had to be renewed each
succeeding; year.

183

LOST LIBERTY?

we are living in a State where law and justice
count for anything, we have the right to know if
the authorities will let us carry on our profession/'
The Official: "I am extremely sorry not to be able to
give you an exact answer. Ask the Police De-
partment."

The same day, November 7th, Voskovec and Werich
went to the Police Department and repeated what they
had just been told at the Zemsky Urad.

The Police Official: "I am ashamed to watch the game

they are playing with you, without being able to

do anything, but officially I can add nothing to

what you have already been told."
F. 6? W.\ "Do you think they can take away our

licence?"
The Official: "If there are demonstrations during the

performances they will certainly take it away."
V. <y W.\ "Do you think it impossible that they

should close the theatre even before our -premiere

the day after to-morrow?"
The Official (after reflection): "I do not think that at

all impossible."

On November 8th, still in this uncertainty, the re-
hearsals went on and the tickets were sold. On the
morning of the gth, Voskovec and Werich were sent for
by the official in the Zemsky tfrad whom they had seen
two days before. Consulting a dossier^ this gentleman
turned to them and said :

"Each one of us must make some sacrifices in these
tragic times. The authorities believe that the re-
opening of your theatrical season might give rise
to trouble caused by extreme nationalists, and

184

PAYING FOR PEACE

they therefore ask you voluntarily to give up all

idea of iplzyingforthe moment"
V. 6? W. : " Will the authorities kindly tell us, in that

case, who will pay the money we owe to our

artistes and to the proprietor of the theatre for the

moment!,"
The Official (with an embarrassed smile): "Obviously

I cannot answer you."
V. & W. : "We regret very much that we are obliged

to refuse the service which the authorities ask

of us. They ask us, in fact, to close ourselves.

Please understand that we have no intention of

taking upon ourselves a responsibility which seems

too heavy for the Minister of the Interior."
The Official: "I understand your attitude perfectly.

It is natural. I would only ask you to confirm it

in 'b'roces verbal"

Voskovec and Werich then signed a proces verbal in
which they declared that they could not accept the de-
mand of the Zemskj tJrad voluntarily to keep the Qsvo-
bozene Diuadlo closed for the moment, "because our
licence is valid and because we are obliged by our con-
tracts to pay the salaries of the artistes and employees
and the rent of the theatre ; if we cannot play we shall
not have the means we need to cover these expenses".
The same day at nine in the evening a policeman
called on Voskovec at his house and handed him the
decree closing the theatre, a decree 1 based on two laws
of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, one dating from
the Bach regime and one from Metternich the two
periods of the blackest reaction in Austrian history. A
fitting symbol of the new Czechoslovakia.

1 We quote the text of this historical curiosity in Appendix IL

185

LOST LIBERTY?

But if reaction triumphed in Bohemia, out-and-out
fascism triumphed in Slovakia. On October 6th
Slovakia became an autonomous province, with a
government of its own independent of the central
government, with which the only ministries it had in
common were those of Foreign Affairs, National De-
fence, Finance and Communications. Father Tiso be-
came Prime Minister of Slovakia; he was a Roman
Catholic priest and a follower of the late Father Hlinka,
whose movement for Slovak autonomy had actually
allied itself with Henlein and so helped to cause the
country's tragedy. The Vice-Premier was Karel Sidor,
also a follower of Hlinka and a man whose treasonable
relations with Poland were well known. Dr Tiso gave
his first interview as Prime Minister, very suitably, to
the Hamburger Fremdenblatt, and in it he declared him-
self "much gratified by the manner in which the
authoritarian States stamped out all elements which
were morally and nationally undesirable". The "mor-
ally and nationally undesirable elements" in Slovakia
were, of course, the Communists, the Social Democrats
and, above all, the Czechs. Czech civil servants,
doctors and teachers who had devoted the better part of
their lives to Slovakia and had raised its level of culture
and wealth to something like a Western European
standard, were sent packing at a moment's notice.
Often they were arrested, imprisoned, ill-treated. One
young Czech school teacher and his old father, his wife
and their young child, were led handcuffed together
through the streets of Bratislava to the town prison.
His father died there of heart disease, since the Slovak
Government would not allow him to receive medical
attention or nursing. His little daughter was kept
there alone in a cell. The wives of Czech officials were

186

PAYING FOR PEACE

imprisoned with street-walkers and thieves for no other
reason than that of being Czechs. The Slovaks
smashed up Jewish stores and beat up Jews in the best
Nazi manner. A "German Secretary of State" was
appointed to watch over the interests of the 1 70,000-
odd Germans in Slovakia, and the whole country was
overrun by agents of the Gestapo and their pupils, the
"Hlinka Guards" a para-military organisation aping
all other para-military organisations, with the courage
and other qualities of Henlein's Qrdners. One of the
most nauseating things that followed Munich was a
special number of Der Sturmer produced for Slovakia,
in which the Slovaks were treated as "true Slavs",
martyred and deceived by the lying, bestial Jew-ridden
Czechs, and above all by the "Jews' helot" Benes.
This number was sold out in Bratislava. There is no
need to say more of the new Slovakia, except that its
Government having played with alacrity Berlin's game
and demanded a separation from Bohemia, "reparation
for injustices ", and so on, then (in February and March,
1939) cringed to Prague for money to fill its budget
deficit, since even the money it stole from Jews, Czechs
and Communists was not enough to pay for the luxury
of a Hlinka Guard and jobs for every thug. Mr. Sano
Mach, the Slovak Minister of Propaganda, one day re-
ceived a news-film cameraman, whom he asked to make
a film of the Freemasons* rites for the Slovak Govern-
ment. "But", said the cameraman, "how can I do
that? In the first place the Freemasons don't admit
people to their meetings, and in the second place you've
just suppressed them." "Oh, yes/' replied Sano
Mach, "but the Hlinka Guard will act it for you!"
The only question which seemed to interest Sano Mach
was what the cameraman thought of the new uniform of

LOST LIBERTY?

the Hlinka Guard. "I don't like it at all", said the
cameraman. "It isn't original. It's a bastard copy
of the Italian and German uniforms." u Oh > but the
boots/' interrupted Sano Mach, looking down with
pride at his high black boots, "the boots are surely
original." "No/ 5 said the cameraman firmly, "they're
not original either. They're Hungarian." "Yes,"
said Sano Mach, crestfallen, "but that's one of the
things you mustn't say." Vain, ignorant, dishonest,
unscrupulous, cruel, like children that pluck the wings
of flies, the Slovak Autonomists destroyed carelessly
all that the Czechs and loyalist Slovaks had done in
Slovakia.

In Ruthenia the story is not quite the same. The
Ruthenes also acquired an autonomous Government in
October, 1938, but while the Slovaks were willing to
play any and every Separatist game, the Ruthenes, hav-
ing dismissed their first Prime Minister, M. Brody,
because he took money from Hungary, 1 concentrated on
a "Great Ukraine" campaign, carrying out Germany's
wishes to the letter. The Carpatho-Ukraine became
now full of German agents, a new German Consulate
adorned the village of Chust so graciously left by Hitler
and Mussolini to the Ruthenes for their new capital,
Jews and Czechs were turned out and Great Russians
put into concentration camps, the Russian language
was forbidden, Carpatho-Ukrainian Ministers ran to
Berlin for their orders. The Ukrainian Emigres whom
Berlin had been harbouring for twenty years, including
the notorious Hetman Skoropadsky, who had played
the Germans' game in the Ukraine in 1918, emerged

1 The most common remark in Carpattio Ukraine at the time when the
Brody Government was in power was, "Oh, if only Andrej (Brody) doesn't
sell us again!"

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Front page of the Special Number
of Der Sturmer for Slovakia

PAYING FOR PEACE

from their holes and migrated to Chust. Minister
Revay went to Berlin in January, 1939, expressly to
ask Herr von Ribbentrop "to restore order in Carpatho-
Ukraine". (Herr von Ribbentrop is said to have re-
plied that the time had not yet come.) Here again the
Czechs for the moment gained the upper hand, since
Ruthenia is desperately poor, autonomy is expensive,
and the autonomous Government had to face a large
budget deficit. But how long could an impoverished
Bohemia afford or wish to pay for the follies and
treacheries of the Slovak and Ruthene Governments,
egged on as they were by a Reich anxious to use them
against Prague? How long would it pay the expenses
of Nazi propaganda in Slovakia and Ruthenia? How
long, too, would the Third Reich wait before splitting
up what remained of the mutilated Republic by pre-
tending to protect the Slovaks and Ruthenes against the
invented tyranny of Prague?

Czechoslovakia, or Czecho-Slovakia, as it had to call
itself in deference to the Slovaks, became more and
more of a "good neighbour" to Germany. The old
parties in Bohemia and Moravia dissolved themselves,
and two parties took their place. 1 (The Government
Press called this change, euphemistically but mislead-
ingly, an approach to the English and American demo-
cratic systems.) The first of the new parties, the
"party of National Unity" (Strana Ndrodm Jednoty\
swallowed up the Agrarians, the majority of the Czech
National Socialists (once Dr. Benes's party), the
(Catholic) People's party, the National Democrats, the
Traders' party and the (Fascist) National League. The

1 In Slovakia the former autonomist party of Tiso and Sidor had already
outlawed all other parties and formed what they called the party of "Slovak
Unity".

189

LOST LIBERTY?

second party, the tamed Opposition, a National Labour
party (Ndrodni Prdce\ included some members of the
Czech National Socialist party, and the Social Demo-
crats. A few members of the chamber had the courage
to remain outside the parties. The leadership of the
two parties fell to the more reactionary of the old party
bosses, and most independent statesmen, such as Dr,
Krofta or M. Zenkl, had nothing to do with them. No
Jews, of course, might enter the " party of National
Union". With its Slovak ally the Government party
had a huge majority in the Chamber 222 to 6 1 . But
even this was not enough.

At the beginning of December General Syrovy's
government of transition resigned. It had come
through this most terrible catastrophe without a revolu-
tion, without even a financial crisis, a contrast to
Hungary, which, after its territories had been cut down
by the Treaty of Trianon, suffered two reigns of terror
and a financial crisis which lasted for twenty years. On
December ist M. Rudolf Beran formed his new
Government. The official Press described it as a
"Government of specialists and technicians' \ that is, it
contained four members of the former Agrarian party,
M. Sidor, and nine others. 1 M. Beran, the ex-secretary
of the Agrarian party and its eminence grise for twenty
years, had always opposed, openly or secretly, Dr.
Benes. He was intensely unpopular with the people
of Czechoslovakia, who thought he was a traitor and a
profiteer. On December I3th M. Beran introduced
in Parliament an Enabling Act, granting his Govern-
ment full powers for two years. , There were fierce pro-
tests, but rebellion would have been suicide. So the

1 Of the Slovak and Ruthene Cabinets there is nothing to say. They
were exactly as expected.

190

PAYING FOR PEACE

Republic founded by Masaryk and Benes renounced
parliamentary government because it might offend
Germany and hamper the authorities in conciliating
Hitler.

This is what surrender is like. This is the initial
price of peace-at-any-price. When we watched it we
understood why men fight for independence, even
though war so often destroys much more than even the
winners of it win.

191

Chapter XII

THE LION IN THE CAGE

" A LION is a lion even in a cage; he doesn't turn
/-% into a donkey," said Masaryk to Karel Capek.
* -^ A Czech is a Czech even under alien tyranny, he
doesn't turn into a Nazi.

The Czech people, unlike the Slovaks, did not
change. In the first days and weeks after the disaster
many of the best and bravest of them were demoralised,
wounded to death, hating even the miserable Sudeten
German refugees who came flocking to Prague. "We
must have no more Germans here, we must be alone
with our own people." There was a wave of Selbst-
gleichschaltungy of doing Hitler's work for him without
giving him even the trouble of making formal demands:
some of it, as we have described, far from disinterested,
but some of it due to real, sincere demoralisation.
Then, after a very few weeks, there came a sudden
quick recovery. Friends who had horrified and de-
pressed us by their hatred for the refugees, suddenly
changed completely and went to the Red Cross to find
out how best they could help them. They were not
happier, they realised what had happened to their
country and their lives perhaps more clearly still, but
they had become themselves again. The Czech people,
they would do, sullenly, grudgingly and badly, what the
Germans demanded of them, because they could do no
other the Western Powers had seen to that. And in

192

THE LION IN THE CAGE

any case, what was the use of resisting now? They had
been ready to resist in September, and to what had that
readiness brought them? Now they were helpless, and
they must concentrate on preserving the nation by hard
work, and on waiting for their time to come. "In
these dark winter days, when the dense fog surrounding
us physically and spiritually does not allow any hopeful
outlook in the future, all energy is necessary to hold
out, to go through, to persevere. But as always in our
history, so in these days you feel a new mental resistance
arising in all different spheres. There is a motionless
quiet, but only quiet looking forward. . . . The death
of Capek 1 gathered all the writers on the old democratic
basis, on the basis of our cultural tradition. All our
writers worthy of being so-called . . . made very de-
cisive declarations for spiritual liberty and against any
experiment of Gleichschaltung" 2 Or, as another wrote
to us, "It is certainly not easy to suppress the whole
nation".

The Czech people will remain quietly true to
Masaryk. Where they can they will even show that
they are true. The party of National Unity could,
by January, 1939, collect no more than six to eight
per cent of the total membership of the old parties
which it supplanted, but the National Labour Party
was obliged to stop taking members when it reached
the 60,000 mark, for it would never have done for the
opposition to be stronger than the Government!

Just after the Great War there appeared an out-

V

1 Karel Capek died on Christmas Day, 1938. He really died of Munich,
like many other Czechs in those days people who died of ordinary illnesses
which would never have killed them if Munich had not weakened their will
to Jive and their vitality.

a From a letter which the writers received from a friend in Prague in
January, 1939

LOST LIBERTY?

standing novel called The Good Soldier Schwejk the
story of a Czech soldier in the Austrian Army who
muddled and dallied his way through the war, always
wrecking the careers of his Austrian masters, always
getting the better of the Austrian authorities by a
mixture of simplicity and sabotage. The spirit of
Schwejk walked abroad in post-Munich Bohemia.
"What is the new flag of Czechoslovakia? The
Hachakreuz" "Who is President Hacha? The first
President of the second Republic of the Third Reich."
These are typical Schwejkish jokes. The Czech
people mock at their Government, they mock at the
Hlinka Guard, they mock at Germany, they mock at
the Western Powers. They must wait, and they are
waiting.

Meanwhile Kundt, Henlein's former lieutenant and
now Puhrer of the 250,000 Germans left within
Czechoslovakia, did his best to govern the country,
and M. Chvalkovsky, the Foreign Minister, was
summoned regularly to Berlin to receive his orders,
Kundt, in his New Year message to the Czechs,
warned them that they were "embedded in the eco-
nomic realm of Germany ", and could live "only if
they, as the smaller nation, are built into the economic
framework of this great country". Dr. Chvalkovsky
went, in January, 1939, to Berlin, where his hosts
tried with threats to persuade the Czechs to accept a
customs union, the Ntirnberg laws, and above all
a military union, with a German military mission
established in Prague with all the privileges of the
former French mission. The Germans also demanded
a large part of the Czechoslovak gold reserve. The
Czechs resisted all these demands, though they had to
allow many others they tinkered at anti-Semitic legis-

194

THE LION IN THE CAGE

lation (though there was scarcely any anti-Semitism),
they allowed Kundt to form a Nazi party with the
right to fly the Hakenkreuz, flag, they were compelled
to keep up the German university and technical high
schools at enormous expense to their wretchedly poor
country, simply to save Hitler the money and to be
a useful means of causing trouble. 1 Even M. Beran 5
the former Germanophile, had the courage to resist
Germany's most outrageous demands. A Czech friend
said to us, "I have always been against Beran, but I
must admit that he has had more courage than any of
the statesmen of the Western Powers he has resisted
at least four of Hitler's demands". And President
Hacha, the former head of the Czechoslovak Supreme
Court, who succeeded Dr. Benes as President on
November 3Oth, 1938, is an honest and courageous
man and a sincere democrat. He could not resist
German demands when the Germans threatened to
invade Bohemia, but he resisted resolutely those who,
even before Germany made the demand or the threat,
would have given in on vital matters.

Bohemia, at the beginning of 1939, was a Nazi
colony, inhabited chiefly by anti-Nazis. All inde-
pendent Czech newspapers had been suppressed, 2 and
those that remained were more Nazi than the Frank-
furter Zeitung. They represented Russia as the source
of all evils, the Western Powers as decadent and

1 The Czech Government also yielded to an explicit German demand for
the suppression of the paper of the Legionaries, Ndrodni Orvobozeni, the only
decent newspaper left in the Republic. This was the first Czech paper to
support reconciliation with the Sudeten Germans and with the Weimar
Republic. Its editor, Dr. Lev Sychrava, was the first Czech to go into
exi'e in 1914 to take part in Masaryk's work for liberation.

2 For example, Ndrodni Orvobozeni, Sobota (Czech Socialist weekly),
HLzs Prdce (Socialist Youth organ) were all stopped in January, 1939.
Lido've Novmy, still mildly independent, and Pritomnost, a weekly, were in
great danger.

195

LOST LIBERTY?

finished, the Jews as the plague of Czechoslovakia all
in the best Volkischer Beobachter style. Nobody read
them. Everybody read poetry, the only means of
free speech left; and everybody read and re-read the
classic speech which M. Ladislaus Rasin 1 made in
the Chamber on December I4th a speech that was
banned but smuggled from hand to hand in typed or
mimeographed sheets, for it expressed exactly the
Czech people's contempt for their Government, their
contempt for Germany, their real, deep respect for the
tradition of Masaryk and Benes, and their conviction
that their time will come again. M. Rasin said:

"The Chamber has learnt with pleasure that the
Prime Minister, and doubtless the whole Govern-
ment too, have not the slightest wish to conceal
themselves from control by public opinion. In this
gesture I see a promise for the future, a promise
which also means the liberation of the Press, fettered
at present by the censorship, and restoration of the
right of public meeting. So long as these condi-
tions are not realised it is idle to speak of 'control by
public opinion', , . .

"The words of consolation pronounced by the
Prime Minister, that we have made a sacrifice for
peace, a sacrifice never before in history asked of any
country, bring poor consolation. It is certain that
we have struck a mortal blow at our country and it is
doubtful whether we have saved peace for longer than
a few months. I was not one of those who wished to
save peace at the price we have paid. 'There where

1 M. Rasin is the son of the Republic's first great finance minister, Alois
RaSin, murdered by a Communist in 1923, He was the leader of the
National Democrats, but refused to enter the party of national unity with
his colleagues and became an independent deputy.

196

THE LION IN THE CAGE

the tribunes cried peace, I, like a rebel, cried for
battle and I was not alone.' ... I believed that we
should have risked the danger of war with all its
horrors, if our people wishes to live free . . , and at
this present moment the Prime Minister can only say
sadly: "The territory on which we had organised our
national and economic life has been cut down.' . .

"I agree that those responsible for our national
catastrophe should be found, but we must take care
that the nation, on the threshold of a new life, should
not anew be divided into two violently opposed
camps. . . . Nothing could be more harmful than
to introduce into public life the old habits of hatred
and political rancours and vengeances. It is in this
sense that I wished to underline the Prime Minister's
words on the Press, which he considers as a cultural
element responsible, in a modern State, for the heavy
task of creating public opinion and national character.

4 'But, illustrious house, rarely in our political his-
tory of the last fifty years have we witnessed such
orgies of hatred, anger and vengeance as those of the
last few weeks. I do not see cultural activity and
the creation of national character in this. Certainly
a fault or mistake made by a political opponent gives
a free journalist the right . . . to criticise him merci-
lessly, but it gives no one the right to attack his per-
sonal honour, his wife's honour, or that of his family.
Do not let us forget that it is often by campaigns of
this kind that we do harm to our own honour and to
our own national dignity when, in an effort to satisfy
the instincts of the masses, we give an impression as
if our joy in seeing the fall of a political opponent was
greater than the sorrow caused by our national cata-
strophe. . . . We cannot continue to inculcate in the

*97

LOST LIBERTY?

national character hatred towards our own people,
even if they were mistaken, in a period when there
are so many reasons why Czech hatred should turn
in another direction. . . .

"Finally, I should like to say this: the Prime
Minister declared: 'We recognise the fact that our
compatriots are under the domination of another
State, but in their cultural and moral union with us
we do not see and will not see any obstacle to a loyal
attitude towards the States of which they have become
citizens. 7

" Illustrious house, such a recognition can only be
temporary. ... I know very well that it is not the
moment for a revisionist programme, but I cannot,
like one of my colleagues, say that I consider all that
has happened as final, as concluded. A small flame
of national faith must shine in the soul of the nation.
A nation is only great by the power of its courage,
the fervour of its faith and the greatness of its decision
to bear sufferings and make sacrifices for the future.
The Czech nation waited three hundred years for its
renewed independence. For tens of years the Poles
waited for this resurrection, the Hungarians have
waited twenty years for their revision. We, too, we
must wait, nourish the little flame of faith so that it
does not die, so that we do not cower in resignation,
so that the people of the Warriors of God does not
become a people of cowardly slaves. History has
already seen many Great Powers appear and dis-
appear. In the end it is the character of the nation
which will decide if perhaps not we, then at least our
children, shall live to find again a new and better
liberty and a new independence.

"When I first entered this Chamber, I swore to be

198

THE LION IN THE CAGE

faithful to the Czechoslovak Republic. To-day, In
this place, I repeat that I shall remain faithful to that
Republic to which I promised my fidelity, ..."

*

A lion is a lion even in a cage, but lions sometimes
die in cages. On Wednesday, March 15^1, 1939,
Hitler entered Prague.

Five days before, in the early hours of March loth,
Prague had dismissed the Slovak Government, arrested
Dr. Tiso and several of his ministers, disarmed the
Hlinka guard and arrested most of Its leaders. The
central government seemed for a moment to have re-
established its authority, and to have shown, as Mr.
Gedye cabled to the New York Times , that "autonomy
will not be allowed to degenerate Into treason".
General Elias, a Czech general, was given supreme
command in Slovakia, and when M. Chvalkovsky called
upon the German charge d'affaires In Prague to tell
him what had been done, he was. told that Germany
regarded the whole matter as an internal affair for
Czechoslovakia.

The German charge d'affaires had clearly not
listened to his own country's broadcasting stations.
From the moment of the coup the German stations
(worst of all of them Vienna) poured out a sudden stream
of lies, abuse, "atrocity-mongering" against the Prague
Government, and assured the Slovaks and the Germans
of Slovakia of Germany's benevolent protection. M.
Durciansky, Tiso's Minister of Justice who had fled
to Vienna, was declared to be "the sole constitutional
representative of the Slovak people". Herr Karmasin,
leader of the German minority in Slovakia, promised
that "the Germans of Slovakia will fight shoulder to

199

LOST LIBERTY?

shoulder with the young Slovak people". Czech
soldiers and gendarmes could do little against the
Slovak mobs, for how could they charge, let alone fire on,
Slovak demonstrators when there were Germans among
them? They did not wish to give to Hitler a vom Rath.
Hitler did not need one. On March 1 3th Tiso, the
vain, stupid country priest, ready instrument for a
blasphemous invader, went to Berlin to ask for "pro-
tection". Nobody now dared to stop him. German
troops were concentrating in ever-increasing numbers
not only on the Slovak frontier but on Bohemia's
borders too. The German Press and Wireless in-
creased their foul attacks on the " Hussite Bolsheviks' ',
on "these murderers of peaceful Slovak and German
peasants", and went on inciting the Slovaks to rebellion.
And on Tuesday, March I4th, Slovak independence
was proclaimed, Hungarian troops marched into the
Carpathian Ukraine, and the German Army crossed
the frontier of Moravia.

That night President Hacha, summoned to Berlin,
with his daughter and with his Foreign Minister,
rushed to Berlin to try to make some terms, any terms
for his suffering people. Hitler received the visitors
with courtesy; but the Czechs were threatened, both by
German officers and through a diplomatic channel, that
Prague would be bombed and Bohemia devastated if
the Czech people and army should not surrender wholly
and at once and without any resistance. And so at 4.30
in the morning of March I5th, 1 939, the Czech people
and army heard this desperate warning by wireless :

"Attention! Attention! Order from the Presi-
dent of the Republic! Order from the Minister of
National Defence ! To all formations !

200

THE LION IN THE CAGE

"German Army infantry and aircraft are begin-
ning occupation of the Republic's territory at 6 A.M.
Their advance must not be resisted. The slightest
resistance will bring most unforeseeable conse-
quences. In that case they would intervene with
utter brutality.

"All commands have to obey the order. The
units will be disarmed. Military and civil aeroplanes
must remain in airports. None must take to the air."

This warning came again and again, at five-minutes

intervals :

"Attention! Attention! . . . German Army. . . .
Occupation of the Republic's territory. . . . Must
not be resisted. . . . Utter brutality. . . Dis-
armed. . . .

"Attention! Attention! . . ."

Czech people hid their faces at the sight of the Ger-
man troops. They sang the Czech national anthem
and would not be silenced. They threw snowballs at
German tanks. They greeted German troops with
boos and hisses and with tears. . . . Hitler desecrated
the Hradcany and showed himself to the mustered
Nazis of Prague. . . . "This invader has no right in
this territory, but by force of might has taken all the
wealth, property, industry, raw materials, gold and
monies which the great efforts of 15,000,000 people
have created in the last twenty years." That Czech
soldier who carried five machine-guns back from the
fortifications carried them in vain. . . . And there
came not only the German Army but the German
terror. . . . What human agony and suffering to be
placed to the debit of Munich !

201

LOST LIBERTY?

To Munich it belongs. Hitler's invasion of Bo-
hemia was a direct consequence of what Chamberlain
and Daladier did at Munich in September, 1938. For
at Munich the British and French Governments tricked
the Czechs out of their defences, only to leave them
alone to Hitler's mercy. Because of what Great Britain
and France did in September, 1938, Hitler could do
what he liked with the Czechs; and whatever Hitler
may do to the Czechs 3 Great Britain and France are
responsible for it.

202

PART II

RESPONSIBILITIES AND
THE FUTURE

Chapter I

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

WHY did it happen, the surrender of Czecho-
slovakia? Whose fault was it? This is not
iust a question of recriminations or a question
only about the past : if it were, we should leave it out.
It is a question urgently concerning everyone who values
freedom. For if the still free peoples allow the causes
of that disaster and disgrace to go on working, freedom
will be dead in all Europe and menaced in America.
Perhaps even then the nations will not escape an all-
embracing war.

Let us step back from the terrible spectacle of a
martyred people, a people whose martyrdom goes
on and on, daily and prosaic. Let us swallow for a
moment the shame of seeing two great democracies aid
an aggressor and force the Government of a small demo-
cracy to break its constitutional oath and deceive its
people. Let us even hold at a distance, if events allow,
those world-wide evils arranged in London on Sep-
tember 1 8th, 1938; the doubling of the strength of a
predatory coalition, and the democracies' betrayal of
what will have to be their war aims if a next war comes
upon them. There is, of course, a case for the bargain
of Munich a very strong case if it is valid. Is it strong
enough to outweigh the case against? And is it valid?
Is it strong enough? Let Mr. Chamberlain himself
put it. He said on October 6th, 1938 :

205

LOST LIBERTY?

"Anybody who had been through what I had to go
through day after day, face to face with the thought
that in the last resort it would have been I, and I
alone, who would have to say that yes or no which
would decide the fate of millions of my countrymen,
of their wives, of their families a man who had been
through that, could not readily forget. . . . When

K^^&^^l

Warsaw
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Berlin
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T A L

100 sooMiles

YUGOSLAVIA

CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO-DAY. From The Times of March 18, 1939

war starts to-day, in the very first hour, before any
professional soldier, sailor or airman has been
touched, it will strike the workman, the clerk, the
man-in-the-street or in the bus, and his wife and chil-
dren in their homes. . . , When you think of these
things you cannot ask people to accept a prospect
of that kind; you cannot force them into a posi-
tion that they have got to accept it, unless you feel
yourself, and can make them feel, that the cause for

206

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

which they are going to fight is a vital cause a cause
transcending all the human values, a cause to which
you can point, if some day you win the victory, and
say 'That cause is safeP "

If only Mr. Chamberlain had simply said that; if only
he had not claimed that the bargain of Munich was
"self-determination" or "peace with honour", that the
International Commission would protect the Czechs,
that the Czechs had accepted the Franco-British plan of
September igth unconditionally, that the Runciman
Mission had gone to Prague "in response to a request
from the Czechoslovak Government", there would be
far less reason to think that it was no accident that
in September, 1938, the great sufferer was democratic
liberty. But in any case no honest judge can evade
asking whether a world war, once started, would not
have done damage for which nothing could make up,
and whether there is not always, as long as war has not
yet started, at least a chance of preventing it and of get-
ting things put right in the end without war.

What honest person can give a confident answer, no
or yes? For anybody who is still free is face to face at
last with a cruel dilemma peace or freedom? Indus-
trialised war between Great Powers could reduce civil-
isation liberty with it to meaningless chaos; and yet,
liberty once lost to pay for peace, men will fight to re-
gain it, as they have forlornly fought again and again in
history. The dilemma is cruel, but let us at least admit
it and look for an escape.

Is this dilemma, this hard choice between peace and
freedom, inevitable? Was it inevitable before Sep-
tember, 1938? If not, has the essential effect of the
betrayal of Czechoslovakia been perhaps to take away

207

LOST LIBERTY?

from human beings in the whole of Europe at least
and perhaps more widely still what they had until that
surrender, the chance of keeping peace otherwise than
by selling liberty for respite from war? Or is there
still a chance of keeping peace by making a stand
for freedom? If so, what are the forces which in
1938 destroyed that chance and may do so again?
These are the real problems that underlie the crisis
of 1938 and make it still important more and more
important.

Two concrete questions are involved. The first is
this. One thing one only could perhaps really
justify the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, and that is the
horror of modern war, if indeed there was a real danger
of European war over Czechoslovakia in 1938; but did
Hitler mean war at any time in 1938? Or was it all a
bluff, and was the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia in vain?
Was the case for the bargain of Munich valid? Or did
the betrayal of Czechoslovakia perhaps not save peace
at all because peace was never in danger?

To most people the question must at first sight seem
absurd. We, ourselves, in the middle of September,
thought that after his colossally dislocating partial
mobilisation and his speech that ended the Niirnberg
Congress, Hitler had gone too far to withdraw; Hitler,
we thought, was, like other dictators, surrounded by yes-
men, and a Great Britain exceptionally vulnerable to
bombs, yet still neglecting (of all things) home front
defence, might have given to their flatteries just enough
basis to make even a definite threat of collective resist-
ance fail to deter him. Of his visit to Berchtesgaden
on September 15^ Mr. Chamberlain afterwards said:

I have no doubt whatever now, looking back,

208

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

that my visit alone prevented an invasion, for which
everything was ready." I

Of course, nearly everybody accepted that statement.
But is it true?

Already on September 1 8th we ourselves had begun
to doubt if Hitler meant to fight, for we then heard that,
as far as the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service could
make out, there were only 22 German divisions con-
centrated around Czechoslovakia. (Later the Germans
themselves claimed to have had 30 divisions along the
Czechoslovak frontiers, 15 of these divisions being
mechanised or motorised.) 2 That, of course, was not
nearly enough to start an invasion of Czechoslovakia,
whose formidable fortifications had already been quietly
manned. Clearly, it is not true that, three days after
Chamberlain visited Berchtesgaden, "everything was
ready" for a German invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Even after Godesberg, the Germans were strangely
cautious. On September 23rd, when France and
Great Britain allowed the Czechs to mobilise, the French
Minister added that his Government had no news of
fresh German military movements. 3 In Czechoslovakia
a general mobilisation, in France a partial mobilisa-
tion followed still Germany did not mass for a seri-
ous attack. On September 27th, when Chamberlain
warned Benes that, according to the information he had
from Berlin, the German Army would receive orders to
cross the Czech frontier almost at once if the Czechs
had not accepted the terms of Godesberg by 2 P.M. next
day, 4 this message amazed (we are told) an officer of the

1 House of Commons, September 28th, 1938; Hansard, col. 15, our italics.

2 This information was given by Major von Wedel, head of the Press
Section of the German High Command, in a dialogue broadcast by the
German -wireless. See Prager Tageblatt, October 28th, 1938.

3 See above, p. 84. 4 See above, p. 116.

209 P

LOST LIBERTY?

Czechoslovak General Staff, for he knew that the Ger-
mans had not nearly enough divisions near Czecho-
slovakia, that they would need some sixty more for a
serious attack, and that it would take a good four days
to gather them, complete with their material. Again,
according to Mr. Chamberlain, 1 Hitler himself on Sep-
tember ayth told Sir Horace Wilson that Germany, fail-
ing a Czech surrender, would mobilise at 2 P.M. next
day, yet at 2.40 in the morning of the 28th the official
German News Agency publicly denied this. The
denial came three hours after the mobilisation of the
British Fleet had at last begun, and nine hours before
Mussolini made that appeal which so Mr. Chamber-
lain and M. Daladier asserted induced Hitler to put
off for a day the threatened general mobilisation of the
German forces. 2 And meanwhile, "while the English
were digging trenches in Hyde Park nobody dug
trenches in the Berlin Tiergarten, though in a great
war Berlin would certainly have been bombed*'. 3
At Berchtesgaden on September I5th, according
to Mr. Chamberlain, Hitler had "declared categoric-
ally that rather than wait he would be prepared to
risk a world war". 4 It looks as if really that was a
bluff.

Could Hitler have won if war had come in September,
1938? Against a Czechoslovakia deserted by France
and Great Britain, yes, very likely. Franco-British de-
sertion would put Poland and Hungary on Hitler's side.
Hitler could even count on British and French help,

1 House of Commons, September 28th, 1938; Hansard, col. 26.

2 The mobilisation of the British Fleet was announced at 11.30 P.M. on
September ayth; the D.N.B. issued its denial at 2.40 A.M. on the 28th; and
Mussolini's demarche was at 11.45 A.M.

3 Economist, October i5th, 1938, Berlin correspondent.

4 House of Commons, September 28th, 1938; Hansard, col. 14.

2IO

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

very effective even if called " non-intervention' \ in case
Russia should help the Czechs even without France.
But suppose France and Great Britain had stood firm in
19383 what were Hitler's chances?

Before and after Munich many people in both Great
Britain and France looked hard for excuses for betraying
the Czechs, and one of their excuses was that nobody
could rely on Russia. Lord Winterton, for instance,
then Chancellor of the Duchy, said that "Russia only
made very vague promises owing to her military weak-
ness". 1 But why, if that is what the British Govern-
ment really thought, did the British Foreign Office
issue, on the evening of September 26th, a communique^
never repudiated, which said: "If in spite of all efforts
made by the British Prime Minister a German attack is
made upon Czechoslovakia, the immediate result must
be that France will be bound to come to her assistance,
and Great Britain and Russia will certainly stand by
France"? What are the facts? Were Russia's pro-
mises in fact vague? Already on March lyth, just
after the invasion of Austria, M. Litvinov proposed an
international conference to find means of preventing an-
other coup deforce ; but this proposal the British Govern-
ment rejected. 2 On September 2nd M. Litvinov saw
the French Ambassador in Moscow, who asked what
Russia would do if Czechoslovakia were attacked; and
here is M. Litvinov's answer:

"We intend to fulfil our obligations under the

1 In a speech at Shoreham; see The Times, October irth, 1938. Challenged
on this speech in the House of Commons on November i4th, 1938, neither
Lord Winterton nor the Prime Minister would withdraw the statement that
Russia was vague and weak.

2 Mr. Chamberlain, on March 24th, 1938, said that the Russian proposal
would involve "less a consultation with a view to settlement than a concerting
of action against an eventuality which has not yet arisen**.

211

LOST LIBERTY?

pact z and, together with France, to afford assistance
to Czechoslovakia by the ways open to us. Our
War Department is ready immediately to participate
in a conference with representatives of the French
and Czechoslovak War Departments to discuss the
measures appropriate.

44 Independently of this, we should consider it
desirable that the question should be raised at the
League of Nations, if only as yet under Article XI,
with the object first of mobilising public opinion and
secondly of ascertaining the position of certain other
States whose passive aid might be extremely valu-
able.

"It is necessary, however, to exhaust all means of
averting an armed conflict, and we consider one such
method to be an immediate consultation between the
Great Powers to decide on the terms of a collective
demarche" z

Again, on September igth, when the Czechoslovak
Government asked whether Russia would give Czecho-
slovakia prompt and effective help if France should do
the same, the Russian answer was "Yes". Yet again,
on September 23rd, although the Czechs, by accepting
the Franco-British plan, had virtually repudiated their
alliance with Russia, M. Litvinov announced formally
to the League of Nations that Russia would still aid the

1 The pact of mutual assistance between Russia and Czechoslovakia was
concluded in May, 1935. It was first conceived as one part of a general
regional pact an Eastern Locarno in which Germany and Poland should
take part. They refused. The Czechoslovak Government then stipulated
that Russian assistance, in case of war, should depend on French assistance.
Even this precaution did not save the Czechs from being the target of anti-
Bolshevik propaganda in Great Britain and France.

2 Quoted and reaffirmed by M. Litvinov in his speech at Geneva on
September 2ist; see Daily Telegraph, September 22nd, 1938.

212

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

Czechs if France were to do the same; 1 and on that
same day, at four in the morning, Russia had warned
Poland that, if Polish troops should cross the Czecho-
slovak frontiers at any point, the pact of non-aggression
between Russia and Poland would be no longer in
force. 2 Afterwards M. Vavrecka, Czechoslovak Minis-
ter of Propaganda at that time, a business man from
the firm of Bat'a and therefore hardly a communist, said
in a broadcast on October 2nd that " without doubt
Soviet Russia was ready to go to war". Was Russia
able, as well as willing, to help effectively? There were
in Czechoslovakia by September, 1938, about 200 of
the latest Russian aeroplanes, which the Czechs had
bought from Russia; 3 there were also, close to the
Lithuanian frontier, many Russian bombers ready to
fly to Czechoslovakia and to bomb Berlin on their
way. There had been regular conversations between
the Czechoslovak and Russian General Staffs, with the
fullest exchange of military secrets. At about 5 P.M.
on September 2 1 st a message came to the Czechoslovak
Government from its Minister in Moscow, urging it to
send a 'plane at once to Kiev for the Russian liaison
officers. 4 On the Polish frontier, so the Riga corre-
spondent of The Times reported, formidable Russian
forces were massed. 5 At Geneva, on September I ith,

1 Daily Telegraph, September 24th, 1938.
* Ibid.

3 Their presence gave rise to a tragi-comic protest from the Czech Com-
munist Party, which took them for German machines.

4 See above, p. 68.

5 "Whatever the Soviet Government's real hopes and intentions, they have
a formidable force ready within striking distance numerically stronger,
indeed, than the whole of Poland's peace army, equipped abundantly and, in
spite of the havoc caused by 'purging' since 1937, capable of making a nasty
mess of Poland hi a very short time. Within 200 miles of the frontier, in the
special Kiev and White Russian Military Districts since their reorganisation
in August, they have approximately 30 infantry divisions, mostly at between

213

LOST LIBERTY?

M. Litvinov and the Roumanian Foreign Minister
reached an agreement by which Russian troops might
go through Roumania to help the Czechs. 1 For some
time the Roumanians had been working hard to improve
the communications between their Russian frontier and
the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia. 2 The Russians, too,
had been hard at work on their roads and railways in
the west, and already in May " Czechoslovak military
circles' ' were "satisfied that the Red Army has over-
come one of Russia's greatest military weaknesses
the state of her road system by special adaptations
of mobile mechanised material". 3 What effect had
the "purges" had on the Russian forces? As late as
August 3Oth not a very well-chosen moment the
Russian Government announced that Admiral Orloff,
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, had been shot as
a traitor, together with the admirals commanding the
Baltic Fleet and the Naval Academy; and so many
others were missing that none of the naval officers who
had held high posts a year before were still in place.
These "purges" were not only a damning proof that
there is little to choose between Nazism and Bolshevism
a tragic contrast to the ideals which had helped to

three-quarters and full war strength, each division composed of three regi-
ments and strong artillery, tank, chemical, and aviation sections altogether
between 330,000 and 350,000 men. The air force available for this army has
something like 3000 aeroplanes, mostly heavy bombers and fast fighters of the
newest types. At Minsk, Slutsk, Novgorod, Volynsk, Proskuroff and other
places near the frontier are extremely numerous cavalry and tanks five
cavalry corps . . . two tank corps, and 10 tank brigades altogether a
minimum of 50,000 sabres and 2000 tanks. In the case of hostilities the
tanks intend to make a breach for the cavalry in the south. . . . Also . . .
even without mobilisation the Red Army is already much above nominal
-peace strength. . . ." (The Times, September a6th, 1938; see also the article
Dy Georges Friedman in Europe, January i5th, 1939.)

1 V Europe Nouvelle, October ist, 19385 see also The Times, September
izth, 1938, Geneva correspondent. 2 Seton-Watson, op. tit

3 Daily Telegraph, May 8th, 1938, Prague correspondent.

214

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

cause the Russian Revolution they were also a sign of
grave internal disunity, and they must have damaged
badly both the brains and the morale of the Russian
forces. Yet, even so, both the army and the air force
of the U.S.S.R. must have been formidable, if only
because the sheer numbers of their trained pilots and
soldiers were so vast that it would have taken a massacre
to cause a shortage. Russian material had done well in
Spain; so had Russian pilots; Russia had also in plenty
most of the raw materials essential for war, and most of
her key industries were hard for bombers to reach. In
short, it looks as if Russia was ready, willing and able
to help the Czechs quite effectively against a German
attack. So the Czech experts thought, and they,having
had frank technical exchanges with the Russians, must
have known the full facts more nearly than the French
and British experts far more nearly than a Lindbergh,
however eminent. If France had marched, Russia
would have marched too, and the result must have been
a neutral Poland perhaps later hastily fulfilling her
alliance with France while Roumania and Jugoslavia
would have checked any Hungarian aggression under
the terms of the Little Entente. What, then, were
Hitler's chances?

In a war at all prolonged and fought to a finish, hope-
less. Fifteen years of relatively complete disarmament
had made the German Army very short indeed of officers
and trained reserves even small Czechoslovakia alone
had nearly as many trained reserves as Hitler's Ger-
many in September, 1938. Even to the German air
force these fifteen years of non-existence were a crush-
ing disadvantage, for although nearly all its machines
were new, it was very short of trained crews, and crews
are far harder to replace than machines the more so as

215

LOST LIBERTY?

machines become faster and anti-aircraft defences more
effective. A few months, then, and Germany would
have been at a crushing disadvantage in the air; a year
of war and the German Army would be badly officered
and half-trained. Germany's aircraft industry was
magnificent; but the whole war industry of Germany
was already working at full stretch and taking up a war-
time share of the country's resources (the people had to
go short of butter for the sake of guns) ; so that if war
had come, Germany's war industry could not have ex-
panded much, while the British and French war indus-
tries would have been expanding every month. Per-
haps, because Great Britain was exceptionally vulnerable
and had left home front defence to the last, Germany
might have half-paralysed the British war industries at
the start and delayed their planned expansion ; still there
would be the war industries of Canada and Australia
and, very likely, supplies also from the U.S.A. for the
countries superior at sea. Meanwhile, the German and
Italian industries were vulnerable to bombers more so
than the French while that of Russia was very hard
for bombers to reach. Above all, the war industries
of Germany would soon have been short of essential
raw materials. Hitler had not, until after the Munich
Agreement, the chance to draw upon the food and fuel
and minerals of south-eastern Europe. If Italy had
stayed neutral, Great Britain and France could not have
blockaded Germany at once; but even so, how could
Germany hold out? With what could Germany buy
the vast imports needed for war? And if Italy had gone
in with Germany, the first thing likely to happen was
the loss of two Italian armies one in Spain, one in
Abyssinia, both cut off. Italy could have stirred up
trouble in Palestine and Egypt, kept a good many

216

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

French divisions in Africa and on the Alps, and perhaps
sent some divisions against the Czechs at a critical
moment; but not perhaps for Iong 3 for one of the first
things Genera] Gamelin had planned to do, if war
broke out, was to land French troops at once in southern
Italy. Italy, very poor, had had a bad harvest, and
the people, war-weary already because of Spain, hated
the Germans with an old, deep and agreeing hatred.
Hitler then, whether alone or with Italy, had no chance
of winning a long war against France, Great Britain,
Czechoslovakia and Russia.

Could Hitler have won a lightning war against this
coalition? A leading light of the City of London told
us after Munich that Germany had 1500 'planes set aside
for bombing London and that the British authorities ex-
pected 30,000 casualties in the first twenty-four hours. 1
Many people in England and France tried to justify
betraying the Czechs by pointing out that the French
Air Force was very weak and that British anti-aircraft
defences hardly existed. Yet these facts were clearly
not decisive, for in spite of them, on September 26th
and 27th, the British and French Governments them-
selves threatened war. Either their threat was only a
bluff or they at least judged that no attack from the air

1 In the Daily Telegraph of September i2th, 1938, the Diplomatic Corre-
spondent wrote: 'Tor some time it has been known that the German staff plan
for an attack on Czechoslovakia, if it had to be put into execution, is based on
a swift and intensive bombardment, so terrific that the morale of the popula-
tion might be broken and the armies surrounded and disorder spread in the
Sudetenland by 'legionnaires'. Doubtful whether it would be possible to
count on British neutrality, it is reported that Germany has ^earmarked'
1500 'planes for employment in possible Anglo-German hostilities. This is
the background against which the full Cabinet wiH meet this morning to
determine what further action is possible to avert the risk of war." This may,
of course, have been not a real German plan but a preparation for bluff at
Berchtesgaden, as the phrase "if it had to be put into execution" rather
suggests,

217

LOST LIBERTY?

could knock them out. Besides, air attack by itself is
unlikely ever to be decisive. What chance had Hitler
of beating the coalition quickly on land? Nobody
can win a lightning war without attacking, and going
on attacking. The Great War showed that a careful
attack requires forces superior by at least three to one ;
the war in Spain showed that this was still true, and
even if the first attack were a complete surprise, it
would need vast reserves of troops and material on the
spot to feed it, to carry it through. It was already late
September: if Germany and Italy had not a decisive
success within two months of zero hour, they would be
in for a long war with their initial stocks and hope spent.
What is more, to a quick victory against a well-equipped
nation surprise is now almost essential ; yet in Septem-
ber, 1938, Hitler had given away the advantage of
surprise so much so 1 that this was one of the strongest
reasons for thinking he was bluffing. In September,
1938, Hitler advertised so stridently his intention to
attack the Czechs that it looks as if he never had this
intention. It looks as if Hitler did not mean to attack
the Czechs ; his aim was to induce the democracies to let
the Czechs down. This, not a lightning war, is the aim
to which the methods he chose in 1938 were adapted.
Had Hitler, then, any chance of getting what he
wanted by war, if France and Great Britain had stood

1 Monsieur Pierre Cot points out: "Herr Hitler let the Czechoslovak mobil-
isation go forward in peace; he let France take some very judicious measures
of security; he let Mr. Duff Cooper mobilise the British Fleet. . . . Herr
Hitler let pass all the time required for us to establish, all along our frontiers,
our observers* posts; all the time required for our own bombing squadrons to
receive their munitions; all the time required for us to see that we had a year's
supply of petrol; all the time required for perceiving that the anti-aircraft
defence of Paris was inadequate and . . . for completing it by means of the
Navy's anti-aircraft artillery" (UArmee de FAir> pp. 42, 43; Grasset, 1939,
18 fr.).

2l8

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

firm? Perhaps one. Germany and Italy, together and
centrally placed, would be "on interior lines" that is
able to switch great forces from one front to another
much more quickly than their dispersed opponents.
Their strategy would therefore be to concentrate on one
front, holding the others as lightly as they could and
making a few side-shows or feints to divert large forces
of the enemy. Could they not perhaps in this way
bring to bear on the exposed Czechs overwhelming
forces? Could they not perhaps break in and cut off
the Czechs before much help reached them from
Russia and before France could gather enough forces
to pierce and roll up the Siegfried line? If so, then
the anti-totalitarian coalition might fall to pieces, each
Power seeking a separate peace at the expense of its
allies for fear others might do it first. For Hitler then
would already have what he set out to win, and would
only have to hold it against costly attacks. In the end
his enemies, if they held together, would be bound to
win ; but it would be a long business, involving massacre
and ruin without precedent the more so if at the start
Germany had attacked ruthlessly from the air; and Ger-
man propaganda, allied to ill-informed pacifists and
other elements, would be dividing public opinion in the
democratic countries, while in Russia the unrest, of
which those purges were the sign, might come to a head.
Nobody, therefore, can say for sure that Hitler had no
chance of success, especially as there is always "the
fortune of war ".

But how great was this chance? In England and
France many people made the excuse: "Whatever we
had done, Czechoslovakia would have been overrun in
a few weeks long before any help from either of us
could have reached her". Before and after the crisis

219

LOST LIBERTY?

we even met many, people who were surprised to hear
that the Czechs never expected to see a French army
march into Bohemia after a few weeks or months of war
that what the Czechs expected of the Western Powers
was either to deter German aggression by collective re-
sistance or, if war came, to draw off a good many Ger-
man troops, to let Czechoslovakia take help from Russia
without being treated like Republican Spain, and to
keep the Poles neutral. This the Western Powers
could surely have done, and it would have been enough.
Few people in England realised how strong and ready
the Czechs were, but the Germans at least took them
seriously. In the night of the invasion of Austria, Ger-
many twice asked the Czechs for an assurance that they
were not going to mobilise, and the German troops
waited for several hours on the Austrian frontier until
the Czechs gave the second assurance. People say that
after the Germans took Austria the situation of the
Czechs was hopeless not only that they had yet an-
other stretch of frontier with few material aids to de-
fence and with the Germans now on the south as well as
the north of their country's narrow waist, but also that
they had not fortified it. They had fortified it, not
heavily but ingeniously, by September, 1938; mean-
while the Germans had on their side of the Czech-
Austrian frontier no serious fortifications and very poor
and exposed communications. The Czechs, if the Ger-
mans had attacked them, would not simply have sat still
and been shelled ; they would have counter-attacked at
suitable places and moments perhaps even gaining the
line of the Danube from Bratislava to Passau. The
shape of Czechoslovakia, long and narrow, was of
course a great danger, but it had this advantage: it
allowed the Czechs to switch troops quickly from north

220

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

to south and south to north; and for this they were well
equipped, with good railways and mechanised or motor-
ised units in plenty. To attack from the air the Czechs
were much less vulnerable than the Germans, because a

very small proportion of their people lived in towns

except in the Sudeten German districts ; they had also
dispersed and rebuilt their great industries of war, to
make them less vulnerable to any bombardment. They
had an up-to-date air force with a large reserve of pilots,
plenty of heavy and light artillery, of tanks and of
modern anti-aircraft batteries, the latest fortifications 1
and a secret anti-tank gun of surprising power; they
had, in dispersed storage, reserves of liquid fuel and raw
materials for several months of intense warfare; and
they could mobilise thirty-five to forty highly trained
and fully equipped divisions. Germany could mobil-
ise, it is said, a hundred and forty divisions and the
Italians a doubtful forty. Could France have kept in
play enough German and Italian divisions? Almost
certainly. The Siegfried line was not (Hitler even said
so) ready till December, and its concrete was not dry;
General Gamelin even thought the French Army would
be through it in a fortnight. If he was wrong, if in
modern warfare on land the advantage of the defensive
is overwhelming, then so much the better for the
Czechs, who would be defending. If bad weather
would slow down the Russian troops marching through
Roumania, it would also be likely to hinder the German
attacks. If the Powers of the Axis were on interior
lines, the German railways were already in bad repair
and short of rolling-stock. In short, if Great Britain

1 The Czech Maginot line was designed to resist the shells from guns of
15 cm. calibre, but the Czechs tested it with their 30.5 cm. mortar. A general
watched the test from inside the fort that was being shelled. He survived
unharmed.

221

LOST LIBERTY?

and France had stood by the Czechs in 1938, Hitler's
only chance of winning a war was to finish with the
Czechs at once, and it was a very poor chance.

But that is not all. It is not even true that, if war
had come, the anti-totalitarian coalition could only have
won by making it a long war. The Great War of 1 938
might well have been a short war with Hitler the loser.
In October, 1938, the Czech troops often came in close
contact with the troops of the Reichswehr whose business
was to take over the Sudeten districts. Again and again
we heard this story: German officers had taken Czech
officers aside and said, "Why didn't you resist? It
would have cost us a year to get through'*; sometimes
even, "Why didn't you resist? We were only waiting
to come over to you." At first we were very sceptical
of these stories, but in the end we believed them. They
came from many parts of the frontier, from the ranks
and from officers, including some whose word and
judgment nobody could doubt. The German troops
in several districts were well clothed and well equipped;
but in others they were clearly armed for an occupation,
not for an invasion, and their unforms were of Ersatz
stuff, not fit to stand a winter. Many German soldiers
looked with open envy at the clothing of the Czech
soldiers. The soldiers of the Reichswehr, unlike Hen-
lein's Qrdners^ behaved correctly. They even in many
cases began by shooting some of the Ordners who had
beaten up Jews and Socialists or looted shops. In one
case they let the Czech soldiers do the shooting (the
Henleinist hooligans were in a tower with a machine-
gun, and the German soldiers stood beside the Czechs,
praising their aim); in another case a German officer
said to a Czech, "This is only a beginning: we shall do
this in Germany one of these days". There were also

222

WAS HITLER BLUFFING?

cases where German officers welcomed Sudeten German
Social Democrats into the Reichswehr, for Socialists
who had had the courage to stand up for the Republic
in spite of the Henleinist Terror would clearly make
better soldiers than the hooligans of Henlein, whose
favourite exploit was to shoot a Czech policeman in the
back, batter his head and run away. These facts fit
closely in with others that are well known; for instance,
that the feud between the German Army and the para-
military organisations goes very deep, being older than
Hitler's Party; that the responsible officers of the Ger-
man Army were strongly against risking war in 1938 ;
and that almost all the people of Germany were pro-
foundly fearful of war, in contrast to that one inhuman
young generation of Germans in whose minds there is
nothing except the propaganda of Hitler and Streicher
the nightmare problem for any future liberal Ger-
many. In 1938, after the German Press and Wireless
had accused the Czechs of every atrocity, still the Czech
Legation in Berlin neither had nor needed a guard.
Let us allow largely for the strange fact that, when
their country actually plunges into war, people do often
fight and die for a regime they detest. Still the World
War made ordinary people much more critical of causes
for fighting than they have ever been before, and this
not only in France and Great Britain but in Germany.
For all these reasons, war in 1938 might well have
meant revolution in Germany within a few months, after
the first German reverses; and German reverses there
would have been, the Czech Army could and would
have seen to that. The revolution in Germany would
not have been a Bolshevik revolution, for how could
it be? The organisations of the Left in Germany
had been dissolved and discredited. One organisation

223

LOST LIBERTY?

stood ready and respected the Army. The Great War
of 1938, then, if it had come, might well have been
short, ending in Hitler's fall and in a relatively moderate
regime for Germany, especially if the anti-totalitarian
coalition had from the start made to 'Germany a stand-
ing offer of an unvindictive peace.

The facts are complex, but the conclusion is clear.
If France and Great Britain had stood by the Czechs in
1938, they could almost certainly have deterred Hitler
from attacking Czechoslovakia; for Hitler had almost
no hope of winning a war against them, and there are
many signs that he never meant to fight them. By
letting down the Czechs, France and Great Britain be-
trayed in advance the aims for which they would have to
fight if war in the end should involve them, threw away
thirty-five first-rate divisions, a great industry-of-war, a
useful air force, a key strategical position, and gave to
Germany the chance to gain control of all the food, fuel
and minerals of eastern Europe. Germany may fail:
in taking Austria and the Sudetenland Germany took
liabilities as well as assets, and the Czechs will never
forget they once were free. The finances and morale of
Germany might break without a war, especially as the
one thing that united all Germans, the desire somehow
to be free from Versailles, is already achieved, and Hitler
has served his initial purpose. The Franco-British
ultimatum of September 2ist, 1938, definitely set up
International anarchy in all Europe and beyond, and in
a world so fluid all things are possible, even good things.
But nobody ought to base a policy on hopes of happy
accidents, and it remains likely that in September, 1938,
France and Great Britain destroyed the power, which
until Munich they still had, to have peace without
selling freedom,

224

Chapter II

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

iHE worse-than-wasted sacrifice of the Czechs is
an eternal warning. How did things get to such
a pitch that it seemed to most people in Septem-
ber, 19385 that a great war would come if Czechoslovakia
were not tricked into enslavement? How prevent this
from happening again? It is vital to know what forces
and what people cause crises which, if the series of them
goes on, will enslave us all.

The man most to blame for the Czech tragedy is
strange as it may seem Adolf Hitler. If modern war
is a thing so terrible that to many honest people even
the betrayal of Czechoslovakia seems a price well worth
paying to put it off, what words are strong enough to
condone the crime of threatening war for gain? Yet
this is what Hitler did in September, 1938 unless he
then knew for certain that, whatever happened, there
would be no general war, in which case the crime is not
wholly his.

It is strange that there should be any need to say this.
But there is. For all through the crisis there were
people and papers in England and France pretending
that Hitler was in the right and blaming the Czechs.
What is more, the British Government and the French
Government actually threatened to hold the Czechs
not Hitler solely responsible for a war that might
come if the Czechoslovak Government did not accept,

225 Q

LOST LIBERTY?

without consulting its people or its Parliament, an out-
rageous demand. 1 After Germany had staged a partial
mobilisation and refused arbitration, 2 after Germany
had incited the Sudeten Germans to revolt, had sent
them arms and had waged a bestial campaign of lies and
insults against the Czechs by Press and Wireless, the
Governments of two great democracies actually threat-
ened to hold the Czechs solely responsible for a war that
might follow! This alone is enough to show that
Hitler was not the only criminal; that Great Britain and
France condoned his crime if they did not aid it.

Adolf Hitler and his henchmen not only committed
a crime, their methods were dirty. In March, 1938,
they gave a solemn pledge to abide by the Treaty of
Arbitration between Germany and Czechoslovakia, one
of the Locarno treaties of 1925 which Germany had
freely accepted. Six months later they broke this
pledge. In May the official German News Agency re-
ported that an affray at Komotau had caused a hundred
casualties, yet " careful inquiries from a neutral source
revealed the number to be no more than fifteen". 3 One
week-end in July the same German News Agency
suddenly announced that the Czech Army was mobilis-
ing ; we were in Prague and saw not a sign of military
movements; a very careful English observer who was
wandering in the Sudeten districts at the time also saw
none, and in the end Mr. Chamberlain told the House
of Commons that the British Government's observers
had reported the news to be false. On August 7th
there was a tavern brawl at Hohal, in which Wenzel
Bayerle, a Henleinist, was killed by a Social Democrat

1 See above, pp, 55-56.

2 Or so the British Government suggested; see above, pp. 63-64.

3 Sir Alfred Zimmern, speaking at Chatham House, June i2th, 1938.

226

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

who was an Austrian refugee; the German Press and
Wireless at once, in screaming chorus, declared that it
was a Czech who had killed Bayerle "out of national
hatred". 1 (The Polish wireless took up this German
lie, and many others throughout the crisis.) Again,
they accused Bat' a (the famous manufacturer of shoes, the
Czech Ford) of being a Jew, although he came of an
" Aryan" family that had been Catholic since 1576.
On one day, September i6th, 1938, the officially con-
trolled Press and Wireless of the Third Reich assured
the world that in Prague there were queues before the
provision dealers plundering the shops, that Hausmann,
the Bezirkskiter of Eger, had been shot by the Czechs,
that Czechs tanks were going through Sudeten villages
shooting right and left, that the Czechs had put
swastikas on some of their lorries to persuade the world
that Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia, and that 62
Slovak soldiers had crossed into Germany saying that
they would not shoot on Sudeten Germans. All lies,
easy to refute : Hausmann, for instance, had simply fled
to Germany. On September 22nd, when the Vienna
wireless announced that Germans were being attacked
and blood was flowing on the Vaclavsk6 Namesti in
Prague, people ran out into the street to see, and found
that nothing had happened. The incident at Moravska
Ostrava on September yth was, in Lord Runciman's
judgment, "used in order to provide an excuse for the
suspension, if not for the breaking off of negotiations"
on the Czech Fourth Plan, and the British Govern-
ment's observer reported "that the importance of this
incident was very much exaggerated". 2 And so on,

1 There was an honourable exception. The Frankfurter Zeitung men-
tioned that the man who killed Bayerle was not a Czech.

3 Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons, September 28th, 1938;
Hansard, col. iz.

227

LOST LIBERTY?

and so on. These are only a few examples, so few that
they give a very false idea of the stream of lies, unprece-
dented in time of peace, in which the German Govern-
ment, through its many organs all under its absolute
control, indulged. It even tricked some of its own
people into risking their lives : German storm-troopers
arrested in Czechoslovakia were astounded to find
Czech police still on duty, for in Germany they had been
told that the Czechs had handed over the territory.
And Hitler personally lied to President Roosevelt, for
in his reply to the President's message of September 26th
he wrote that "the Prague Government were not willing
to recognise the elementary rights of the Sudeten Ger-
mans", and that "innumerable dead, thousands of in-
jured, tens of thousands of detained and imprisoned
persons, and deserted villages, are the accusing wit-
nesses before the world of the outbreak of a hostility
already long apparent on the part of the Prague
Government". What contemptible nonsense! Any-
one on the spot who was not physically blind could see
that Hitler was lying. People who like the fascist
powers or find their success magnetic often say that
they are brutal perhaps but at least honest and direct, a
refreshing contrast to the hypocritical and shifty demo-
cracies. That is simply not true. If Hitler too has not
dishonoured obligations, dishonoured himself and dis-
honoured his wretched country, then "honour" and
"dishonour" have indeed become words without mean-
ing. The great democracies of Western Europe have
soiled themselves, heaven knows, especially by their
treachery to the Czechs ; but to run to the other extreme,
to admire Hitler and Mussolini as straightforward
fellows, is madly unrealistic.

There are excuses for Germany's behaviour, though

228

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

not enough to justify it. After the World War the
victorious Powers, by putting the Peace Treaties to un-
just uses, by going on year after year with the idiocy of
reparations, and by evading their engagement to share
in disarmament, did a great deal to make inevitable the
rise of Hitler and the feeling that gangsterism alone
would bring Germany justice. The United States, as
well as Great Britain, France and Italy, is to blame, for
the United States could have moderated these evils, but
stood aloof. But to say that Munich was therefore
just is absurd, for how can it be just to visit all these sins
upon one small Power and to help the aggressor against
an innocent victim? The writings of Fichte, Richard
Wagner, Treitschke, and Houston Stewart Chamber-
lain, bear indelible witness that a great deal of Hitlerism
existed before Hitler. And can anything justify the
crime of threatening twentieth-century war for gain?

Many people would like to put the whole blame for
the tragedy of September, 1938, upon the Peace
Treaties; for, they say, clearly treaties which so fixed the
Czechoslovak frontiers as to include over three million
Germans made the whole trouble inevitable. But this
is quite untrue. For two good reasons the frontiers of
1919 absolve from responsibility nobody who took part
in the events of 1938. In the first place, there was a
strong case for those frontiers, as well as against them.
The man in the street very naturally asks, "Why did the
Peace Treaties so arrange the frontiers of Czecho-
slovakia as to include nearly three and a half million
Germans? Those treaties based thewiselves quite
rightly on the 'self-determination of peoples 1 ; why,
then, did they depart from that principle in this case? 1 '
The chief reason was that, if the peace was to have any
chance of lasting, it was no good giving to the new

2,29

LOST LIBERTY?

States such frontiers that they would have no reasonable
degree of economic independence and no reasonable
chance of being able to defend them. This is clearly
still the truth. If there is to be some real chance of
avoiding causes of war, any settlement must be a com-
promise between strict "self-determination of peoples"
and what is called "viability" which means, of course,
not that any country should be independent of all inter-
course with other nations, but that each country should
be able to go on existing without becoming the vassal of
some great Power. In Czechoslovakia's case the prob-
lem of making a frontier that could be defended against
invasion was especially hard, because the land inhabited
by the Czechs and Slovaks was long and slender, with
no access to the sea. If, in spite of having very long
frontiers and no seaboard, Czechoslovakia was to be
made reasonably defensible against invasion, it was
essential for the frontier dividing Czechoslovakia from
Germany to follow the natural line of the mountains.
This does not mean that the whole frontier of Bohemia,
as the Peace Treaties fixed it, was the best that could be
made : x a frontier could be drawn giving an independent
Czechoslovakia with a million less Germans, and one
day this will have to be tried. Masaryk often said of
the settlement of 1 9 1 9 that the problem was, "Which is

1 Miss Elizabeth Wiskemann writes: 4 'With regard to the various salients
which jutted out into Reich German territory, it would, I believe, have been
wise to cede them to Germany, especially Egerland with its particular status
and traditions and its violent nationalism; indeed the mountain-frontier
breaks before the ^ Asch-Eger corner in a fairly convenient fashion, and
Rumburg and Friedland are beyond the essential strategic line. It would
also, I think, have been better to add some territory in the south to Austria,
a suggestion accepted by Masaryk in discussing the future with Dr. Seton-
Watson in Holland in the autumn of 1914. . . . The Coolidge Commission,
also, advocated both these cessions to Austria, and the cession of the salients
to Germany" (Czechs and Germans, p. 915 Oxford University Press, 1938,
i2S. 6d.).

230

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

the lesser evil? That ten million Czechs and Slovaks
be under alien domination, or three million Germans?*'
To this question the Big Four of Munich gave the con-
fident answer, "The ten million Czechs and Slovaks",
and this they called self-determination. The frontier
hastily botched at Munich in 1938 was no solution to
the problem carefully considered at Paris in 1 9 1 9 : * that
problem still remains.

And secondly, in judging political causes it is a
fallacy to trace them too far back. There is no limit to
this tracing back; if the tragic fate of Masaryk's Re-
public is due to the errors of 1 9 1 9 and the sins of the
next years, these were due to the hatred raised up by the
World War, this in turn to the international anarchy
that led to that war, and so on to infinity. Of course,
it is wretched that much of what is yielded to Hitler was
not yielded to a Republican Germany, and certainly
things done in 1919 laid up trouble for 1938 just as
things done in 1938 may well have laid up trouble for
coming generations; in fact "the evil that men do lives
after them". But the vital question is what forces were
decisive, who and what made this betrayal of Czecho-
slovakia inevitable or nearly inevitable. That cannot
be said of the treaties of 1 9 1 9, of the failure of the Dis-
armament Conference, even of the Abyssinian tragedy,
the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the Committee
for Non-intervention in Spain, the fall of Austria: as
late as February, 1938, even as late as July, there was
still time to stop Hitler from capturing Bohemia. One
must put into the background the things that are far
back, and seek the last acts that made the September
disaster inescapable.

1 On the care taken over the decisions of 19x9, see Elizabeth Wiskcmann,
op. at. p. 89, and the article by M. Tardieu in Gringoire for September

1938-

231

LOST LIBERTY?

What shares with Hitlerism and who shares with
Hitler the decisive, immediate responsibility for the dis-
aster and disgrace of September, 1938?

First, how far were the Czechs themselves to blame?
Did they really ill-treat the Sudeten Germans? Here
is Lord Run ciman's judgment:

Czechoslovak rule in the Sudeten areas for the last
twenty years, though not actively oppressive and
certainly not "terroristic", has been marked by tact-
lessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance and
discrimination, to a point where the resentment of
the German population was inevitably moving in the
direction of revolt. The Sudeten Germans felt, too,
that in the past they had been given many promises
by the Czechoslovak Government, but that little or
no action had followed these promises. This experi-
ence had induced an attitude of unveiled mistrust of
the leading Czech statesmen, 1

Except the statement that Sudeten German resentment
was moving "inevitably 7 * towards revolt a statement
which does not fit the facts given in our first two
chapters this judgment of Lord Runciman is true.
And there is a second charge against the Czechs. An
agreement made on February i8th, 1937, between the
Czechoslovak Government and the Sudeten German
"activist'* parties might well, if the Czechs had
managed to carry it out quickly, have appeased or
largely appeased the Sudeten Germans ; 2 but the Czechs

1 Letter to Mr. Chamberlain, dated September aist, 1938, and published
in the British White Paper of September 2 8th; Cmd. 5847.

2 Some Henleinists confessed as much. " Acceptance of the Volksschutz-
gesetze and real fulfilment of the promises of February i8th, 1937, would
(this we can say to-day) probably have checked the disintegration of the

232

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

did not carry it out in time. It was not an cusy
to carry out, but the failure fatally weakened the
activists and strengthened the Ilcnlcmists at the*,
decisive time. Who was to blame for the "tactlessness,
lack of understanding, petty intolerance and dis-
crimination", and for the Government's promises to
the Sudeten Germans not being fully or quickly hil-
filled? The Czechoslovak Government was very little
to blame, except one or two Right-Wing members
of it (chiefly the Ministers of Education and of the
Interior) who in 1937 and 1938 used their departments
to delay the working of the "February Agrmnrnt'';
those mostly to blame were chauvinistic local politicians:
and petty officials in fact, Czechs who diiijilaynl
much the same motives as those which won for the
Henleinists so much sympathy in some quarters in

England.

The wonder is not that the Czechs had their vhuu
vinists, but that they had so few. Cowjtiuv thr
relations of Czechs to Sudeten Cernmns with those*
between the English and the Irish. Here too was ;t
problem of nationalities in which the ruling nutiowdify
would clearly have to make concessions to the other-
The English were better placed than the C/echs *wn c *
the Irish, unlike the Sudeten Germans, hud no im-
perialist Great Power of the same nationality to bu k
them. The English took over a hundred years tu
tame their chauvinism enough to make t'ouu'sniowi;
even Gladstone could not do it, and in the end thrv

(*

were too late. And yet in 1938 msmy Kngtinh people

waxed self-righteous at the expense of the (Vctlts

Republic. Thank God people were short eunhu*tl nuntijh *nt it* aur|4
them" (Teplifa-Sc&tinauer dnexg*r t Octolwr iafh 19 jK), Vr% thry vtii MV
it to~day.

LOST LIBERTY?

because these had not in twenty years completely
conquered their chauvinism the chauvinism of a
nation newly freed after a long struggle. Looked at
in proportion with the problems and with the records
of other nations, the faults of the Czechs hardly seem
so huge as to deserve a Munich. Indeed even The
Times j in its leading article of April aoth, 1938, had
to admit :

President Benesh . . . may claim with justice
that nowhere on the Continent do minorities enjoy
greater freedom than in Czechoslovakia. The
Sudeten Germans, within the limits of a mild
censorship, have liberty of the Press, of speech and
of assembly, and use it freely to criticise the Czecho-
slovak Government. . . . Czechoslovakia is cer-
tainly the most liberal State in Europe apart from
the Western democracies and the Scandinavian
countries. 1

In fact, the judgment of Lord Runciman, largely true

1 The same article also admits that the Hungarian minority in Czecho-
slovakia had enjoyed "more political rights than their brethren in Hungary
itself.'*

As for the Polish minority in Czechoslovakia, about ten years before the
crisis, M. Grybowski, then Polish Minister in Prague, called on Dr. Krofta to
ask the Czechoslovak Government to treat its Polish minority less <u^//, because
envy of its good treatment was causing unrest in Poland I This did not
prevent Poland from later attacking the Czechs and using the Polish minority
against them as Hitler was using the Sudeten Germans.

On the morning of January i5th, 1938, the special correspondent of Le
Tetnps in ^ Prague telephoned : "The declarations made two days ago in the
Polish Diet by M. Beck . . . have caused a certain perturbation in Prague,
"It happens that on the same day on which M. Beck was calling the policy
of the Czechoslovak Government 'unfriendly* the Polonia of Kattowica was
publishing an article^in which M. Jung, spokesman of the Polish minority
in its ^negotiations with the Czechoslovak Government, declared that these
negotiations were going on in a real spirit of mutual understanding** (Le
Temps, January i6th, 1938).

These facts throw a wry light on the "Declaration** attached to the
Munich Agreement. (See Cmd. 5848, p. 5.)

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

in itself, " becomes false relatively, when people use it
as a pretext for crushing Czechoslovakia or for joining
the chorus of her detractors". 1 That the Sudeten
German problem became the occasion of a disaster was
very little the fault of the Czechs ; it happened because
the whole history of modern Europe is largely a history
of the rise of nationalism, because nationalism has
become a cause of strife comparable to the sectarianism
that tore Europe in the seventeenth century, because
nationalism is a disruptive force ready to hand for any
new imperialism. In the years that followed Locarno,
most of the Sudeten Germans were "activists". Every
increase in Sudeten German intransigeance answered
to an increase in Hitler's power to that or to some
encouragement given to the Henleinists by Czech
Agrarians, by the friends of the Nazis in England, by
the Runciman Mission, In spite of external inter-
vention there was very nearly, in September, 1938, a
real reconciliation between the Sudeten Germans and
the Czechs. It was not the Sudeten German problem
that stoked up the crisis of September, 1938; it was
the crisis that stoked up the Sudeten German problem.
The real wrong done by the Czechs was in having
any dealings at all with Henlein. Mr. Chamberlain
on September 28th went out of his way to say that one
great difficulty, all through the crisis, was Hitler's
distrust of Czech promises: why did he not have the
common fairness to add that the Czechs also had reason
to distrust both Hitler and Henlein? If Hitler was so
straightforward as to be a model to Benes, why did he
pledge himself to abide by Locarno, including the
demilitarisation of the Rhineland, and then break his
word? Why did he in 1936 make a treaty with

1 Professor Hubert Beuve-MeVy, Poltttgue^ October, 1938.

235

LOST LIBERTY?

Schuschnigg, recognising Austrian independence, only
to destroy that independence in 1938, after the police
of Vienna had seized documents that proved how he
had used the treaty to foment treason in Austria? If
Henlein was straightforward, why did he in 1931
declare "war to the death on liberalism" and in 1934
"we shall never abandon liberalism"/ tell Mr. Churchill
in May that his people did not desire to join Germany, 2
and then, in September, incite them to rebel? The
Czechs knew that, whenever they could, the Henlein-
ists smuggled arms in from the Third Reich, and that
it was from the Reich that Henlein received the money
for his journeys to England, although he told his
friends in England that he had nothing to do with
Hitler or with Germany, 3 Some Czechs also knew
that Henlein had acted as go-between between Hitler
and a certain Taus, one of the Nazi conspirators in
Austria.* Those who expected or pressed the Czechs
to have any dealings with Henlein were doing a great
wrong if they did not mean in the end to stand by the
Czechs. But the Czechs also were to blame; for
Czech distrust of Henlein was strong enough to help
prevent them from making timely concessions to any
Sudeten German, but not strong enough to make them,
as it should have made them, shut down Henlein's
party in March, 1938, and offer the activists generous
concessions quickly carried out. The causes of this

1 See Elizabeth Wiskemann, op, at. pp. 201 and 203-4.

2 Mr. Churchill said, on October 5th, 1938, that the municipal elections
of May, 1938, in the Sudeten districts "had nothing to do with joining
Germany", and added: "When I saw Henlein over here he assured me that
was not the desire of his people" (House of Commons, Hansard, col. 364).

3 See^a pamphlet called Jejich Boj, or Ihr Kampf (Prague, 1937).

* This was shown in the documents, seized by the Austrian police in the
Teinfaltstrasse in Vienna. For an account of these documents see Un Pacte
cwec Hitler, by Martin Fuchs (Paris, 1938).

236

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

were two : one was that, at some time when Mr. Eden
was still British Foreign Secretary, the Czechoslovak
Government had been told that, if it could only smooth
things down till the autumn of 1938, it would receive
support from Great Britain. The other was that the
Agrarians and other parties of the Right were playing
the game of strengthening Henlein in the hope of
strengthening themselves in the hope, that is, that
Henlein would add useful votes to a great "anti-
bolshevik" coalition and still let them dominate it.
These Agrarians, who had learned so little from the
fate of Hugenberg, are appreciably responsible for
their country's tragedy, and it is not without reason
that Voskovec and Werich used to represent them as
traitors.

So it happened that, as Dr. Ladislav Rasin said in
Mr. Beran's face,

"The Government regarded with a passive air
the beginning of the anarchy and chaos in the
frontier regions. ... By allowing the constitution
of the Freiwillige Schufzdienst (Henlein's Storm
Troops) ... by watching it usurp in effect the
functions of the police, the bases of the rebellion
were created. , . . A similar situation began to
develop in Slovakia. All those who wished to fight
against the unity and integrity of the Czechoslovak
State were given freedom to make their journeys
abroad not only the Germans, but also the Hun-
garians, Poles, Slovaks and Ruthenes and every-
where they found a friendly welcome and a subsidy
for their trouble."

The Hodza Government resting upon a coalition of
parties of which the Agrarians were the largest.

LOST LIBERTY?

committed the folly of holding, to please the Germans,
the Agrarians and the British, those municipal elections
which gave rise to the crisis of May 2ist, 1938. The
Minister of the Interior was an Agrarian, had always
been an Agrarian since 1921, and the Ministry of the
Interior was largely staffed by Agrarians; and so on
May 1 2th Herr Jaksch had to appeal in Parliament to
this minister to prevent democratic Sudeten Germans
being delivered into the hands of the Nazis. Yet
again, a few days later, in a letter to the Minister of
the Interior, Herr Jaksch told how the Henleinists
had attacked a loyalist meeting of Sudeten Germans,
how the Czech police had done nothing to check
them, and how these police had said, "We can do
nothing, for our hands have been tied". 1 The reports
of the Ministry of the Interior itself give heart-rending
evidence 2 of how again and again in September, 1938,
Czech policemen and frontier guards were refused
reinforcements, and therefore murdered, in disorders
which would never have arisen if the Ministry of the
Interior had been firm and prompt. .Even as late as
September 22nd, when the Hodza Government had
fallen and the Syrovy Government was not yet formed,
Henleinist Qrdners took possession of several towns
behind the line held by the Czechoslovak Army. The
Army, fearing to be faced by a German penetration
which could not be undone, rang up Prague again and
again, but the Ministry of the Interior would do
nothing. At last the Army received leave to act, and
the Henleinists soon vanished; but in one of these
towns, Aussig, the Army arrested the chief of police
as a traitor. Finally, and as late as August 1938,

1 New Tork Times, May 20th, 1938, dispatch from G. E. R. Gcdye.

2 See pp. 95-101 above.

238

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

M. Beran himself actually allowed an English friend
to publish in The Times that he would be glad to see
Henlein a member of the Czechoslovak Government. 1
Blindness, or worse? Perhaps only blindness. But
certainly a grave weakness to the Republic in its time
of trial, an ally in fact to Hitler.

The Slovaks, too, helped Hitler to enslave them,
There is more excuse for them. The history of the
Slovaks is quite different from the history of the
Czechs. The Czechs had been the first Protestant
nation; in the Hussite wars they had routed Germans
five times their number, and after three centuries of
vassaldom they had won back independence. But the
Slovaks were always vassals. They had a fantastic
peasant art, but politically they were children. At
the end of the war almost the only Slovaks capable of
modern life were the Protestants, and they were a mere
handful. For the rest the only developed political in-
stitution was the Roman Catholic Church. 2 Masaryk,
who came from the country where Slovakia and
Moravia join, said to Karel Capek about his childhood:

"I had nothing to read; I heard of very little; I
was not able to travel: that is why the Church was
more important than it is to children to-day; it was
the only significant building besides the castle; only

1 This letter appeared in The Times of August 25th, 1938, and was from
Professor G. E. G. Catlin. M. Beran actually said "that Henlein to date
had not chosen to raise any issue of foreign policy" this four months after
Henlein's Karlsbad demands. M. Beran also said that he "looked forward to
Britain and Germany reaching some understanding as the best guarantee of
the peace of Europe and the safety of Czechoslovakia, and even to a Four-
Power Pact".

2 For instance, when Slovak autonomists complained that the Czechs
staffed nearly all the schools of Slovakia, the Czechs answered that in 1919
they simply could not find enough Slovaks fit to be teachers. One had only
to go to Slovakia to see that this must have been true.

239

LOST LIBERTY?

we could not go into the castle, whereas we used to
go to church, and so once a week we saw a building
which was larger and airier, which was decorated,
where we listened to preaching and music, where we
met all the rest of the village, . . ." *

That was a long time ago, but between the childhood of
Thomas Garrigue Masaryk and the end of the World
War life in Slovak villages had hardly changed at all.
These people were easy game for the protean penetra-
tion of the Nazis and the Magyars, into whose hands
the autonomist movement of Father Hlinka played.
Slovakia had only twenty years of independence after
centuries of serfdom: it was not enough. This is why
in 1938 the Slovaks fell into fascism while the Czechs
stayed humane. Even then not all the Slovaks be-
haved like depraved children. They showed in the
mobilisation that most of them were loyal to their
liberators the Czechs even Sidor was frightened of
what he had done; 2 and in the elections of 1938 Father
Hlinka had gained only a third of their votes, even
though he was personally magnetic, had in the past
braved Hungarian prisons in the cause of their freedom,
and was using the vague, seductive slogan of autonomy.
So in Slovakia, too, as in many other countries, the
people was largely guiltless of the disaster of 1938 : the
guilt lay mainly with Right- Wing political groups, so
keen on privileges as to lose sight even of patriotism.
As for the Sudeten Germans themselves, only their
Socialists are free from immediate blame. As soon
as Hitler took Austria, the two Right- Wing activist
parties (the German Agrarians and the German

1 President Masaryk tells his story, p. 52.
3 See above, p. 107.

240

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

Catholics) rushed to join Henlein. 1 Apart from coward-
ice and hysteria, many of them thought or tried to
think that, united with the Henleinists in one block,
they could bargain better with the Czechs and get the
most generous settlement possible within the Republic;
but why did they not see that Henlein would not stop
there, that Hitler would not let him? A very great
many of the Sudeten Germans, even of Henlein's party,
had no wish to join the Reich, and Henlein deceived
them; but why were they deceived so easily? They
have been cruelly punished, but they at least paid for
their own errors.

Did anything or anyone else in Czechoslovakia itself
help to make the tragedy of 1938 inevitable? At first
sight it seems as if the whole foreign policy of Benes
the policy of doing everything to make a reality of the
League of Nations and reinsuring his country by the
Little Entente, by an alliance with France and by an
alliance with Russia was a proven failure and a cause
of the disaster. But is this true? Is there any other
policy that could have given so good a chance of an
independent Czechoslovakia and a peaceful Europe?
Anyone who desires the self-determination of peoples
and those who carved up Czechoslovakia professed this
principle must agree that this is hollow unless it means
that small nations shall have real independence have
the chance, if they have the wish to live as democracies
among dictatorships. But how can this be realised?
Perhaps only in a world where there really is collect-
ive security against aggression. Failing this, a small

1 Just after the invasion of Austria we were in Ceskf Krumlov (Bohmisch
Krumau), and there we heard a leader of the German Agrarians explaining
to the local leaders why the party had joined Henlein. He seemed very
worried and unconvinced, and so did his audience.

241 *

LOST LIBERTY?

nation can only hope to keep its independence if it has a
guarantee or an alliance. Of course neither of these is
sure; but an alliance is less likely to be broken than
a guarantee; for in an alliance the small nation is not
simply passive, a strategical asset, but also an active
ally and so doubly worth keeping. With which Great
Power could the Czechs have allied themselves? Ger-
many after the World War was weak and unstable,
after 1933 tyrannical and adventurous. A Slavonic
federation of Eastern Europe was in those twenty years
never practical politics: one day it may be, France
was the ideal ally for the Czechs, not only because in
the things of the spirit the Czechs looked very much
to France, but also because France badly needed the
Czechs. Nobody can blame Benes for not reckoning
with the suicide of France. After Munich many Czechs
complained that Benes, all through 1938, received warn-
ings from the Czechoslovak legations in Paris and in
London that France and Great Britain were likely to
let Czechoslovakia down, and that he disregarded these
warnings and failed to make terms with Germany
in time. 1 Bene, of course, received many warnings,
and did not disregard them. But what could he do?

1 One of these accusers was M. Osusk^, Czechoslovak Minister in Paris.
After Munich he appeared in Prague, accused people in Prague of ignoring
warnings sent by him, and demanded an inquiry. (The Agrarian Press
made great play with this demand.) We went into this question and found
that in Paris, all through 1938 down to the visit of Mr. Chamberlain to
Berchtesgaden, M. Osuskf had held frequent Press conferences with the
Paris correspondents of Czechoslovak newspapers. At these Press confer-
ences^ he was often highly indiscreet, yet he never once suggested that in
his view France might not honour her alliance with Czechoslovakia. He
even told journalists that he had converted M. Flandin to the view that
France must stand by the Czechs, simply because he and M. Flandin be-
longed to a wine-tasting club, the "Chevallerie des Tastevins", and had been
hearty together one evening. Of M. Bonnet he said, "C'est mon camarade".
He did of course warn Prague, but we gather that his warnings alternated
with reassuring messages,

242

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

Make terms with Germany? What terms? Schusch-
nigg in 1936 made an agreement with Germany: it did
not save his country. And in coming to illusory terms
with Hitler's Germany, Benes would have thrown away
the one asset which, if the Czechs did not throw it away,
nothing could take away from them : the fact that they
chose to be betrayed rather than to betray. If it had
been the Czechs who left the French, not the French
who left the Czechs, Czechoslovakia would have fallen
to Hitler none the less, as Austria fell in spite of a
treaty with Hitler, but would have lost also her im-
pregnable moral claim to be restored to real indepen-
dence. In spite of Munich, then, the policy of Benes
was the right policy for his country, indeed for Europe.
But in two respects Czechoslovakia's foreign policy
was at fault. First, President Benes for a long time
thought that Czechoslovakia must surrender if France
and Great Britain should desert her, and maybe he was
right, but he was wrong to say so. He said so, for in-
stance, to Mr. Bruce Lockhart in April, I938, 1 and
in December, 1937, to the correspondent of a British
newspaper, so that many people must have known what
he intended. This was a clear hint to the Nazis and
to the Cliveden Set that all they need do was to seduce
France and divide England they could then rely on a
Czechoslovak surrender. This may well have done
great damage. Secondly, the Czechs neglected propa-
ganda. They were by nature bad at it, and few of them
tried to be good at it. They had a strong and interest-
ing case, but they disdained to put it. They relied
upon its truth and would not see that they had to
compete with attractive liars. They would not, for
example, spend enough on their Legation in London;

1 See Guns or Butter, by Bruce Lockhart.

243

LOST LIBERTY?

their tourist agency, Cedok, was rude and inefficient; so
were many of their customs officials. Each of such
things is trivial in itself, but together they did a great
deal to make public opinion in Great Britain less ready
to protest against the Anglo-French Plan. The Czechs
were the more foolish to neglect propaganda because
Hungary, Poland and even Nazi Germany were able
to use as instruments for their propaganda old aristo-
cracies. These exerted, especially in Great Britain, an
influence out of all proportion to the merits of their own
countries, because the real rulers of Great Britain were
a privileged and class-conscious oligarchy. When
Masaryk said to Capek, "democracy modern demo-
cracy is in its infancy", he added: "It would be a
mistake to shut our eyes to the adherents and exponents
of the old aristocratic and monarchic order of things
who are also at work". The Czechs ignored this warn-
ing, and so helped to make it possible to betray their
country.

In short, in Czechoslovakia itself there were some
people and forces that bear an appreciable share of re-
sponsibility for the disaster that fell upon their country
and upon all who aspire to freedom, and yet relatively
the Czech responsibility is very small : if the faults of
the Czechs had been the only faults outside Germany
in 1938, there would have been no threat to peace or
to freedom. Who else is to blame? Poland and Hun-
gary? They were predatory and dishonest, but what-
ever they did depended on France and Great Britain.
And Russia? The "purging" did a great deal to make
worse the general situation and so to strengthen Hitler
and all his friends; but all through 1938 Russia's policy
towards Europe was loyal and correct. The conclusion
is inescapable : the countries that share with Hitler the

244

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

heaviest responsibility for the tragedy which began in
September, 1938, are France and Great Britain.

France had with Czechoslovakia a definite treaty,
binding each of the two Powers to help the other against
attack. If any document is ever worth anything, this
treaty was binding. It was signed on October i6th,
1925, and because nearly thirteen years had gone by
since then, some people suggested that changes of cir-
cumstances the rearmament of Germany, the remili-
tarisation of the Rhineland and the invasion of Austria

had by 1938 made it no longer binding because no

longer possible to carry out. But this is wholly untrue,
and for two reasons : first, General Gamelin, Chief of
the French General Staff, reported in September, 1938,
that France could, and for her own sake should, fight
for the Czechs, if the Germans were to attack them;
and secondly, the pledge France made to the Czechs in
1925 was still binding in September, 1938, for the
simple reason that the French Prime Minister and
Foreign Secretary had just renewed it. On July I2th,
at a banquet in Paris, M. Daladier said: "our solemn
engagements with Czechoslovakia are, for us, inescap-
able and sacred". 1 On September 4th, commemorat-
ing the entry of the United States into the World War
and with the Ambassador of the United States present,
M. Bonnet spoke of the "gravity of the Czechoslovak
problem' ', and added: "France, in any case, will remain
faithful to the pacts and treaties she has concluded.
She will remain faithful to the engagements she has
undertaken/' * So without question France was legally
bound, and therefore morally bound, to help the Czechs
in 1938. The moral obligation went further still,

* Le Temps, July i4th, 1938.
* Le Temps, September 5th, 1938.

245

LOST LIBERTY?

because again and again France had used, sometimes
abused, the alliance, in order to extract from Czecho-
slovakia diplomatic support against other countries, and
because the alliance had always been unpopular in
London. 1 If, then, Czechoslovakia's relations with
other Powers than France, and especially with Ger-
many, Hungary and Great Britain, were not satisfactory,
the fault was largely in France, France had taken the
profits, and France should never have left the Czechs
alone to pay the costs. 2 France took all she could get
out of the Czechs, and then, when it seemed she might
have to give something in return, even though it was
still in her own interest as well as in the Czech interest
for her to give it, she let them down. If there is any
such thing as national honour, the French nation sold
its honour in 1938. It dealt the severest blow that
could have been dealt to the sanctity of treaties, without
which any lasting peace is most unlikely. And it re-
duced itself to a third-class Power, a dependency of
Great Britain or of Germany. Why did it do all this?
What forces caused this treachery?

For fearing and hating war, for going wild with un-
reckoning relief when war seemed to have been put off,

Indeed it was France, not Czechoslovakia, that first asked for the alli-

ance.

3 Also some members of the French Government have an especially heavy
moral responsibility. Wenzel Jaksch, leader of the Sudeten German Social
Democrats, visiting Pans in April, 1938, asked them if he could rely on
France standing by Czechoslovakia. He must know definitely, he said,
because he was prepared to lead his people into a terrible fight, but not to a
mere slaughter, hopeless and purposeless. In reply, u These Excellencies
lavished upon their new friend assurances of sympathy and admiration,
promises and encouragements. 'He could carry on his hard struggle in all
confidence . . Never would France tolerate a fresh German aggression
in Central Europe and especially not against Czechoslovakia.' Jaksch be-
lieved them and ..eft, reassured. To-day this brave leader is haunted by the
fate of the emigrants or the persecuted." (See the account by Professor
Beuve-Mery in Pohtique for November, 1938.)

246

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

nobody can cast a stone at the French people, which
had had its own country invaded and devastated twice
within living memory and still, with joyous heroism, re-
sponded to the mobilisation. The ordinary people of
France were not only morally almost guiltless : they had
also little or no influence on the decisions taken by M.
Daladier in London on September i8th and then at
Munich. Of this there is striking evidence : one of the
men who flew with M. Daladier back from Munich
says that M. Daladier, when he looked down and saw
the vast crowd waiting at the aerodrome of Le
Bourget, was clearly afraid that it was a hostile, not a
welcoming, crowd. It was not, then, any existing de-
mand of the French people for peace at any price that
made M. Daladier sell the Czechs. The cause was
somewhere else, not in the ordinary people.

How much did the recurrent crisis of French internal
politics do to precipitate the betrayal of Czechoslovakia?
M. Chautemps staged a Cabinet crisis on March loth,
just in time to help Hitler take Austria; and the bitter
struggle over the nationalisation of many factories mak-
ing armaments and over the forty-hour week seems to
have brought France's supplies of modern aircraft very
low. In August an officer of the French Air Force,
General Vuillaumin, visited Germany, where aircraft
and factories were shown to him, enough to send him
back to France "terrified": so a Czech official heard
from a friend in the French Legation in Prague, who
"explained the hesitations of France ... by the de-
ficiencies of the air force and by the fear of a bombard-
ment of Paris' ' . l And yet General Vuillaumin's report
did not sway General Gamelin, the most responsible
military authority in France. It is even very doubtful

* See Appendix I, Document B.
247

LOST LIBERTY?

whether it was decisive with M. Daladier, for in spite of
it, in answer to the demands of Godesberg, he and Mr.
Chamberlain threatened Hitler with war. This at least
is clear: either Daladier and Chamberlain were bluffing,
or the defects of the French Air Force and the vulnera-
bility of London and Paris were not enough to compel
France and Great Britain to make peace at any price.
There are evidences that there was, among those who
ruled France, an incredible ignorance of Czechoslovak
affairs. Take M. Daladier's own description of the
meeting in London on September i8th, the meeting at
which he and M. Bonnet and Mr, Chamberlain decided
on the Anglo-French Plan and on the "pressing friendly
advice" they would give to President Benes.

bent", said M. Daladier, "over the maps.
The British Government made known to us the
opinions of Lord Runciman. Need I tell you with
what emotion we learnt that in his soul and conscience
the English observer concluded that it was impossible
to make the Czechs and the Sudetens live together
any longer, when all our efforts had consisted in
making Czechoslovakia evolve towards a federalism
which would have assured the integrity of her
territory." I

If Lord Run ciman's judgment was wrong, as the evi-
dence we have brought forward strongly suggests, why
did M, Daladier not challenge it? If it was right, why
did it surprise M. Daladier? Why, when France had
a Legation in Prague and a military mission, did the
French Government have to base a decision involving
the fate of the whole system of alliances by which for
twenty years France had tried to counterbalance Ger-

1 Speech to the Chamber of Deputies and to the Senate, October 4th, 1938.

248

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

many's greater man-power and industry, on the judg-
ment of a foreigner, a man who hardly knew the
country concerned? And even at Munich, we are told
on good authority, the French delegation had not
proper maps and had never heard of that trap, the
census of 1910. This is not the sort of ignorance that
excuses, it is the sort that needs excusing.

But there is worse than ignorance to record. Well
in advance of the betrayal there were people busy
preparing it by misleading public opinion in France.
Already on April I2th, 1938, Le Temps published an
article by M. Barth^lerny, an eminent jurist, not simply
urging that France should not plunge into a modern
war for the Czechs, but whipping up prejudice against
the Czechs without scruple by the lie, for instance,
that Czechoslovakia's trade with Germany and Austria
was two-thirds of her total trade ! He did not languish
for lack of imitators. And during September itself a
very great part of the French Press twisted and damped
down pieces of news that might shake M. Bonnet
and M. Daladier. 1 M, Daladier not only, like Mr.
Chamberlain, refused to call Parliament until he could
present to it a fait accompli, he also (not being blessed,
like Mr. Chamberlain, with an "Inner Cabinet'' of
which every member, except perhaps one, was in ad-
vance not unready to betray the Czechs) deceived cer-
tain members of his Cabinet and broke his promises
to them. On the evening of September lyth, M.

1 For instance, the dispatch of Havas from Prague giving the Czech reply
of September zistthat reply which accepted the Anglo-French plan under
duress and on conditions was falsified in Paris, all reference to pressure
being cut out. The Havas news agency in Paris refused again and again to
use the true report that General Faucher had resigned from the French Army
in protest against his Government's dishonourable action. And a dispatch
of Havas from Bucarest, stating on good authority that Roumania would
help the Czechs, was suppressed.

249

LOST LIBERTY?

Reynaud and M. Campinchi, when they heard that M,
Daladier was going to London next day, were furious
because, at the last meeting of the Cabinet, M. Daladier
had promised them not to take any decision nor to
undertake any negotation without first having consulted
the Cabinet. On September igth, these and other
French Ministers, faced with the Anglo-French plan,
wished to resign. They did not resign, not wishing to
cause a Cabinet crisis just when war and peace seemed
to be in the balance; but they did stipulate that the
Czechoslovak Government be clearly told that, even if
it felt it must reject the Anglo-French plan, the alliance
between France and Czechoslovakia would remain in
force. And yet the French and British Ministers
in Prague threatened on September 2Oth and 2ist to
leave the Czechs in the lurch and to hold them solely
responsible for any war that might follow if they
should not accept the plan at oncel Again, so the
Paris correspondent of The Times had strong reason
for believing, M. Bonnet withheld from the French
Cabinet information which showed that Russia was
ready to carry out her engagements to France and to
Czechoslovakia. 1

That France betrayed her ally was not the fault
of her General Staff. General Gamelin made to his
Government a full report on the question whether
France could effectively help the Czechs a balanced
review of the case for and against, taking fully into
account the strategical difficulties and the inferiority of
the French air force, yet advising strongly that France
could and should aid the Czechs, and suggesting how.
In London M. Bonnet read out the case against helping
the Czechs, and left out the case for. (General Gamelin

1 The Times j September a 3rd, 1938,

250

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

himself told this to an eminent French deputy of the

Right.) *

Most curious of all, when the news reached Paris
that the British Foreign Office had stated in a com-
munique that "if in spite of all the efforts of the Prime
Minister a German attack is made upon Czecho-
slovakia, the immediate result must be that France will
be bound to come to her assistance and Great Britain
and Russia will certainly stand by France", many
French newspapers denounced it as a forgery, and some
went further still: the Action Pranfaise reported that
M. Bonnet, asked if it was authentic, said he had not
received any confirmation, and La Liberte reported
M. Daladier as saying that the communique came
"from an official of no im^or-tatice". As Mr. Hamilton
Fish Armstrong has pointed out, "Bonnet held in his
hands the pledge which Poincar< and Viviani had
needs do without in reaching their fateful decision in
August, 1914 a pledge which at that time might
even have averted the World War" and none the less
"defeatist rumours calling the statement untrue were
permitted to circulate through large sections of the
French Press without . . . adequate contradiction". 2
Why? Why? "Historians will speculate", says Mr.
Armstrong, "as to the manner in which a Poincard
would have used that categorical pledge, even at this
eleventh hour, to line up ... so solid a coalition of
powers ... as would have thrown Mussolini back into
neutrality and called Hitler's bluff." 3 Historians will
also inquire, and perhaps find out for certain, why, if

i During the hectic days of September, M. Daladier did not call a single
meeting of the Conseil SvpMcur de la Guerre or of the Consetl de la Dfjense
Nationals,

* When There is No Peace (Macmillan, New York, 1939), pp. 9* 97-

3 Ibid. p. 99.

251

LOST LIBERTY?

the whole business of the British pledge and Hitler's
ultimatum was not one concerted bluff in which the
real menace was against freedom and not against peace,
this chance was thrown away.

Finally although this is not In itself a cause of the
betrayal, it is a sign of one of these causes and a very
sad sign after the treaty of Munich and before the
debate on it, many of the visitors who came to the
Czechoslovak Legation in Paris were French senators
and deputies, offering their votes for cash.

There is an excuse made in France for the betrayal
of Czechoslovakia, a very strong excuse. In the
months that followed the Conference of Munich, M.
Bonnet claimed that, if France had applied to the Czechs
pressure amounting to an ultimatum, this was done in
response to a request from the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment, and in support he showed to his friends what
seemed to be a telegram sent to the Quai d'Orsay on
the night of September 2Oth by the French Minister
in Prague, saying that the Czechoslovak Government
and General Staff were asking that an ultimatum be
applied to them, because without it they could not
hope to persuade the Czech people to surrender.
Not even M. Bonnet pretends that any responsible
Czech asked France to dishonour her alliance: only
that, after France had joined Great Britain in proposing
to her ally a disabling dismemberment, some Czechs
asked France at least to take open responsibility for
making their country have to give in, so that they
might have some chance of carrying out the surrender
without a civil war. Is even this true? We know
two facts: one is that M. Bonnet's document exists,
the other is that President Benes himself neither made
nor authorised the request it contains. Therefore,

252

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

either the document is a forgery, or something of this
sort happened: Dr. Hodza, the Czechoslovak Prime
Minister, requested the ultimatum, and then, when the
French Minister asked if President Benes had agreed
to the request being made, answered untruthfully,
"Yes". Neither can be ruled out. But it does not
matter much; for the telegram is supposed to have
been sent in the night of September 2Oth, and already,
at 5 P.M. on the 2oth, the French and British Ministers
had threatened the Czechs with desertion. Even if
some Czechs did ask for a definite ultimatum, this
cannot absolve France from the charge of treaty-
breaking.

Nothing can absolve Great Britain from the charge
of doing everything to make France break her alliance
and leave the Czechs alone to face Hitler. Although
Great Britain, unlike France, had no special treaty of
alliance with the Czechs, Great Britain had signed,
together with the Czechs, the Covenant of the League
of Nations. Circumstances had indeed changed since
then so much so that by 1938 they had made part of
that Covenant very hard to execute, But not the whole
of it. The Covenant bound those who signed it to
u respect and preserve against aggression the territorial
integrity and independence" of its members, including
Czechoslovakia. To defend against aggression the
territorial integrity and independence of every member
of the League was never easy; but nobody can say it was
impossible to respect them. Clearly, then, Great Britain
was bound still to respect Czechoslovakia's territorial
integrity and independence, and this legal obligation
Great Britain broke, 1 carving up the territory and ending

1 Before the World War there was an Anglo-German scheme for appeasing
Germany by dividing up the colonies of Portugal, a country with which

LOST LIBERTY?

the independence of a loyal member of the League, a
country that had supported Great Britain with many
sacrifices in the Abyssinian crisis. And that is^not all.
The man who lures another man into breaking his
word is himself guilty of breaking that word, even
though it was not his ; at least no Christian would deny
this. In 1938 Great Britain schemed to make France
break her sacred engagement to the Czechs and is
therefore guilty, at least as much as France, of that
perfidy. By doing so, Great Britain, too, struck a blow
at the sanctity of treaties an insidious blow whose con-
sequences must ramify through many generations.
The fate of the Czechs is a warning to all who make
treaties: a warning not only that an ally may break even
a treaty that is plainly in the vital interests of both parties,
but also that another Power may manoeuvre that ally
into breaking the treaty and call this "saving peace".

On September i8th, 1938, when Mr. Chamberlain
and M. Daladier agreed on the partition of Czecho-
slovakia, "The representatives of the two Governments
were guided", so Mr. Chamberlain frankly explained,
4 'by a desire to find a solution which would not bring
about a European war, and, therefore, a solution which
would not automatically compel France to take action
in accordance with her obligations". 1 There is the

Great Britain had an alliance. Lord Carnock, then Sir Arthur Nicolson and
Permanent Under-Secretary of the British Foreign Office, was disgusted at
this deal, although he was a realistic and experienced diplomatist. "I do not
see how," he wrote, "on grounds of political honesty and equity, you can
partition with another Power these possessions which you have yourself en-
gaged to defend and maintain intact'* (Lord Carnock, by Harold Nicolson).
The parallel is not very inexact.

1 September 28th, 1938, in the House of Commons: Hansard, col. 16.
Why those words "and therefore"? The alliance between France and
Czechoslovakia was designed precisely to prevent a European war by de-
terring aggression, and to break this alliance was not the only way of avoiding
war it may indeed prove to have done a great deal to make war unavoidable.

254

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

perfidy, confessed without shame. On September
1 8th, 1 93 8, it was a concerted perfidy ; but this was new.
Most of the preparing for it was done in Great Britain
and in Germany, in marvellous harmony. How much
earlier it had begun we do not know. What is certain
is that on February 22nd, 1938, Mr. Chamberlain
trumpeted out that "the League as constituted to-day is
unable to provide collective security for anybody". 1
This, with the resignation of Mr, Eden, 2 gave Hitler a
clear hint that he would "get all essentials without war"
and with very little delay: the German Press rejoiced that
Chamberlain had smashed Geneva, and Hitler's invasion
of Austria followed quickly. And there was another
clear sign that Mr, Chamberlain already intended to sell
the Czechs. On March 7th, 1 938, he at last admitted
that the most vital part of British rearmament must be
home-front defence: "our main strength lies", he said,
"in the resources of man power, productive capacity
and endurance of this country, and unless these can be
maintained ... in the early stages of war, when they
will be the subject of continuous attack, our defeat will
be certain whatever might be the fate in secondary
spheres elsewhere". 3 And yet the British Government
made no special effort to speed up home-front defence,
and this although it knew already everybody knew,
and Hitler had said so on February 2oth that the
Czechoslovak crisis might come soon. In September
Great Britain had a superb navy but still less than forty
up-to-date anti-aircraft guns to defend the whole of

1 Hansard, col. 227.

2 Resigning, Mr. Eden told the House of Commons that "within the last
few weeks, upon one most important decision of foreign policy which did not
concern Italy at all, the difference between him and the Prime Minister" was
fundamental (February list, Hansard, cols. 48-9),

3 Hansard, col. 1563,

255

LOST LIBERTY?

South-east England. Would any British Government
have left this glaring gap and taken this mortal risk if it
had not decided to sell the Czechs?

On April 28th, in London, Chamberlain offered to
Daladier and Bonnet the bribe for deserting the Czechs
a close military collaboration between Great Britain
and France, Although at this stage four days after
Henlein, backed by the Press of the Third Reich, had
put forward the Karlsbad demands the British and
French Governments agreed to urge the Czechs to
make to the Sudeten Germans no more than the utmost
concessions possible within the framework of the
Czechoslovak Constitution, there is evidence that
Chamberlain himself already did not mean to respect
those limits. Early in May the diplomatic correspond-
ent of a leading London newspaper told a high Czech
official whom we know: "I am terribly sorry for you
Czechs it's all been fixed up". In May, also, Lady
Astor gave a luncheon which the Prime Minister
attended, u the object being", as she explained later, "to
enable some American journalists who had not pre-
viously met him to do so privately and informally, and
thus to make his acquaintance' 1 . 1 What did Mr.
Chamberlain tell them at this lunch? One of them at
once published his impressions. They were "that the
British do not expect to fight for Czechoslovakia and
do not anticipate that France or Russia will either",
that therefore "the Czechs must accede to the German
demands, if reasonable", and that Mr. Chamberlain
already thought the partition of Czechoslovakia a
reasonable German demand. " Instead of cantonalisa-
tion," Mr. Chamberlain said in substance, "fron-
tier revision might be advisable. ... A smaller but

1 House of Commons, June 27th, 1938: Hansard, col. 1540.

256

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

sounder Czechoslovakia would result. " * So, even
before sending the Runciman Mission to Prague,
Chamberlain was ready to press the Czechs to give up
their natural frontiers, and Hitler knew it.

Meanwhile the Czechs were doing their level best to
settle quickly with the Sudeten Germans and with their
other minorities. President Bene, by almost super-
human efforts, united all the parties supporting the
Government behind what was the most generous pro-
posal ever made by a Government to minorities the
so-called Nationalities Statute. "We hope", said Dr.
Krofta, the Foreign Secretary, "that an agreement will
come; but we intend to give to the minorities in any
case the Statute we are preparing for them. We shall
give them very substantial concessions, whatever the
result of the conversations with some of the parties in
which they are grouped/' 2 Why did the Czechs
decide to do this to pass the concessions into law
whether the Henleinist leaders, the Slovak Autonomists
and Dr. Goebbels pronounced them satisfactory or no?
Largely because the British Government was pressing
the Czechs all the time to hurry; 3 the Germans became
very worried ; the Czechs might deprive them of every
semblance of a pretext for a threat of invasion. There-
fore, in the second week of July, the Press of the Third
Reich protested fiercely and even suggested that Great
Britain intervene to stop the Czechs from putting the
Nationalities Statute before Parliament without more
negotiations. The British Government fell in with this
suggestion. It suddenly stopped hustling the Czechs

1 New York Herald-Tribune, May i5th, 1938, dispatch from Mr. Joseph
DriscoLL

2 Interview published in Paris-Sotr, July i4th, 1938.

3 Professor Seton-Watson, who was in Prague early in July, bears witness
of this, and so do we.

257 S

LOST LIBERTY?

and started delaying them. It sent out the Runciman
Mission. The British Government, in July, 1938, pre-
vented the Czechs from themselves giving to their
minorities, before the crisis began, a settlement which
all reasonable people would find fair, and from taking
their stand on that settlement.

But did not Mr. Chamberlain tell the House of
Commons that the Czechs themselves asked for the
Runciman Mission to be sent? He did, and we as
English people profoundly wish he had not. The
Runciman Mission was not only not sent, as Mr.
Chamberlain stated, "in response to a request'* from
the Czechoslovak Government; it was even sent against
the Czechoslovak Government's will Lord Halifax,
before going to Paris with the King and Queen 5
offered the Czechs a British adviser and threatened that
if they should not accept this offer, it and their refusal
would be published. What could the Czechs do but
welcome the Mission? This was the first of the ulti-
mata sent by Chamberlain's Government to the Czechs. 1
Like the later ones, it was concealed from the British
Parliament and people.

The very sending of the Runciman Mission was an
invitation to Hitler and the Henleinists to be intransi-
gent. Lord Runciman himself gratuitously reinforced
that invitation to intransigence by spending most of
his week-ends with disloyal German aristocrats. Who
were these people? In Le Temps on August 28th the
Prague correspondent wrote that, after a series of secret
meetings, the big land-owners among the Germans of
Czechoslovakia had decided to give their support to

1 And already even the customary courtesies were lacking} the Czecho-
slovak Legation in London was not informed of the decision not until it
had the news from Prague, and Prague had had it from the Quai d'Orsay.

258

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

Henlein's party, on condition that Henlein should put
into his programme a promise that the land taken from
them by the Czechoslovak Land Reform should be re-
stored to them and damages also be paid to them by
the State. The leader of these land-owners was Prince
Max von Hohenlohe, an unconcealed Nazi. It was at
his castle that, on August r8th, Lord Runciman first
met Henlein, If anyone doubts that Lord Runciman's
one-sided choice of hosts encouraged Sudeten German
extremists, here is their own triumphant testimony:
"We know", says the Teplitz-Sch'dnauer Anzeiger of
October loth, 1938, in its special number welcoming
the German troops, u that Lord Runciman first of all
sought out the representatives of the German nobility
and from them received the enlightenment which he
passed on to England and France/'

Of what "enlightenment" Lord Runciman passed on
to England and France his letter to Chamberlain, pub-
lished in the White Paper of September 28th, is no
doubt a truthful record, even though the date of that
letter is September 2 1 st, when it could serve no purpose
except to excuse a/0*V accompli. Although he admitted
that it was the Henleinist extremists and their foreign
backers who had smashed the negotiations on purpose
at a moment when the peace of the world seemed in
danger, he rewarded them for this by proposing that
they be given all they wanted. Although he admitted
that the Czechoslovak Government had proposed con-
cessions which were "favourable and hopeful" indeed
even "embodied almost all the requirements of the
Karlsbad 8 points" he rewarded the Czechs for this
extreme sacrifice, which involved the highest discipline

^^ j 4 *i

and grave risks, by proposing that they be deprived
"promptly" of a great part of their country, and even

259

LOST LIBERTY?

then compelled to suppress freedom of speech, to in-
clude "a representative of the Sudeten German people"
in their Government and to submit their foreign policy
to the will of their "neighbours". As Mr. Armstrong
points out, "the Germans remaining in Czechoslovakia
a country whose twenty-year record for the treatment
of minorities was the best in Europe, were much on
his mind. But for almost a million Czechs, German
liberals and 'race enemies' whom he recommended de-
livering over to Hitler, whose record for ferocious mis-
treatment of every opponent, active or passive, is with-
out modern parallel, not a thought, not a line, not a
word." l He also proposed that the Czech police be
at once withdrawn from the frontier districts, leaving
Henlein's Ordners and his armed legions that were
massed across the frontier free to persecute the non-
Nazi population and to cause disorders which Hitler
could have used as a pretext for invasion. 2 The pro-
posals of Lord Runciman were so flagrantly unjust and
inhumane and undemocratic that there can be only one
excuse for them, the fear of war. But Lord Runci-
man's business was to mediate, not to arbitrate, or so
the Czechs and the British Parliament were expressly
told; and to put forward ruthlessly one-sided proposals
is not mediation. Lord Runciman's proposals were
such that no Czechoslovak Government could accept
them except under the most brutal pressure, and this he
must have known. Another broken pledge.

But Lord Runciman seems to have been only a tool.
In the first place, even he recommended not what
Chamberlain tortured the Czechs into accepting the
cession of all frontier districts where more than half the

1 Op. cit. p. 6.
2 See the first-hand evidence assembled above, in Part I, Chapters I and II.

260

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

people were German but only the cession of "those
frontier districts . . where the Sudeten population is
in an important majority", 1 (There is a rumour, worth
mentioning, that Lord Runciman suffered something
like a break-down when he realised to what use Mr.
Chamberlain was putting his main proposal.) Secondly,
Czechs who took part in the negotiations say that again
and again, whenever they reached an agreement with
the Runciman Mission, Downing Street at once went
a step beyond it a step towards Hitler. Thirdly, on
September yth the leading article of The Times, by
proposing openly that the Czechs be pressed to cede
territory to Germany, and this when the "fourth Plan"
hung in the balance, wrecked that chance of really
settling the Sudeten German problem and gave to Hitler,
Henlein, the Poles and the Hungarians a plain invita-
tion to grab what they could.

We have traced the main responsibility for the
apparent dilemma of September, 1938, country by
country; but what we have found is that the real cause
is a set of forces existing in many countries, together
with one man able and many anxious to exploit them.
Chamberlain seems, all through 1938, to have lived in
the nineteenth century to have acted, that is, on the
belief that if only the Great Powers could agree to
divide the world into spheres of influence, one sphere
of influence for each Great Power and no trespassing,
there would be no major clashes of interests and there-
fore no war : this, it seems, is why he went obstinately
on handing over human beings to Hitler's mercy and

1 Cmd. 5847, p, 6. Our italics. See also Mr. Chamberlain's speech of
September 2 8th, 1938.

261

LOST LIBERTY?

material assets to his use. His doom-laden mistake
was that he failed to see that Hitler was not the man
to be content with one sphere of influence allotted by
a compromise. Hitler's declared aim was simply to
make Germany strong strong enough to dictate to
the world and to expand in any sphere of influence
she might choose. To this Napoleonic design Hitler
brought up-to-date methods. He used force, but he
used it not for fighting but for persuasion of a certain
kind. He used force to rouse and control four great
emotions love of peace, parochialism, nationalism and
anti-communism.

By 1938 everyone knew that science had made war

more terrible than ever before everyone was afraid

of bombing from the air, especially in island-minded

England, and a very great many people thought of tvar

as the Great Unknown 3 as the end of the way of life

they knew. But love of peace was more even than

fear of war. People felt "that war is uncivilised and

useless anyhow", 1 Some of these failings are noble

and all are sensible but they were easy to exploit,

because " people thought peace was something to be

eulogised and invoked, not something to be purchased

by the assumption of real international responsibilities", 2

This desire for peace, Hitler exploited to Germany's

benefit, and so did Chamberlain. He also exploited

parochialism the fact that people tend only to fight

for what is called their own, not for other things, even

if these are in fact vital to them. Again and again

Hitler threatened to raise the question of colonies, then

dropped it in return for British passivity in Central

Europe; and he used the Anglo-German naval agree-

1 Hamilton Fish Armstrong, op. cit, p. 2,
* Ibid, p, 5,

262

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

ment to divide Great Britain from Europe. France
W as seduced from her Czech alliance by British
military collaboration, and then consoled for its loss by
a sudden rediscovery of her Empire. And Chamber-
lain did Hitler signal service by telling the British
people that the German threat to Czechoslovakia was
only u a quarrel in a far-away country between people
of whom we know nothing". As for nationalism, ever
since the French Revolution liberal and conservative
forces alike have fed and used it, until it has become
a terrific explosive force ready for any aggressor; and
every device which small nations have used to become
free Hitler uses to make a great nation tyrannical.

These facts explain why Chamberlain and Daladier
could in 1938 put across their dishonourable and
dangerous surrender of the Czechs among their own
peoples. But even they do not wholly explain why
Chamberlain adopted the policy of undermining the
Czechoslovak Republic, and they do not explain what
gave Chamberlain the power to make Benes yield.
The underlying cause of the Czechoslovak disaster
was the fear of Bolshevism, which was in 1938 the
strongest political force in the whole world and the
most dangerous.

This is, of course, easy to say and difficult to prove;
yet to leave it out is to give a false idea of what really
happened in 1938 and of what endangers^ liberty.
Many small things point to its power; for instance,
when a Sudeten German Social Democrat visited
London in July, 1938, Lord Noel-Buxton called him
a "traitor to his race" because, being anti-Nazi, he
was loyal to the Republic; and a quite well-known
conservative Member of Parliament told this stranger
that he would rather see Rheims and Dijon in German

263

LOST LIBERTY?

hands than see a communist France! Against the "
open menace of Hitlerian Germany, Great Britain and
France needed badly to work with Russia, and "before
1914 liberal England and democratic France had
found it possible to co-operate with autocratic Russia";
yet "in 1938 conservative England and plutocratic
France could not abide a socialistic Russia'', 1 Anti-
red prejudice did as much as pacifism and military
unreadiness to make Great Britain and France deny
munitions to Republican Spain at the cost of a serious
peril to their own vital interests. But what, above
all, brings out the decisive power of snobbery and
anti-communism is the question, "Why did the Czechs
not fight?"

Why did the Czechs not fight? Spanish Republicans
perhaps, but certainly no English or French person,
had the right to reproach the Czechs because, left
alone to face terrific odds, they surrendered. But
why did they do it? We, who had studied their army,
the finest army in Europe for training, staff, equipment
and morale^ and had seen the Czech people's courage
unshaken and inspiring after the invasion of Austria
and the trial of May 2 ist, we felt sure they would fight,
even alone. That nearly every Czech man and woman
was ready, almost anxious, to be bombed for this
Republic of Masaryk was sublimely clear in Septem-
ber, 1938, nobody could doubt it. The capitula-
tion dumbfounded us. Why did they capitulate? A
well-known and often well-informed English writer
afterwards went about declaring that the Czechs,
having been servants for centuries under the Hapsburg
Empire, had a servile nature, and that it was this that

1 Professor Bernadotte Schmitt, From Versailles to Munichy 1918-1938,
p. 30 (Chicago University Press, 1938).

264

THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY

came out in their disciplined submission to the Diktats
of London and of Munich. Snobbish nonsense ! We
were there at the time and we bear witness : the Czecho-
slovak people and army were ready to fight alone
against what they were told were hopeless odds. It
was not they who surrendered. Benes alone was re-
sponsible for that Czechoslovak submission, and he
alone could have it put through. To do it, even he,
in spite of his unequalled authority as the second
founder of the Republic, had to deceive the people.

Why did he do it? Treachery is out of the question :
nobody could suggest seriously that Benes, who had
given his whole unresting life to the work of creating
a Czechoslovak Republic, should betray it. Was it,
then, weakness? Did Benes simply break down at the
last moment? Had he, perhaps, just not quite enough
physical and mental strength to stand five years of
clear foreboding, six months of almost sleepless struggle
and then that betrayal? Many Czechs, soldiers especi-
ally, thought so and blamed him bitterly. Even they
should ask themselves whether they could have stood
the strain. But Benes did not collapse not until
after Munich. If he had collapsed before the capitu-
lation there would have been no capitulation. If
Benes had weakened, he would have resisted ^Hitler,
for to resist Hitler then was the line of least resistance.
It would have been infinitely easier for President
Benes to resist Hitler than to resist his own people.
And certainly nobody can call him a physical coward-
he had risked his own life again and again for his
country's independence.

President Benes chose to deceive his people into
surrender because, with the fate of Spain before his
eyes, he knew that, if Czechoslovakia were to fight

265

LOST LIBERTY?

alone with Russia, Germany would summon an anti-
Bolshevik crusade against her, the corrupt French
Press and Parliament would at once join in this propa-
ganda of Nazi Germany, and so would the British
Parliament and Press without needing to be corrupted,
Hitler would then get all the help he needed, disguised
as non-intervention, and Poland and Hungary would
also fall upon Czechoslovakia, Overwhelmingly out-
numbered, almost wholly surrounded, and perhaps
soon cut off, Czechoslovakia would almost certainly be
defeated, and defeated once for all : overrun, massacred,
outlawed too, so that if later a world war should come
after all and Hitler be defeated, the next makers of
the peace would never restore independence to the
remnants of the Czechoslovak people. Perhaps he
was wrong. Perhaps the consequences of surrender
may be worse than the consequences of resistance, and
the Republic of Masaryk might have brought down
Hitler as Elizabethan England brought down in-
quisitorial Spain, But this is certain: it was well-
grounded fear of the fear of Bolshevism that decided
Benes to surrender.

266

Chapter III

HAS FREEDOM A FUTURE?

(HAT about the future? How is democratic
freedom to survive?

The World War of 1 9 14-1 9 1 8 showed, and
what has followed it confirms, that brutality is not
enough. Although in theory a military dictatorship
without disunity and without scruples is best fitted to
win a modern war, yet in fact, precisely because modern
war is so ruthless, because it is war of whole peoples
against whole peoples as never before, ideals are
essential to victory, honesty is essential to victory.
Modern war, if both sides are well equipped, tends to
go on until one side or the other has a revolution ; and
the nations less likely to dissolve in revolution are those
which have a cause in which the ordinary people can go
on believing. If war comes, one essential munition of
war is an ideal big enough to hold an alliance of free
peoples together, a set of war aims good enough to
come somewhere near making the war worth winning in
spite of what it is destroying. What are the war aims
of the still free peoples to be, if in the end they decide
they must fight? The war aims of the last great war a
world safe for democracy, only this time made really safe
for democracy by avoiding the errors of the last peace:
what other aims can humane people have? ^ Only, if they
are ever to resist this tidal wave of imperialist tyranny,
the democracies will have to be real democracies,

267

LOST LIBERTY?

If not, they will lose, A people that goes into a war
for freedom and then finds that its rulers are men and
women who put snobbery and privilege first, will rebel,
Against really free countries fascist countries cannot
win in the end, for fascist countries are without the one
ideal that could stand the test of a long war; but against
sham democracies they may well win, if only because
they themselves are to some extent V classless societies".
To Great Britain in case of war the Cliveden Set is a
weakness worse even than the vulnerability of London.
Will any nation fight under people or with people who
have already betrayed the ideal for which they must
fight?

There is no facile recipe for real democracy. Free-
dom depends, first, on people really wanting freedom,
wanting it so that they do not only sigh for it but insist
on it, recognise the real enemies of liberty and make up
their minds to get liberty, both civil and economic,
applied in a high degree for the whole people. This
of course involves sweeping reforms achieved without
violence, an unending battle on two fronts against
two Hydras demagogy and vested interests. Yet if
people really value freedom, freedom does in fact sur-
vive even modern war and come to life again where
disaster has destroyed it. At the end of the World
War Lloyd George was a dictator in fact, and had
achieved so much that at one point he could not bring
himself to lay down his powers; but Sir Austen
Chamberlain, leaning on the unquestioning individual-
ism of the ordinary people, brought Lloyd George back
to earth. The Czechs, the first Protestant nation, fell
once before into captivity; they were persecuted till less
than a third of them was left; yet after three centuries
of alien rule they became independent again. Where

268

HAS FREEDOM A FUTURE?

there is a strong will to freedom there is in the end a
way to freedom.

But what sort of a way? Must all the civilised
peoples of the world go through the unnecessary de-
vastation and wanton misery of a new Dark Age and
suffer like the Czechs before they reach freedom?
This paradox is true : to avoid the fate of the Czechs
the great democracies must imitate the Republic of
Masaryk.

The key problem of democracy is to give to demo-
cratic institutions an authority not derived from time or
from force. President Masaryk saw that the authority
of democratic institutions must be a moral authority,
and he himself did most to create this moral authority in
the Czechoslovak Republic. It did not die with him.
In July, 1 938, at the Sokol Festival, the people greeted
President Beneg with the cry "Successor of Masaryk!"
The Czechoslovak Republic solved the problem of
authority in democracy by two "philosopher kings"
Plato's dream fulfilled. If freedom is to survive in the
world, the would-be democracies must have democratic
leaders : like Masaryk and Benes, the leaders of the
would-be democracies must be both leaders and demo-
cratic. Instead of aping the dynamism of dictators,
they must be men who get things done without violence
or intolerance of speech or policy; and democracy must
be their real aim : the creation of the greatest freedom
possible for the whole people, not the preservation of
unearned or tyrannous freedoms for a few.

Masaryk and BeneS were great men not because a
freak of nature had given them towering genius, but
because they were good and truthful men as well as
statesmen, philosophers as well as politicians. Although
they showed their intense patriotism by working for

269

LOST LIBERTY?

years to free a small nation from alien rule, they fought
against chauvinism in their people and gave all they
could to the League of Nations, Unlike Lord Bald-
win, who (as he himself confessed) for fear of losing
an election failed to tell the British people plainly that
rearmament was essential, Masaryk and Bene made it
their main aim to teach their people, so that in 1938
the Czech people understood democracy and was ready
to defend it.

Above all, the Republic of Masaryk and BeneS solved
the problem of reconciling military readiness with
democratic freedom. Those who knew the people and
army of the First Czechoslovak Republic had the
chance to see how noble democracy in practice can be,
In 1938 the Czechoslovak Army was truly a people's
army, yet the most up-to-date army in the world; and
the people, though loving the army and ready to die
for independence, was not militaristic and not chauvin-
istic. Most ordinary Czech men and women in 1938
were quite sure that they would fight and die not for
a frontier, not for the sake of subduing Germans, but
for their hard-won and well-used independence and
for everyone in the world who wanted freedom and
humane government.

The struggle between militarist dictatorship and re-
spect for human individuality arises again and again,
letting nobody escape it. It is eternal as well as
urgent. It is moral even more than it is military. If
freedom is to come out of this struggle, the would-be
democracies must prove themselves real democracies.

270

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENT A

The Czechoslovak Note of September 20th, 1938, in reply to the
Anglo-French Proposals of September iqth

THE Czechoslovak Government thanks the British and French
Governments for the communication they have given to it,
formulating their point of view on the solution of the present
international difficulties concerning Czechoslovakia. Whilst
taking account of the responsibility which results for it in the
interest of Czechoslovakia, of her friends and allies, and in
the interest of general peace, it expresses the conviction that the
proposals contained in this communication are not adapted to
attaining the aim pursued by the British and French Govern-
ments in the great effort they are making for peace.

These proposals have been made without consulting the
representatives of Czechoslovakia, and a decision has been taken
against her without her being heard, although the Czechoslovak
Government has drawn attention to the fact that it cannot
accept the responsibility for the declaration made without it.
In consequence, also, it is comprehensible that the said pro-
posals could not be such as to be within Czechoslovakia's
possibilities.

The Czechoslovak Government cannot for constitutional
reasons make a decision concerning frontiers; such a decision
would not be possible without damaging the democratic regime
and the juridical structure of the Czechoslovak State. In any
case there would be need to consult Parliament.

In the opinion of the Government, to accept a proposal of
this kind would be equal to an arbitrary and complete mutilation

273 T

LOST LIBERTY?

(i

of the State in every direction. From the point of view of
economy and transport Czechoslovakia would be completely
lamed, and from the strategical point of view she would be
placed in a supremely grave position; sooner or later she would
fall under the total influence of Germany.

Even if Czechoslovakia should decide for the proposed
sacrifices, the question of peace would be in no degree resolved:

(a) Many Sudeten Germans would prefer for reasons well
known to emigrate from the Reich and to settle in the
democratic atmosphere of the Czechoslovak State. New
difficulties and new nationality struggles would be the result.

(b) The laming of Czechoslovakia would result in a pro-
found political change in the whole of Central and South-
East Europe, The equilibrium of forces in Central Europe
and in Europe in general would be destroyed; this would
have far-reaching consequences for all other States and above
all for France.

(c) The Czechoslovak Government Is sincerely grateful
to the Great Powers for their intention of guaranteeing the
integrity of Czechoslovakia; it esteems and appreciates it
highly. Such a guarantee could certainly open the way to
an entente between all the interested parties, if the present
nationalities dispute were to be arranged amicably and in
such a way as not to impose upon Czechoslovakia unaccept-
able sacrifices.

In recent years Czechoslovakia has given many proofs of her
unshakable devotion to peace. On the insistence of her friends
the Czechoslovak Government has gone, during the negotiations
on the Sudeten German question, so far that this has been
recognised and acknowledged by the world moreover, one of
the declarations of the British Government emphasised that it
should not go outside the limits of the Czechoslovak Constitu-
tion and even the Sudeten German Party, when the Govern-
ment's last proposals were made to it, did not refuse them, and
publicly manifested its conviction that the Government's inten-
tions were genuine and sincere. In spite of the fact that at
the same time rebellion was unloosed in a part of the Sudeten
German population, a rebellion fomented from without, the

274

APPENDIX I

Government has solemnly declared that it maintains the pro-
posals by which it went^to meet the wishes of Sudeten German
nationality^ To-day still it considers this procedure capable of
realisation in the matter of the questions of the nationalities
within the Republic.

Czechoslovakia has remained faithful to the treaties and has
fulfilled the engagements resulting for her, whether in the
interests of her friends, or of the League of Nations and its
members, or of other nations. She has been determined, and
is still determined, to keep them in all circumstances. If to-day
she defends herself against possibilities of violence, she does this
still in conformity with recent engagements and in conformity
with the declaration of her neighbour and also in conformity with
the arbitration treaty of October i6th, 1926 [sic], which has
been recognised as still valid by the present German Govern-
ment in several declarations. The Czechoslovak Government
emphasises that it is possible to apply this treaty and requests that
it should be done. Honouring its signature, it is ready to
accept the arbitral sentence. In this way any dispute could be
settled. This would facilitate a speedy, honourable and dignified
solution for all the participating States.

Czechoslovakia has always been bound to France by the most
devoted esteem and friendship and by the alliance which no
Czechoslovak Government and no Czechoslovak would ever
damage. She lived and lives in faith in the great French people,
whose Government has so often given her assurance of the
firmness of its friendship. To Great Britain she is bound by
traditional devotion and friendship, by esteem and respect, which
will always inspire Czechoslovakia in an indissoluble collabora-
tion between the two countries and so also in the common
effort for peace, whatever may be the situation in Europe.

The Czechoslovak Government is conscious that the effort
which the British and French Governments are putting forth
has its source in true interest. It thanks them sincerely for this
interest. Nevertheless, for the reasons already mentioned it
addresses itself anew to them with a last appeal and asks them to
re-examine their point of view. It does this in the conviction
that it defends not merely its own interests but also those of its
friends, of the cause of peace, and of the cause of a healthy

275

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LOST LIBERTY?

evolution of Europe. In this decisive moment it is not only a
question of the fate of Chechoslovakia, but also of the fate of
other nations, above all of France.

PRAGUK, September aotli, 1938 *

DOCUMENT B

September %6th. Record by Dr* Hubert Masarikofthe Czecho-
$lo<uak Foreign Office of a conversation in the Cern/n Palace
at Prague between himself and M, Lamarle of the French
Legation

"I gave Lamarle a systematic explanation on the basis of a
General Staff ethnographical map, of how unjust and absurd
Hitler's demands were. Lamarle, in my presence, drafted the
main poiiits of the telegram for Paris in which he defended our
point of view about the Moravian Corridor, Also in other
respects his opinion was favourable to us. He told me con-
fidentially that he spoke some days ago with Kundt, who showed
him the claims of his v party according to which the frontier
^rould be drawn near Ceski Lfpa, Ustf (Aussig] and Lubenec-u-
Zlutice, Lamarle explained the hesitations of France (we have
known each other for four years) by the deficiencies in the air
force and by the fear of a bombardment of Paris. Vuillaumin
returned from Germany terrified. But the last few days have
brought an improvement. That is why we can now count on
France."

DOCUMENT C

British Time-table

Annex to Note of September ayth, 1938

The British Government proposes the following time-table,
for whose execution the British authorities could take a certain
degree of responsibility:

1 Translated from the Czech version. The official version in French is to
be found in Mr. Hamilton Fish Armstrong's When There is No Peace,
pp. 233-6.

276

APPENDIX I

(1) The German Army would occupy the territory of Cheb
and of As outside the Czechoslovak fortifications on October ist.

(2) The meeting of the Czechoslovak and German pleni-
potentiaries with the British representative in a Sudeten German
town on October 3rd,

The British representative will have the same voting right as
his German and Czech colleagues.

At the same time, the meeting of the International Boundary
Commission with German, Czech and British members.

At the same time, as far as possible, the arrival of observers
and, as far as possible, of the British Legion. Later might
come in addition 4 British battalions. The Legion, the
observers and the Army would be placed under the orders of
the Boundary Commission.

The duties of the plenipotentiaries would be the following:

(a) To make arrangements for the immediate withdrawal
of the Czechoslovak Army and State Police.

(b) To determine in its general lines the protection of the
minorities in the ceded territories, the right of option and the
removal of property. An arrangement of the same kind
might be made for the German minority in Czechoslovakia.

(c) To determine on the basis of the Franco-British plan
the instructions to be given to the International Boundary
Commission for the delimitation of the new frontiers as
quickly as possible.

(3) On October loth entry of the German troops into the
territory of which the plenipotentiaries have declared that the
arrangements have been completed. This might be the whole
of the territory, but it is possible that this might prove impossible
because the Czech troops had not yet withdrawn entirely^ so
that there would be the danger of a collision with the arriving
German troops. But the International Boundary Commission
should determine the final frontier by October^ 3 ist, and the
Czech troops and police should retire behind this line and the
German troops should occupy as far as this line by this date, ^

(4) The next meeting of the plenipotentiaries should consider
if it is necessary to take future measures to improve the frontiers
delimited by the Boundary Commission in October, with a view

277

LOST LIBERTY?

to taking into consideration the geographic and economic
necessities in the various communes. They might consider if
local plebiscites might not be necessary or desirable to this end.
(5) Later the stage would be reached of negotiations between
Germany, Great Britain, France and Czechoslovakia with a
view to:

(a) The determinations of measures in common for the
demobilisation and withdrawal of troops.

(b) The revision of the present contractual system of
Czechoslovakia, the introduction of a system for a common
guarantee of the new Czechoslovakia.

DOCUMENT D

Czechoslovak Reply to British Recommendations for a Time-table

On September 27th His Britannic Majesty's Minister de-
livered in Prague the suggestion of the British Government
concerning the gradual cession to Germany of parts of the
territory of the Czechoslovak Republic.

The Czechoslovak Government recognises fully the effort
which the British Government has made to arrive at a specific
solution of this problem, and for this reason the Czechoslovak
Government has examined, as always, with the greatest con-
scientiousness the proposals submitted. On the request of
September 2yth of the French and British Governments the
Czechoslovak Government has accepted their proposals and
assures them that it also asks for their complete and loyal fulfil-
ment. In order that there may not be in this matter any
doubts the Czechoslovak Government gives its consent to the
British and French Governments guaranteeing this fulfilment.
In this sense the Czechoslovak Government acknowledges that
the memorandum delivered at Godesberg on September 23rd
to His Excellency Mr. Chamberlain differs so substantially from
the British and French proposals that the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment felt itself obliged to reject this memorandum, and Mr.
Chamberlain in his speech of September 2yth has declared that

278

APPENDIX I

he understands the reasons for which the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment could not accept these conditions.

In the same speech Mr. Chamberlain declared that the pro-
posals delivered after his visit to Berchtesgaden known under
the name of the Franco-British proposals are in agreement
substantially with that which Mr. Chamberlain desires.

The Czechoslovak Government accept, in principle, the plan
and the time-table presented by the British Government. None
the less, it is necessary to object that in certain points the time-
table does not agree with the Franco-British proposals.

The Government accepts the whole of the second point,
except the disposition concerning the composition of the Com-
mission of Representatives and the Boundary Commission, and
point (a) in which mention is made of the recall of the Czecho-
slovak Army and of the State Police. Concerning the com-
position of the Commission, the Czechoslovak Government
proposes the addition of a French member, and then the sub-
mission of controversial questions to the arbitration of a repre-
sentative of the United States in cases where the representatives
could not agree.

The Government accepts also the whole of point 4 and
point 5-

The Government has these objections concerning points I
and 3:

In the Franco-British proposals no particular dates were
established for the evacuation and the Czechoslovak Government
interpreted this to mean that evacuation would not be carried
out before the competent International Commission had
finished its work.

The British Government's proposal of September 2yth
differs also, in our judgment, in two fundamental points from
the Franco-British proposals which the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment accepted on the insistence of the two Governments in the
interest of peace, namely:

(1) They demand the immediate evacuation of As and of

Cheb;

(2) They demand the successive evacuation from October

i oth onwards.

279

LOST LIBERTY?

Thus in these two cases it must be carried out before an
agreement is reached on the conditions of transfer under the
supervision of the inter national organism, in which the Czecho-
slovak representative also would have a seat, as was laid down
in their proposals of September igth,

Czechoslovakia cannot evacuate her territory nor demobilise
nor leave her fortifications before the future frontier shall have
been precisely delimited and before the new system of inter-
national guarantees which have been promised to Czechoslo-
vakia in the Franco-British proposals shall have been established
and assured. The procedure which was there proposed can be
accelerated for the Czechoslovak Government does not wish
in any circumstances to retard a definitive solution.

The Czechoslovak Government would accept any date for
the definitive evacuation if all the conditions were fulfilled, that
is to say, if the word of the Commission of plenipotentiaries and
of the Boundary Commission were finished and the agreement
on the guarantee were complete, whether this date were October
30th or a later date. At the same time the Czechoslovak
Government would give its consent to the fixing of the date
which would indicate the final limit. It would propose on this
point the date of December I5th. If the work is finished it
could be done sooner, on a day between October 30th and
December i^th.

Here it is once more observed that the Czechoslovak Govern-
ment requests with emphasis that before the work of the Pleni-
potentiaries and of the Boundary Commission is begun it should
IDC determined through diplomatic channels on the basis of what
principles and what material factors the new frontier is to be
drawn. The Franco-British proposals establish the principle
that the Bezirke which have more than 50 per cent of German
population must be ceded. At the same time these proposals
admit the possibility of arriving at a rectification of the frontier
in favour of Czechoslovakia where that might be indispensable;
this British plan also emphasises economic and geographic con-
siderations.

All the frontiers of which mention has so far been made from
the German side have been fixed exclusively from the German
point of view without Czechoslovakia being able to make heard

280

APPENDIX I

a single word. This last German memorandum fixes a frontier
very sensibly removed from that which was established in the
Franco-British proposals.

Czechoslovakia resolutely repeats that she cannot accept a
plebiscite such as was formulated in the desiderata contained in
the memorandum, of the German Government.

Finally, the Czechoslovak Government emphasises that it
would willingly accept the submission of any difference whatever
to the arbitration of H. E. Franklin Roosevelt if, at this already
advanced stage of the negotiations in which agreement on so
many points concerning the procedure had already been reached a
there should appear any insurmountable difficulties and obstacles^
or, as the President of the United States himself proposes, an
international conference might be called in the sense of the
Note addressed on September 2yth by the Czechoslovak Minister
Masaryk to Lord Halifax.

PRAGUE, September 2 8th, 1938

281

APPENDIX II

DECREE OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK MINISTRY
OF THE INTERIOR FORBIDDING PERFORM-
ANCES OF THE OSVOBOZENE" DIVADLO OF
PRAGUE

Zemsfty urad

No. 7182/2, 1938
Office zoA

PRAGUE, November gth, 1938

Decree
Mr. Jiri Voskovec

Theatrical entrepreneur
Praha III

Kampa, C.I

By a decree of January 20th, 1938, bearing the number
1070/28 ai 1936, office 20A, you were authorised to give from
January ist to December 3ist, 1938, theatrical performances
in the hall "U Novdkfl", Praha II, Vodickova 32, at your
expense and in your name, the repertoire being limited to
comedies in the Czech language, vaudevilles and performances
for children.

For reasons relating to public order in virtue of paragraph 5
of the Ministerial decree of November 25th, 1850, bearing the
number 454 of the imperial code, and in virtue of the decree of
the Court Chancellery of January 6th, 1836, volume 64, No. 5,
of the police code, I abolish that authorisation forthwith, for,
from the experiences of past years, it is to be feared that in your
theatre we should again see the practice of illegal departures
from the texts previously authorised which, in the present cir-
cumstances, might cause manifestations and demonstrations

282

APPENDIX II

which are out of place both within the hall and eventually
outside the theatre, and thus threaten public order and security.

Within fifteen days from the receipt of this present decree,
you may appeal to the Ministry of the Interior in Prague.

But in virtue of paragraph 77/2 of the governmental decree of
January I3th, 1928, and by reason of the high public interest
mentioned above, I withdraw the right of eventual appeal
which this decree confers.

Against this latter measure there is, in virtue of paragraph 4
of the law quoted above, no appeal possible.

In the name of the head of the administration of Bohemia,

m.p.

283

APPENDIX III

SPEECH BY DR. EDWARD BENES, MARCH 19,
1939, BROADCAST FROM CHICAGO

IN this tragic moment of European history I am addressing this
appeal to the American people.

There is to-day in Central Europe a nation of Czechs and
Slovaks whose territory has been violently invaded. Might has
occupied a free country and subjugated a free people. Those
who might fight for their liberty, for democracy and for freedom
have been thrown into concentration camps by an invader.
This invader has no right in this territory, but by force of might
has taken all the wealth, property, industry, raw materials, gold
and monies which the great efforts of 15,000,000 people have
created in the last twenty years. For centuries these people
workers, peasants and, modest middle-class people have
patiently and laboriously built their prosperity, without ever
menacing or threatening others. They have asked for them-
selves only the God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness within their own ancient frontiers. A most
brutal crime is perpetrated against this people. They have
suddenly been robbed of everything they held most dear, and
this crime has been committed as part of a carefully prepared
programme just as a common criminal plans for the robbery
of an individual. The crime is committed within the frame-
work of invasion by several hundred thousand soldiers, with
hundreds of airplanes and tanks and military motor cars. And
this tragedy occurs this invasion comes in time of peace and
without provocation or excuse.

The Czechs and Slovaks have always lived in a very diffi-
cult geographical position. To-day they are surrounded by
a nation of 80,000,000 inhabitants and have been absorbed

284

APPENDIX III

within that nation. But for ten centuries, from the time of
the "Good King" St. Wenceslaus, this small nation has been
obliged to fight for its existence, for its liberty, and during the
last century for democracy and for free development of the
individual. In the fourteenth century they fought for religious
tolerance under Jan Hus. For a hundred years they fought.
And although finally there was a conciliation, they had paid
a great price for their ideals. They were subjugated by the
Habsburgs in the sixteenth century. By the middle of the
seventeenth century their national State was annihilated because
of their love for tolerance and liberty and respect for individual
rights. For three centuries they were under the yoke of the
Germans and the Magyars. The last war the World War
liberated them, to which liberation the people of the United
States contributed so much. And the national State of Czecho-
slovakia was established.

During the past twenty years the Czechs and Slovaks have
steadily and continuously constructed a prosperous Republic
its social structure extraordinarily in equilibrium, its legislation
progressive, its economics and finances in order, its budget in
balance, its debts met, its export trade thriving and with real
political liberty and religious tolerance. While the State had
minorities a question with which Europe has always ^ been
confronted, and therefore Czechoslovakia was not peculiar in
this regard it has been universally recognised ^by the most
objective statesmen, historians, scientists and sociologists, that
they had established a very liberal system and one of the most
tolerant policies in national and international affairs of any of
the new European States. Czechoslovakia was known in all
Europe as the asylum for free people and the most ardent
supporter of the League of Nations. There were no persecu-
tions of any Church, no persecutions of Catholics, no persecu-
tions of Jews, no racial persecutions of any kind. It was a
really awakened, developed and progressive democracy. It
was the really successful democracy east of the Rhine. It was
the Republic of that great humanist, Masaryk.

Yet it was for these very reasons that this little Republic was
destroyed by a dictatorial regime. .

Don't bdieve that it was a question of self-determination for

285

LOST LIBERTY?

a minority. From the beginning it has been a battle for the
existence of the State. A dictatorship cannot tolerate freedom.
A dictatorship can permit no liberty, no freedom, no democracy
in ^ its vicinity. It was and is, and will be, a battle for the
existence of a free nation opposed by a totalitarian State which
denies freedom. The latest move of the German dictatorship
in the occupation of Czechoslovakia proves it.

This last tragic event must now finally open the eyes of the
whole world to the fact that the Czechoslovak nation was from
its beginning condemned by the dictators. With the subjuga-
tion of Czechoslovakia, freedom is being guillotined. And
nobody in the United States or in the world should forget that
the regime which is now attempting to kill freedom in Czecho-
slovakia is based on these three groups of conceptions:

First of all, the regime does not recognise any obligations
unless it is expedient for it to do so; it will fulfil no promise; it
will respect no law; it will keep no pledge; it will show no
tolerance, either political or religious; it will admit no right
to property either of State or of individuals unless it considers
it expedient to do so. And for every crime against human
decency it will always discover a pretext.

Second, the only principle on which this regime is based is
the rule of force and violence. This regime can maintain
no respect for the idea of right. It preaches that the only right
is might force and violence. If you look back through the
pages of history, you will find that this is the system which was
always termed the Age of Barbarism. To-day it would rule
the world as the Age of Brute Force.

The third basis of this regime is the simple use of the old
slogan "the end justifies the means", and in their minds that end
means one thing only the success of their rule of brute force,
which is combined with the propaganda of lies which they have
elaborated both internally and internationally as a weapon, and
as a ^most important factor in maintaining this regime, and in
deceiving the world as to their real intent. This whole theory
has been made into a State system, a system which to-day
undertakes to subjugate Czechoslovakia, a system which has
begun to rule throughout my country and which to-morrow
will extend its terrorism still further. And the people of the

286

APPENDIX III

United States and of what remains of free Europe must be
prepared for a continuation and extension of this rule of Brute
Force.

Five months ago, during the so-called September crisis, the
Czechoslovak nation was asked to make the sacrifice of territory,
and pressure was put upon my people not to fight for their
freedom, integrity and independence in order to save the world
from war. The appeal was made to that little people to
sacrifice themselves for the peace of the world. That little
people did it. And that little people received the promise of
the integrity of the remnant of its national territory and of the
security of its national State. That little people, having made
these sacrifices under pressure of the decisions at Munich,
accepted, because the four Great Powers at Munich signed an
obligation to guarantee the new State.

Because of this guarantee, I repeat, this little nation made
their sacrifice; and I resigned because I wished to give personal
proof that I would not be an obstacle to the good-neighbourliness
and good relations between Germany and Czechoslovakia, and
because I wished to give to the world the proof that I participated
in this self-sacrifice of my nation.

For the past five months I have imposed on myself absolute
silence and complete reserve, hoping that this would contribute
to give finally to my country a little peace and quiet, and to
other Powers concerned the opportunity to work out the agreed
solutions.

After my resignation I received thousands of manifestations,
thousands of telegrams, thousands of letters from France,
England, Holland, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the United States
and other countries, calling down the blessings of God on the
contribution of my people to the cause of peace. The whole
world praised the sacrifices of Czechoslovakia! Jts patience,
control, discipline, steadiness its self-domination in one of the
most tragic moments of history were outstanding; and I dare
to say that no other nation could surpass Czechoslovakia in its
behaviour. Mr. Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great
Britain, spoke on Friday of this people as "a brave and proud
people". Yes, it was and is a brave and proud people, and it
will be brave and proud of all its achievements in the last twenty

287

LOST LIBERTY?

years and of what it has done in the last five months for peace,
for liberty, for humanity. It is indeed an example which it
would be difficult to match in all history.

And yet, in spite of everything, in spite of its sacrifices, in
spite of its self-discipline, in spite of all promises and all guaran-
tees, one of those Powers which signed the Munich pact so
solemnly after declaring for self-determination and pledging that
it has no further territorial aspirations in Czechoslovakia and
Europe, and in spite of the fact that the Munich Agreement has
taken 1,200,000 Czechoslovak people into the frontiers of
other States, this Power has now brutally broken all its pledges
and obligations, has invaded the territory of the Czechs and
Slovaks, has established a so-called "protectorate", has imposed
its regime of terror, of secret police, of racial and religious
persecution, its regime of concentration camps, its r6gime of
complete suppression of free Press and free speech, its regime of
brutality and inhumanity and that Power has declared that all
this is done in the name of peace in Europe. This same regime
began by asking self-determination for a minority. Its second
move was to press its need for self-defence against action by this
small, disarmed, surrounded nation. The third step was the
envelopment and encirclement of this little nation by Germany.
And the final argument was that as a consequence of this third
step by envelopment and encirclement, this national Czecho-
slovak territory must be taken over in the interests of general
peace.

So by these four moves this dictatorship has assured peace
the peace of the cemetery!

These are the facts. And I put these facts before the whole
American people and before the conscience of the entire world.
Let the facts speak for themselves.

For twenty years I have worked for peace, for real peace.
But to-day there is no peace in Europe, What is considered
a state of peace is but a terrible illusion, an illusion which will
one day take its toll in the enormous sacrifice of all the nations
of the world. Because there is war already! Yes, there is
war to-day in Europe; but there is war on one side only, and
while one party makes war, the other can merely look on.
And again I say to the world that everybody must understand

288

APPENDIX III

that there will be no peace, there will be no respite, there will
be no order until the crimes that have been committed in
Europe are wiped out, until there is again respect for the given
word, until the idea of honesty personal honesty and State
honesty is re-established, until the principles of individual and
international liberty are secured, and until real courage takes
command and requires that brute force must stop.

Don't forget that it is not only Europe that is involved, not
only Central and South-Eastern European nations, the French
nation, the British nation, the Scandinavian nation, the people
of the United States, but the whole world that is in danger, not
only from war but from the destruction of every high concept
of human morality, by the demolition of every fine concept of
liberty, by the disintegration of every concept of honesty and
decency. That is the danger to-day. A society which con-
tinues to tolerate such a state of things will be destroyed and
will disappear,

I place before the world court of public opinion these facts,
and in at last stating clearly what I mean and what I feel, I
continue to be a believer in the ideals of liberty and in the simple
concept of human honesty and dignity. I know that in the
history of mankind brute force has always fallen after every such
brutal and terrible misuse of power. The man who in modern
history has been taken as a symbol of brute force, Napoleon, has
declared: "There are in the world two powers the Sword and
the Spirit. The Spirit has always vanquished the Sword." In
this statement I am able to stand with Napoleon. I declare
that the independence of Czechoslovakia was not crushed; it
continues, it lives, it exists. And I solemnly declare that those
who have perpetrated this crime against the Czechoslovak
nation and against all mankind are guilty before God and will

be punished.

During the last months, and especially in the period mat
preceded and followed the September crisis, I have many times
been attacked personally. I have never answered. I never
shall answer. But until my last breath I shall continue the
fight for the freedom of my people and for their rights, and I
am sure that my nation will emerge from this struggle as it has
done many times before in its history, as brave and as proud as

289,4 1

LOST LIBERTY?

she has been throughout the past, and having always with her
the sympathy and the recognition and the love of all decent
people in the world. And there is no more fitting place for me
to make this declaration than in this free country of Washington
and Lincoln.

So I must end with an appeal to the American people. I
would beg that they do not permit such conceptions and ideas
as are now trying to dominate Europe to be tolerated in this
free country. Because in the approaching battle for the victory
of the Spirit against the Sword, the United States has a very
great role to play. Be ready for that conflict and be strong, oh
people of Democracy!

To all right-thinking men and women everywhere I give
the rnotto of my beloved nation "Truth prevails".

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