Tragedy and Hope
A History of the World in Our Time
By Carroll Quigley
PART THIRTEEN
Part Thirteen: The Disruption of Europe: 1937-1939
Chapter 44: Austria Infelix, 1933-1938
The Austria which was left after the Treaty of Saint-Germain was so weak economically that its life was maintained only by financial aid from the League of Nations and the Western democratic states. Its area of population had been so reduced that it consisted of little more than the great city of Vienna surrounded by a huge but inadequate suburb. The city, with a population of two millions in a country whose population had been reduced from 52 to 6.6 millions, had been the center of a great empire, and now was a burden on a small principality. Moreover, the economic nationalism of the Succession States like Czechoslovakia cut this area off from the lower Danube and the Balkans whence it had drawn its food supply in the prewar period.
Worse than this, the city and the surrounding countryside were antithetical in their outlooks on every political, social, or ideological issue. The city was Socialist, democratic, anti-clerical if not antireligious, pacifist, and progressive in the nineteenth-century meaning of the word "progress"; the country was Catholic if not clerical, ignorant, intolerant, belligerent, and backward.
Each area had its own political party, the Christian Socialists in the country and the Social Democrats in the city. These were so evenly balanced that in none of the five elections from 1919 to 1930 did the vote polled for either party fall below 35 percent or rise above 49 percent of the total vote cast. This meant that the balance of power in Parliament fell to the insignificant minor parties like the Pan-Germans or the Agrarian League. Since these minor groups threw in their lot with the Christian Socialists from 1920 onward, the dichotomy between the city and the country was transformed into a division between the government of the capital city (dominated by the Social Democrats) and that of the federal government (dominated by the Christian Socialists).
The Social Democrats, although very radical and Marxist in word, were very democratic and moderate in deed. In control of the whole country from 1918 to 1920, they were able to make peace, to crush out the threat of Bolshevism from Hungary to the east or from Bavaria to the north, to establish an effective democratic constitution with considerable autonomy for the local states (formerly provinces), and to give the new country a good impetus toward becoming a twentieth-century welfare state. The measure of their success may be seen in the fact that the Communists never were able to get established after 1919 or to elect a member to Parliament. On the other hand, the Social Democrats were unable to reconcile their desire for union with Germany (called Anschluss) with the need for financial aid from the Entente Powers who opposed this.
An agreement between the Pan-Germans and the Christian Socialists to put Anschluss on the shelf and concentrate on getting financial aid from the victorious Entente made it possible to overthrow the coalition Cabinet of Michael Mayr in June 1921, and replace it by a Pan-German-Christian Socialist alliance under the Pan-German Johann Schober. In May 1922, this alliance was reversed when the Christian Socialist leader, Monsignor Ignaz Seipel, a Catholic priest, became chancellor. Seipel dominated the federal government of Austria until his death in August 1932, and his policies were carried on after that by his disciples, Dollfuss and Schuschnigg. Seipel was able to achieve a certain amount of financial reconstruction by wringing international loans from the victorious Powers of 1918. He achieved this, in spite of Austria's poor credit status, by insisting that he would be unable to prevent Anschluss if Austria reached a stage of financial collapse.
In the meantime the Social Democrats in control of the city and state of Vienna embarked upon an amazing program of social welfare. The old monarchical system of indirect taxes was replaced by a system of direct taxes which bore heavily on the well-to-do. With an honest, efficient administration and a balanced budget, the living conditions of the poor were transformed. This was especially notable in regard to housing. Before 1914 this had been deplorable. A census of 1917 showed that 73 percent of all apartments were "one room" (with over go percent of workers' apartments in this class), and of these, 92 percent had no sanitary facilities, 95 percent had no running water, and 77 percent had no electricity or gas; many had no outside ventilation. Although this one room was smaller than 12 feet by 15 feet in size, 17 percent had a lodger, usually sharing a bed. As a result of the housing shortage, disease (especially tuberculosis) and crime were rampant, and real-estate values rose over 2,500 percent in the fifteen years 1885-1900. These economic conditions had been maintained by a very undemocratic political system under which only 83,000 persons, on a property basis, were allowed to vote and 5,500 of the richest were allowed to choose one-third of all seats on the city council.
Into this situation the Social Democrats came in 1918. By 1933 they had built almost 60,000 dwellings, mostly in huge apartment houses. These were constructed with hardwood floors, outside windows, gas, electricity, and sanitary facilities. In these large apartment buildings more than half the ground space was left free for parks and playgrounds, and central laundries, kindergartens, libraries, clinics, post offices, and other conveniences were provided. One of the largest of these buildings, the Karl Marx Hof, covered only 18 percent of its lot, yet held 1,400 apartments with 5,000 inhabitants. These were built so efficiently that the average cost per apartment was only about $1,650 each; since rent was expected to cover only upkeep and not construction cost (which came from taxes), the average rent was less than $2.00 a month. Thus the poor of Vienna spend only a fraction of their income for rent, less than 3 percent, compared to 25 percent in Berlin and about 20 percent in Vienna before the war. In addition, all kinds of free or cheap medical care, dental care, education, libraries, amusements, sports, school lunches, and maternity care were provided by the city.
While this was going on in Vienna. the Christian Socialist-Pan-German federal government was sinking deeper into corruption. The diversion of public funds to banks and industries controlled by Seipel's supporters was revealed by parliamentary investigations in spite of the government's efforts to conceal the facts. When the federal government struck back with its own investigation of the finances of the city of Vienna, it had to report that they were in admirable condition. All this served to increase the appeal of the Social Democrats throughout Austria, in spite of their antireligious and materialist orientation. This can be seen from the fact that the Socialist electoral vote increased steadily, rising from 35 percent of the total vote in 1920 to 39.6 percent in 1923 to 4Z percent in 1927. At the same time, the number of Christian Socialist seats in Parliament fell from 85 in 1920 to 82 in 19Z3 to 73 in 1927 to 66 in 1930.
In 1927 Monsignor Seipel formed a "Unity List" of all the anti-Socialist groups he could muster, but he could not turn the tide. The election gave his party only 73 seats compared to 71 for the Social Democrats, 12 for the Pan-Germans, and 9 for the Agrarian League. Accordingly, Seipel embarked on a very dangerous project. He sought to change the Austrian constitution into a presidential dictatorship as the first step on the road to a Habsburg restoration within a corporative Fascist state. Since any change in the constitution required a two-thirds vote in a Parliament where the Social-Democratic opposition held 43 percent of the seats, Monsignor Seipel sought to break this opposition by encouraging the growth of an armed reactionary militia, the Heimwehr (Home Guard). This project failed in 1929, when Seipel's constitutional changes were largely rejected by the Parliament. As a result, it became necessary to use illegal methods, a task which was carried out by Seipel's successor, Engelbert Dollfuss, in 1932-1934.
The Heimwehr first appeared in 1918-1919 as bands of armed peasants and soldiers formed on the fringes of Austrian territory to resist incursions of Italians, South Slavs, and Bolsheviks. After this danger passed, it continued in existence as a loose organization of armed reactionary bands, financed at first by the same German Army groups which were financing the Nazis in Bavaria at the same time (1919-1924). Later these bands were financed by industrialists and bankers as a weapon against the trade unions, and after 1927 by Mussolini as part of his projects of revisionism in the Danube area. At first, these Heimwehr units were fairly independent with their own leaders in different provinces. After 1927 they tended to coalesce, although rivalry between leaders remained bitter. These leaders were members of the Christian Socialist or Pan-German parties and sometimes had Habsburg sympathies. The leaders were Anton Rintelen and Walter Pfrimer in Styria, Richard Steidle in Tyrol, Prince Ernst Rdiger von Starhemberg in Upper Austria, and Emil Fey in Vienna. The "chief of the general staff" of the movement as it became unified was a multi-murderer fugitive from German justice, Waldemar Pabst, who had been involved in numerous political murders ordered by the nationalists in Germany in the period 19r9-1923.
These organizations openly drilled in military formations, made weekly provocative marches into industrial areas of the cities, openly declared their determination to destroy democracy, labor unions, and the Socialists and to change the constitution by force, and assaulted and murdered their critics.
Seipel's efforts to amend the constitution by using Heimwehr pressure against the Social Democrats failed in 1929, although he did succeed in increasing the powers of the Christian Democratic President Wilhelm Miklas somewhat. About the same time, Seipel rejected an offer from the Social Democrats to disarm and disband both the Heimwehr and the Social Democratic militia, the Schutzbund.
Seipel's tactics alienated his supporters in the Pan-German and Agrarian League so that his party no longer commanded a majority in the chamber. It resigned in September 1930. Using the new constitutional reforms which had been passed the year before, Seipel formed a "presidential" Cabinet, a minority government, of Christian Socialists and Heimwehr. For the first time this latter group obtained Cabinet posts, and these the most threatening, since Starhemberg became minister of interior (which controlled the police), and Franz Huber, another Heimwehr leader, became minister of justice. This was done in spite of the fact that the Heimwehr had just introduced into its organization an oath which bound its members to reject parliamentary democracy in favor of the one-party, cooperative, "leadership" state. From this point on, the constitution was steadily violated by the Christian Socialists.
New elections were called for November 1930. Starhemberg promised Pfrimer that they would carry out a Putsch to prevent the elections, and Starhemberg publicly announced, "Now we are here, and we will not drop the reins, whatever the result of the elections." Chancellor Karl Vaugoin, however, was convinced his group would win the elections; accordingly he vetoed the Putsch. Minister of Justice Huber confiscated the papers of the Pan-Germans, the Agrarians, and dissident Christian Socialists, as well as of the Social Democrats, during the campaign on the ground that they were "Bolshevik." In this confusion of cross-purposes the election was held, the last election held in prewar Austria. The Christian Socialists lost 7 seats, while the Social Democrats gained 1. The former had 66, the latter 72, the Heimwehr had 8, and the Pan-German-Agrarian bloc had 19. The minority Seipel government tamely resigned, replaced by a more moderate Christian Socialist government under Otto Ender with Pan-German-Agrarian support.
In June 1931, though Seipel tried again to form a government, he could not obtain sufficient support, and the weak coalitions of moderate Christian Socialists and Pan-Germans continued in spite of a Heimwehr revolt led by Pfrimer in September 193 1. Pfrimer and his followers were brought to trial for treason, and acquitted. No effort Noms made to collect their arms, and it soon became clear that the Christian Socialist coalition, moved by their own sympathies and fear of Heimwehr violence, were opening an attack on the Social Democrats and the labor unions. These attacks were intensified after May 1932, when a new Cabinet, with Dollfuss as chancellor and Kurt Schuschnigg as minister of justice, took office. This Cabinet had only a one-vote majority in the Parliament, 83 for and 8z against, and \vas completely dependent on the 8 Heimwehr deputies which provided its majority. It would not call an election, because the Christian Socialists knew they would be overwhelmed. Since they were determined to rule, they continued to rule, illegally and eventually unconstitutionally.
Although the Nazis in Austria were growing stronger and more violent every day, the Christian-Socialist-Heimwehr coalition passed its time destroying the Social Democrats. The Heimwehr militia would attack the Socialists in the industrial parts of the cities, coming in by train from the rural areas for the purpose, and the Christian Socialist government would then suppress the Social Democrats for these "disorders." After one such affair, in October 1932, Dollfuss appointed the Heimwehr leader, Ernst Fey, as state secretary (later minister) for public security with command of all the police in Austria. This gave the Heimvvehr, with 8 seats in Parliament, 3 seats in the Cabinet. Fey at once prohibited all meetings except by the Heimwohr. From that point on, the police systematically raided and destroyed Social Democrat and labor-union property—"searching for arms," they said. On March 4, 1933, the Dollfuss government was beaten in Parliament by one vote, 81-80. It threw out one vote on a technicality and used the resulting uproar as an excuse to prevent by force any more meetings of parliament.
Dollfuss ruled by decree, using a law of the Habsburg Empire of 1917. This law allowed the government to issue emergency economic decrees during the war if they were approved by parliament within a stated period subsequently. The Habsburg Empire and the war were both finished, and the decrees of Dollfuss were not concerned with economic matters nor were they accepted by Parliament within the stated period, but the government used this method to rule for years. The first decrees ended all meetings, censored the press, suspended local elections, created concentration camps, wrecked the finances of the city of Vienna by arbitrary interference with tax collections and expenditures, wrecked the supreme constitutional court to prevent it from reviewing the government's acts, and reestablished the death penalty. These decrees were generally enforced only against the Social Democrats and not against either the Nazis or the Heimwehr, who were reducing the country to chaos. When the Socialist mayor of Vienna disbanded the Heimwehr unit of that city, he was at once overruled by Dollfuss.
In May the Christian Socialist Party conference failed to elect Dollfuss as head of the party. He at once announced that parliament would never be restored and that all political parties would be absorbed gradually into a single new party, the "Fatherland Front." From this time on, Dollfuss and his successor Schuschnigg worked little by little to build up a personal dictatorship. This was not easy, as the effort was opposed by the Social Democrats (who insisted on a restoration of the constitution), by the Pan-Germans and their Nazi successors (who wanted union with Hitler's Germany), and by the Heimwehr (who were supported by Italy and wanted a Fascist state to dominate the Danube area).
While Dollfuss continued his attacks on the workers, the Nazis began to attack him and the Heimwehr. The Nazi movement in Austria was under direct orders from Germany and was financed from there. It engaged in wholesale attacks, parades, bombings, and murderous assaults on the government's supporters. In May 1933, Hitler crippled Austria financially by putting a l,000-mark tax on all German tourists going to Austria. On June 19 Dollfuss outlawed the Nazis, arrested their leaders, and deported Hitler's "Inspector General for Austria." The Nazi Party went underground but continued its outrages, especially hundreds of bombings and thousands of acts of vandalism. In June 1933 they tried to murder Steidle and Rintelen, and in October they succeeded in wounding Dollfuss.
In the face of these Nazi atrocities, Dollfuss continued his methodical destruction of the Socialists. Since 1930, and probably since 1927, Mussolini had been arming Hungary and the Heimwehr in Austria. The Social Democrats, supported by Czechoslovakia and France, opposed this. In January 1933, the Socialist railway union revealed that a, trainload of 50,000 rifles and 200 machine guns Noms en route from Mussolini to the Heimwehr and to Hungary. In the resulting controversy a joint Anglo-French note protesting this violation of the peace treaties and ordering the arms to be either returned to Italy or destroyed was rejected by Dollfuss. Instead, Dollfuss made an agreement with Mussolini for support against the Nazis through the Heimwohr and for destroying the Socialists in Austria. In March 1933, Dollfuss outlawed the Republican Defense Corps, the militia of the Socialist party, took the Heimwehr into his Cabinet, and ended Parliament.
Because the continued agitations of the Nazis in 1933 made necessary more support for Dollfuss from Mussolini and the Heimwehr, the government began to take steps to abolish the Socialist movement completely. At the end of January 1934, orders were issued to the Heimwehr, and they began to occupy union headquarters, Socialist buildings, and the city halls of various provincial cities. On February loth Fey arrested most of the leaders of the Socialist militia, and the following day made a speech to the Heimwehr in which he said, "Chancellor Dollfuss is our man; tomorrow we shall go to work, and we shall make a thorough job of it."
Bloodshed had already occurred in the provinces, and, when on February 12th Fey attacked the workers in Vienna in their union centers, their Socialist headquarters, and their apartment houses, full-scale fighting broke out. The government had an overwhelming advantage, using the regular army, as well as the Heimwehr and police, and bringing up field artillery to smash the great apartment houses. By February 12th the fighting was finished, the Socialist party and their labor unions were outlawed, their newspapers declared illegal, hundreds were dead, thousands were in concentration camps and prisons, thousands more were reduced to economic want, the elective government of Vienna was replaced by a "federal commissar," all the workers' welfare, sports, and educational movements were wrecked, and the valuable properties of these organizations had been turned over to more favored organizations such as the Heimwehr and the Catholic groups. Soon afterward, rents were raised in the Socialist apartment houses, tenants were forced to pay for facilities which had previously been free (including garbage collection), workers were forced, in one way or another, to join the Fatherland Front, and even the Socialist workers were forced to seek jobs through the employment exchanges of the Catholic unions.
A new constitution was declared, under the emergency economic decree power of 1917, on April 24, 1934. It changed Austria from a "democratic republic" to a "Christian, German, corporative, federal state." This constitution was both fraudulent and illegal, and Dollfuss's efforts to make it more legal, if not less fraudulent, had the opposite result. Dollfuss had signed a concordant with the Vatican in June 1933. Since the Holy See wanted this agreement to be approved by Parliament, Dollfuss decided to kill several birds with one stone by convoking a rump of the old Parliament to accept this document, to terminate the disrupted session of March 4, 1933, and to accept the 471 decrees he had issued since that date. Among these decrees was the new constitution of 1934. Since the government insisted that the old constitution had never been suspended or even violated, the new one had to be accepted either by a plebiscite or by a two-thirds vote of the old Parliament with at least half its members present. This was done on April 30, 1934, the various acts being accepted by a fraction of the old Parliament. Because the Socialists were prevented from attending, and the Pan-Germans refused to attend, only 76 out of 165 were present, and some of these voted against the acts proposed.
The new constitution was of no importance because the government continued to rule by decree, and violated it as it pleased. For example, a decree of June 19, 1934, deprived the courts of their constitutional power to rule on the constitutionality of all the government's acts before July 1, 1934.
The corporative aspect of the new constitution was a complete fraud. In many activities no corporations were set up; where they were set up, members were appointed and not elected as provided in law; and, in any case, they did nothing. Instead, the whole banking and industrial system was filled witl1 the petty bureaucrats of the Fatherland Front. Because of mismanagement and the world depression, the banks of Austria collapsed in 1931-1933, precipitating the world banking crisis. The Austrian government took over these banks and gradually replaced their personnel, especially Jewish personnel, by party hacks. Since the banks controlled about 90 percent of the country's industrial corporations, these party hacks were able to place their friends throughout the economic system. By 1934 almost nothing could be done in the business world without "friends" in the government, and anything could be done with "friends." Such "friendship" was best obtained by bribery, with the result that periodical payments were being made from business to political figures. Early in 1936 the scandal broke when it was revealed that the Phoenix Insurance Company (of which Vaugoin, ex-chancellor and leader of the Christian Socialist party, was now president), had lost 250 million in gifts and "loans" corruptly given. The government had to admit this, and published a list of political groups and politicians who had received a total of less than 3 million schillings. This left most of the loss unexplained. It remained unexplained to the end. Legal proceedings were begun against twenty-seven persons, but the Schuschnigg government never brought any of them to trial.
This corruption spread through the government until finally a point was reached where, as Starhemberg put it, "No one knew whom he could trust, and there was justification for harbouring the most amazing suspicions." Outrages by the Nazis increased in May and June 1934, to the point where bombings were averaging fifteen a day. On July 12th, by decree, the government fixed the death penalty for such bombings. The Nazis threatened a Putsch at the first such sentence. This first sentence was carried out on July 24th, but against a twenty-two-year-old Socialist after a summary trial. The same day the police and the Fatherland Front were notified by their spies that the Nazis were going to attack the next day. All the details were given to Fey, but he and Dollfuss spent the evening discussing a possible Socialist uprising. The Cabinet meeting of July 25th was postponed because of the warning, but no effort was made to protect the ministers. About l:00 P. M. 154 Nazis in eight trucks rushed into the chancellory without a shot being fired. They at once murdered Dollfuss and locked themselves in. Another group of Nazis seized the radio station of Vienna and announced a new government with Rintelen as chancellor. There were also sporadic Nazi uprisings in which scores were killed in the provinces. The Nazi "Austrian Legion" in Germany and the German government did not dare to move because of a stern warning from Mussolini that he would invade Austria from the south if they did.
After six hours of negotiations in which Fey and the German minister acted as intermediaries, the besieged men in the chancellery were removed to be deported to Germany. When Dollfuss was found to he dead, thirteen were executed and a large number imprisoned; all the Nazi organizations were closed and their activities suspended. At the same time, those who had tried to warn the government against the plot or to prevent it were arrested and some were killed (including the police spy who had sent the specific details the day before the crime).
Schuschnigg and the Heimwehr split the government between them after Dollfuss's death. Each took four seats in the Cabinet. Schuschnigg was chancellor in the government and vice-leader of the Fatherland Front, while Starhemberg was leader of the Fatherland Front and vice-chancellor of the government.
From July 1934 on, Schuschnigg sought to get rid of the Heimwehr. especially Starhemberg, to create a purely personal dictatorship with only one party, one trade union, and one policy, to satisfy the Nazis without yielding any essential power or positions, to keep the Socialists crushed, and to get as much support from Mussolini as he could.
We have said that Dollfuss and Schuschnigg were faced by three opponents in 193Z: the Socialists, the Nazis, and the Heimwehr. They sought to destroy these in this order by mobilizing against each the power of the ones not yet destroyed, plus the Christian Socialists. As the effort progressed, they tried to destroy the Christian Socialists as wel1, by driving all groups into a single amorphous and meaningless political party, the Fatherland Front. This party's purpose was to mobilize support for these two leaders personally. It had no real political principles and was completely undemocratic, being bound to accept the decisions of the "leader." All persons, no matter what their political beliefs, even Nazis, Catholics, Communists, and Socialists, were forced to join by political, social, and economic pressure. The result was that all political morale was destroyed, public integrity was wrecked, and many among the politically active portions of the population were driven to the two underground extremist groups, the Nazis and the Communists, to the former in much larger numbers than to the latter. Even the Socialists, in order to prevent the loss of their angry members to the Communists, had to adopt a more revolutionary attitude. Because everything was driven underground, and the field was left to meaningless slogans, crass materialist advantages, and pious expressions of righteousness, no one knew what anyone's real thoughts were or whom they could trust.
The loss of Italian support for the Heimwehr and for an independent Austria after the Ethiopian affair made it possible for Schuschnigg to get rid of Starhemberg and his militia and made it necessary to conciliate the Nazis. Fey was dropped from the government in October 1935. A political supplement to the Rome Protocols was signed by Austria, Italy, and Hungary on March Z3, 1936; it provided that no signer would enter an agreement with a non-signatory state to change the political situation of the Danube area without consultation with the other signers. In April Austria copied Germany, and further alienated France and the Little Entente, by decreeing the establishment of general military service. In the same month, Schuschnigg ordered the disarmament of the Catholic militia. In May 1936 three Heimwehr members, including Starhemberg, were dropped from the Cabinet, and Starhemberg was removed as leader of the Fatherland Front. A week later a series of decrees ordered the disarmament of the Heimwehr, created an armed militia for the Fatherland Front as the sole armed militia in the country, ordered that in the future the leader of the Front and the chancellor must be the same person, gave the chancellor the right to appoint the heads of all local political units and to approve their appointments, prohibited all parades and assemblies until September 30th, and declared that the Fatherland Front was "an authoritarian foundation," a legal person, and "the sole instrument for the formation of political will in the state."
Thus "strengthened" in Austria, and under pressure from Mussolini to make peace with Hitler, Schuschnigg signed an agreement of July 1l, 1936, with Franz von Papen, the German minister. According to the published portion of this agreement, Germany recognized Austrian independence and sovereignty; each country promised not to interfere in the domestic politics of the other; Austria admitted it was a German state; and additional agreements to relieve the existing tension were promised. In secret agreements made at the same time, Austria promised an amnesty for political prisoners, promised to take Nazis into positions of "political responsibility," to allow them the same political rights as other Austrians, and to allow Germans in Austria the same rights to use their national symbols and music as citizens of third states. Both states revoked financial and other restrictions on tourists. Mutual prohibition on each other's newspapers were lifted to the extent that five specifically named German papers could enter Austria and five named Austrian papers could enter Germany. Other paragraphs promised mutual concessions in regard to economic and cultural relations.
Austro-German relations for the next eighteen months were dominated by this agreement, Germany, through Papen, trying to extend it bit by bit, while Schuschnigg sought to hold Germany to its recognition of Austrian sovereignty and its promise not to interfere in Austria's domestic political affairs. By the end of that period Germany was insisting that, since the Austrian Nazis were Germans, their desires and activities were not an Austrian, but a German, domestic problem.
The secret documents published since 1945 make it quite clear that Germany had no carefully laid plans to annex Austria, and was not encouraging violence by the Nazis in Austria. Instead, every effort was made to restrict the Austrian Nazis to propaganda in order to win places in the Cabinet and a gradual peaceful extension of Nazi influence. At the same time, military measures were held in reserve, prepared for use if necessary. To be sure, wild men on the lower levels of the Nazi Party in Germany were encouraging all kinds of violence in Austria, but this was not true of the real leaders. These ordered von Papen to try to get at least two years of peace in 1936, and they removed the Austrian Nazi wild men who opposed this from their positions of leadership. In this way the violent Tavs Plan of the Austrian Nazis was replaced by the Keppler Plan of peaceful and gradual penetration through Papen and the Austrian politician Artur von Seyss-Inquart.
The invasion of Austria as early as March 12, 1938, and the immediate annexation of Austria were a pleasant surprise, even for the Nazi leaders in Germany, and arose from several unexpectedly favorable circumstances. Accordingly, the decision to invade was not made before March lo, 1938, and even then was conditional, while the decision to annex was not made until noon on March 12th by Hitler personally and was unknown to both Ribbentrop and G๖ring as late as 10:30 P.M. On March 12th. The circumstances which brought this unexpected speedup in the German plans were based on two facts: (1) the international situation and (2) the events in Austria. We shall discuss these in order.
As far as obvious political events are concerned, 1937 was the only quiet year after 1933. But the capture and release of various secret documents now make it clear that 1937 was a critical turning point because in that year the German government and the British government made secret decisions which sealed the fate of Austria and Czechoslovakia and dominated the history of the next three years.
The decision made by the German government (that is, by Hitler) was to prepare for open military aggression against Czechoslovakia and Austria and to carry this out before 1943-1945, probably in 1938. This decision was announced by Hitler to a secret meeting of seven persons on November 5, 1937. Among those present, besides Hitler and his aide, Colonel Hossback, were the minister of war (Werner von Blomberg), the commanders in chief of the army (Werner von Fritsch), the navy (Erich Raeder), and the air force (Hermann G๖ring), and the foreign minister (Konstantin von Neurath). It is evident from some of Hitler's statements that he had already received certain information about the secret decisions being made by Chamberlain on the British side; for example, he said flatly that Britain wanted to satisfy the colonial ambitions of Germany by giving it non-British areas like Portuguese Angola, something which we now know was in Chamberlain's mind. Hitler further assured his listeners that ''almost certainly Britain, and probably France as well, had already tacitly written off the Czechs and were reconciled to the fact that this question would be cleared up in due course by Germany.... An attack by France without British support, and with the prospect of the offensive being brought to a standstill on our western fortifications, was hardly probable. Nor was a French march through Belgium and Holland without British support to be expected.".
Hitler thought that, by reducing German support for Franco in Spain, the war there could be extended, and, by encouraging Italy to stay in Spain, especially in the Balearic Islands, the French African troops could be kept from crossing the Mediterranean Sea for use in Europe, and in general that France and Britain would be so tied down in the Mediterranean by Italy that they would take no action against Germany over Czechoslovakia and Austria. In fact, Hitler was so sure of an Anglo-French war against Italy in 1938 that he was confident Czechoslovakia and Austria could be conquered by Germany in that year..
These ideas were completely unacceptable to Blomberg, Fritsch, and Neurath. They objected that German rearmament was so backward that they did not have a single motorized division capable of movement, that there was no reason to expect an Anglo-French-Italian war in 1938, that Italy, in such a war, could tie down only twenty French divisions, leaving more than enough to attack Germany, and that such an attack would be very dangerous because Germany's fortifications on her western frontier were "insignificant." Hitler brushed these objections aside. He "repeated his previous statements that he was convinced of Britain's non-participation, and, therefore, he did not believe in the probability of belligerent action by France against Germany."
As a result of the opposition from Blomberg, Fritsch, and Neurath in this conference of November 1937, Hitler replaced these three by more amenable subordinates in a sudden coup on February 4, 1938. Hitler himself took the posts of minister of war and commander in chief, with General Wilhelm Keitel as chief of staff for all the armed forces of the Reich. Neurath was replaced in the Foreign Ministry by the fanatical Ribbentrop. The very able Dirksen was sent to London as ambassador, but his ability was wasted, as Ribbentrop paid no attention to his reports and his well-founded warnings.
In the meantime the British government, especially the small group controlling foreign policy, had reached a seven-point decision regarding their attitude toward Germany:
1. Hitler Germany was the front-line bulwark against the spread of Communism in Europe.
2. A four-Power pact of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany to exclude all Russian influence from Europe was the ultimate aim; accordingly, Britain had no desire to weaken the Rome-Berlin Axis, but regarded it and the Anglo-French Entente as the foundation of a stable Europe.
3. Britain had no objection to German acquisition of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig.
4. Germany must not use force to achieve its aims in Europe, as this would precipitate a war in which Britain would have to intervene because of the pressure of public opinion in Britain and the French system of alliances; with patience, Germany could get its aims without using force.
5. Britain wanted an agreement with Germany restricting the numbers and the use of bombing planes.
6. Britain was prepared to give Germany colonial areas in south-central Africa, including the Belgian Congo and Portuguese Angola if Germany would renounce its desire to recover Tanganyika, which had been taken from Germany in 1919, and if Germany would sign an international agreement to govern these areas with due regard for the rights of the natives, an "open-door" commercial policy, and under some mechanism of international supervision like the mandates.
7. Britain would use pressure on Czechoslovakia and Poland to negotiate with Germany and to be conciliatory to Germany's desires.
To these seven points we should add an eighth: Britain must rearm in order to maintain its position in a "three-bloc world" and to deter Germany from using force in creating its bloc in Europe. This point was supported by Chamberlain, who built up the air force which saved Britain in 1940, and by the Round Table Group led by Lord Lothian, Edward Grigg, and Leopold Amery, who put on a campaign to establish compulsory military service.
The first seven points were reiterated to Germany by various spokesmen from 1937 onward. They are also to be found in many recently published documents, including the captured archives of the German Foreign Ministry, the documents of the British Foreign Office, and various extracts from diaries and other private papers, especially extracts from Neville Chamberlain's diary and his letters to his sister. Among numerous other occasions these points were covered in the following cases: (a) in a conversation between Lord Halifax and Hitler at Berchtesgaden on November 17, 1938; (b) in a letter from Neville Chamberlain to his sister on November 26, 1937; (c) in a conversation between Hitler, Ribbentrop, and the British Ambassador (Sir Nevile Henderson) in Berlin on March 3, 1938; (d) in a series of conversations involving Lord Halifax, Ribbentrop, Sir Thomas Inskip (British minister of defense), Erich Kordt (Ribbentrop's assistant), and Sir Horace Wilson (Chamberlain's personal representative) in London on March 10-11, 1938; and (e) in a conference of Neville Chamberlain with various North American journalists held at Lord Astor's house on May 10, 1938. In addition, portions of these seven points were mentioned or discussed in scores of conversations and documents which are now available.
Certain significant features of these should be pointed out. In the first place, in spite of persistent British efforts lasting for more than two years, Hitler rejected Angola or the Congo and insisted on the return of the German colonies which had been lost in 1919. During 1939 Germany steadily refused to negotiate on this issue and finally refused even to acknowledge the British efforts to discuss it. In the second place, the British throughout these discussions made a sharp distinction between Germany's aims and Germany's methods. They had no objections to Germany's aims in Europe, but they insisted that Germany must not use force to achieve these aims because of the danger of war. This distinction was accepted by the German professional diplomats and by the German professional soldiers, who were quite willing to obtain Germany's aims by peaceful means, but this distinction was not accepted by the leaders of the Nazi Party, especially Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Himmler, who were too impatient and who wanted to prove to themselves and the world that Germany was powerful enough to take what it wanted without waiting for anybody's permission.
These wild men were encouraged in this attitude by their belief that Britain and France were so "decadent" that they would stand for anything, and by their failure to see the role played by public opinion in England. Convinced that the governing group in England wanted Germany to get Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig, they could not understand why there was such an emphasis on using peaceful methods, and they could not see how British public opinion could force the British government to go to war over the methods used when the British government made it perfectly clear that the last thing that they wanted was a war. This error was based on the fact that these Nazis had no idea of how a democratic government works, had no respect for public opinion or a free press, and were encouraged in their error by the weakness of the British ambassador in Berlin (Henderson) and by Rippentrop's associations with the "Cliveden Set" in England while he had been ambassador there in 1936-1938.
In the third place, the British government could not publicly admit to its own people these "seven points" because they were not acceptable to British public opinion. Accordingly, these points had to remain secret, except for various "trial balloons" issued through The Times, in speeches in the House of Commons or in Chatham House, in articles in The Round Table and by calculated indiscretions to prepare the ground for what was being done. In order to persuade the British people to accept these points, one by one, as they were achieved, the British government spread the tale that Germany was armed to the teeth and that the opposition to Germany was insignificant.
This propaganda first appeared in the effusions of the Round Table Group whose leader, Lord Lothian, has visited Hitler in January 1935 and had been pushing this seven-point program in The Times, in The Round Table, at Chatham House and Ali Souls, and with Lord Halifax. In the December 1937 issue of The Round Table, where most of the seven points which Halifax had just discussed with Hitler were mentioned, a war to prevent Germany's ambitions in Europe was rejected on the grounds that its "outcome is uncertain" and that it "would entail objectionable domestic disasters." In adding up the balance of military forces in such a war, it gave a preponderance to Germany, by omitting both Russia and Czechoslovakia and by estimating the French Army at only two-thirds the size of the German and placing the British Army at less than three divisions. By the spring of 1938 this completely erroneous view of the situation was being propagated by the government itself.
For years before June 1938, the government insisted that British rearming was progressing in a satisfactory fashion. Churchil1 and others questioned this, and produced figures on German rearmament to prove that Britain's own progress in this field was inadequate. These figures (which were not correct) were denied by the government, and their own rearmament defended. As late as March 1938, Chamberlain said that British armament were such as to make Britain an "almost terrifying power . . . on the opinion of the world." But, as the year went on, the government adopted a quite different attitude. In order to persuade public opinion that it was necessary to yield to Germany, the government and its supporters pretended that its armaments were quite inadequate in comparison with Germany.
We now know, thanks to the captured papers of the German Ministry of War, that this was a gross exaggeration. From 1936 to the outbreak of war in 1939, German aircraft production was not raised, but averaged 425 planes a month of all types (including commercial). Its tank production was low, and even in 1939 was less than Britain's. In the first nine months of 1939 Germany produced only so tanks a month; in the last four months of 1939, in wartime, Germany produced 247 "tanks and self-propelled guns," compared to British production of 314 tanks in the same period. At the time of the Munich Crisis in 1938, German had 35 infantry and 4 motorized divisions none of them fully manned or equipped. At that time Czechoslovakia could mobilize at least 33 divisions. Moreover, the Czech Army was better trained, had far better equipment, and had better morale and better fortifications. At that time Germany's tanks were all below lo tons and were armed with machine guns, except for a handful of 18-ton tanks (Mark III) armed with a 37-mm. gun. The Czechs had hundreds of 38-ton tanks armed with 75mm. cannon. In March 1939, when Germany overran Czechoslovakia, it captured 469 of these superior tanks along with 1,500 planes, 43,000 machine guns, and over 1 million rifles. From every point of view this was little less than Germany had at Munich, and, at Munich, if the British government had desired it, Germany's 39 divisions with the possible assistance of Poland and Hungary, would have been opposed by Czechoslovakia’s 34 divisions supported by France, Britain, and Russia.
Before leaving this subject it should perhaps be mentioned that Germany in 1939 brought into production a Mark IV tank of 23 tons armed with a 75-mm. Cannon but obtained only 300 of the Mark III and Mark IV together before the outbreak of war in September, 1939. In addition, it had obtained by the same date 2,700 of the inferior Mark I and Mark II tanks which suffered breakdowns of as much as 25 percent a week. At this same date (September 1939) Germany had an air force of 1,000 bombers and 1,050 fighters. In contrast with this, the British air program of March 1934, which emphasized fighter planes, was to provide a first-line force of 900 planes. This was stepped up, undrew the urging of Chamberlain, and the program of May 1938 was planned to provide a first-line force of 2,370 planes. This was raised again in 1939. Under it, Britain produced almost 3,000 “military” planes in 1938 and about 8,000 in 1939 compared to 3,350 “combat” planes produced in Germany in 1938 and 4,733 in 1939. Moreover, the quality of British planes was superior to that of Germany’s. It was this margin which made it possible for Britain to defeat Germany in the Battle of Britain in September 1940.
From these facts it is quite clear that Britain did not yield to superior force in 1938, as was stated at the time and has been stated since by many writers, including Winston Churchill, whose war memoirs were written two years after the Reichswehr archives were captured. We have evidence that the Chamberlain government knew these facts but consistently gave a contrary impression and that Lord Halifax went so far in this direction as to call forth protests from the British military attaches in Prague and Paris.
The Chamberlain government made it clear to Germany both publicly and privately that they would not oppose Germany's projects. As Dirksen wrote to Ribbentrop on June 8, 1938, "Anything which can be got without a shot being fired can count upon the agreement of the British." Accordingly, it was clear that Britain would not oppose the annexation of Austria, although they continued to warn vigorously against any effort to use force. In February 1938, Sir John Simon and Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that neither the League of Nations nor Great Britain could be expected to support Austrian independence; on February 12th Hitler told Schuschnigg that Lord Halifax agreed "with everything he [Hitler] did with respect to Austria and the Sudeten Germans." On March 3rd Nevile Henderson told Hitler that changes in Europe were acceptable if accomplished without "the free play of force" and that he personally "had often expressed himself in favor of the Anschluss." Finally, on March 7th, when the crisis was at its height, Chamberlain in the House of Commons refused to guarantee Austria or any small nation. This statement was made to the cheers of the government supporters. The following day the Foreign Office sent a message to its missions in Europe in which it stated its "inability to guarantee protection" to Austria. This made it so clear to Hitler that Britain would not move that his orders to invade Austria also ordered no precautions to be taken by the defense forces on Germany's other frontiers (March 11, 1938). In fact, Hitler was considerably more worried about Italy than he was about Britain and France, in spite of Mussolini's agreement of September 1937 to support Germany's ambitions in Austria in return for German support of his ambitions in the Mediterranean.
Although the international stage had been set, the invasion and annexation would not have come about in March had it not been for conditions in Austria, especially Schuschnigg's determination to prevent the execution of the Keppler Plan for Nazi penetration of the Austrian government. As soon as he extended one concession, he took away another, so that the Nazi position became a bitter joke. At last Papen persuaded Schuschnigg to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden on February 12, 1938. There the Austrian chancellor was upbraided by an enraged Hitler and forced to sign a new agreement which did much to fulfill the Keppler Plan. Although no ultimatum was given to Schuschnigg, it was made quite clear that, if peaceful methods did not work, warlike ones would be used. Schuschnigg promised ( 1 ) to appoint Seyss-Inquart, a Nazi, as minister of security with unlimited control of the police in Austria; (2) to release from prison and to restore to their positions all Nazis who were being held, including the rebels of July 1934; (3) to exchange one hundred army officers with Germany; (4) to permit Nazis in Austria to profess their creed and join the Fatherland Front with the same rights as others, the Nazi Party to remain illegal. In return, Hitler repeated the agreement of July 11, 1936.
On his return to Austria, Schuschnigg put these concessions into effect piecemeal without any public statement, but he was still determined to resist. On March 2nd he began to negotiate with the long-outlawed Socialist groups, and on March 8th he suddenly announced a plebiscite for Sunday, March 13th. This plebiscite, as planned, was completely unfair. There was only one question, which asked the voter, "Are you for a free and German, independent and social, Christian and united Austria, for peace and work, for the equality of all those who affirm themselves for the people and the Fatherland?" There were no voting lists; only yes ballots were to be provided by the government; anyone wishing to vote no had to provide his own ballot, the same size as the yes ballots, with nothing on it but the word no.
The Nazis were outraged. Through Seyss-Inquart, Hitler sent an ultimatum that the plebiscite must be postponed and replaced by one in which the opposite point of view (union with Germany) could be expressed as well. As the day passed (March 11th), these German demands were increased. In the afternoon, as the German Army was marching toward the frontier, came the demand for Schuschnigg to resign and for Seyss-Inquart to become chancellor. If an affirmative answer came before 7: 30 P. M. the invasion was to be stopped. Schuschnigg resigned, but President Miklas refused to name Seyss-Inquart chancellor until 11:00 P. M.. By that time the Germany forces were crossing the border, and their advance could not be stopped. Orders had been given to the Austrians not to resist, and the Germans were generally welcomed. G๖ring demanded a telegram from Seyss-Inquart asking for German troops to restore order and thus justify the invasion. He never got it, so he wrote one himself.
The lack of resistance, the welcome from the Austrians, and the inaction of Italy and the Western Powers encouraged the Germans to increase their ambitions. During most of March 12th they were talking about an early withdrawal after the Seyss-Inquart government was established, but the uproarious welcome given Hitler at Linz on that day, the need for such Austrian products as wood, the manpower available in Austria's half-million unemployed, the opportunity to plunder the Jews, and the complete lack of opposition decided Hitler to annex Austria. This was done on March 13th, and a plebiscite was ordered for April 10th to approve the action. In the meantime, those who had opposed the Nazis were murdered or enslaved, the Jews were plundered and abused, and extravagant honors were paid to the Nazi gangsters who had been disturbing Austria for years. The plebiscite of April 10th, under great pressure from the Nazis, showed over 99 percent of the Germans in favor of the Anschluss.
Chapter 45: The Czechoslovak Crisis, 1937-1938
Czechoslovakia was the most prosperous, most democratic, most powerful, and best administered of the states which arose on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire. As created in 1919, this country was shaped like a tadpole and was made up of four main portions. These were, from west to east, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia. It had a population of 15,000,000 of which 3,400,000 were Germans, 6,000,000 were Czechs, 3,000,000 were Slovaks, 750,000 were Hungarians, 100,000 were Poles, and 500,000 were Ruthenians. In general, these people lived on a higher level of education, culture, economic life, and progressiveness as we move from east to west, the Germans and Czechs being on a high level, while the Slovaks and Ruthenians were on a lower level.
The large number of minorities, and especially the large number of Germans, arose from the need to give the country defensible and viable frontiers. On the northwest the obvious strategic frontier was along the Sudeten Mountains, and, to secure this, it was necessary to put into Czechoslovakia the large number of Germans on the south side of these mountains. These Germans objected to this, although they had never been part of Germany itself, because they regarded all Slavs as inferior people and because their economic position was threatened. The Sudeten area had been the most industrialized portion of the Habsburg Empire, and found its markets restricted by the new territorial divisions. Moreover, the agrarian reforms of the new republic, while not aimed at the Germans, injured them more than others just because they had formed an upper class. This economic discontent became stronger after the onset of the world depression in 1929 and especially after Hitler demonstrated that his policies could bring prosperity to Germany. On the other hand, the minorities of Czechoslovakia were the best-treated minorities in Europe, and their agitations were noticeable precisely because they were living in a democratic liberal state which gave them freedom to agitate.
Among the Germans of the Sudetenland, only part were Nazis, but these were noisy, well organized, and financed from Berlin. Their numbers grew steadily, especially after the Austrian Anschluss. The Nazi Party in Czechoslovakia was banned in 1934 but, under Konrad Henlein, merely changed its name to the Sudeten German Party. With 600,000 members, it polled 1,200,000 votes in the election of May 1935 and obtained 44 seats in the Parliament, only one less than the largest party. As soon as Edward Bene succeeded Tomแ Masaryk as president of Czechoslovakia in 1935, he took steps to conciliate the Sudetens, offering them, for example, places in the administration proportionate to their percentage of the total population. This was not acceptable to the Germans because it would have given them only one-fifth of the places in their own area, where they were over 90 percent of the population, as well as one-fifth in Slovakia, where they had no interest at all.
In 1937 the prime minister, Milan Hoda, offered to transfer all the Germans in the national administration to the Sudeten areas and to train others until the whole bureaucracy in these areas was German. None of these suggestions was acceptable to Konrad Henlein for the simple reason that he wanted no concessions within Czechoslovakia, however extensive; his real desire was to destroy the Czechoslovak state. Since he could not admit this publicly, although he did admit it in his letters to Hitler in 1937, he had to continue to negotiate, raising his demands as the government made larger concessions. These concessions were a danger to the state because the fortified zone against Germany ran along the mountains and thus right through the Sudetenland. Every concession to the Sudetens thus weakened the country's ability to defend itself against attack. These two facts made all efforts to compromise with Henlein futile from the beginning, and made the constant British pressure on the Czech government to give additional concessions worse than futile. It is worthy to note that no public demand was made by either Henlein or Germany to detach the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia until after September 12, 1938, although influential persons in the British government were advocating this, both in public and private, for months before this date.
The Czech strength rested on its army of approximately thirty-three divisions, which was the best in Europe in quality, the excellent fortification system, and its alliances with France, the Soviet Union, and the Little Entente. The annexation of Austria surrounded Bohemia with German territory on three sides, but its position, from a military point of view, was still strong. A line drawn from Berlin to Vienna would pass by Prague, but the German Army could not safely invade Bohemia across its weakly fortified southern frontier with Austria because of the danger of a Czech counterattack from its fortified base into Bavaria..
Within two weeks of Hitler's annexation of Austria, Britain was moving. It was decided to put pressure on the Czechs to make concessions to the Germans; to encourage France and eventually Germany to do the same; to insist that Germany must not use force to reach a decision, but to have patience enough to allow negotiations to achieve the same result; and to exclude Russia, although it was allied to Czechoslovakia, from the negotiations completely. All this was justified by the arguments that Czechoslovakia, in a war with Germany, would be smashed immediately, that Russia was of no military value whatever and would not honor its alliance with the Czechs anyway, and that Germany would be satisfied if it obtained the Sudentenland and the polish Corridor. All these assumptions were very dubious, but they were assiduously propagated both in public and in private and may, at times, even have convinced the speakers themselves.
The group which spread this version of the situation included Chamberlain, Lord Halifax, John Simon, Samuel Hoare, Horace Wilson, the Cliveden Set, the British ambassador in Berlin (Sir Nevile Henderson), and the British minister in Prague (Basil Newton). To make their aims more appealing they emphasized the virtues of "autonomy" and "self-determination" and the contribution to European peace which would arise if Germany were satisfied and if Czechoslovakia were "neutralized like Switzerland" and "guaranteed like Belgium." By "neutralization" they meant that Czechoslovakia must renounce its alliances with the Soviet Union and with France. By "guaranteed" they meant that the rump of Czechoslovakia which was left after the Sudetenland went to Germany would be guaranteed by France and Germany but emphatically not by Britain.
How Czechoslovakia could be guaranteed against Germany by France alone after its defenses had been destroyed, when it could not, according to Britain, be defended in 1938 when its defenses were intact, and when it would be supported by France, the Soviet Union, and Britain, is only one of the numerous British illogicalities displayed in this crisis. Nevertheless, Britain was able to win support for these plans, especially in France where Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and Prime Minister Edouard Daladier reluctantly accepted them.
In France, fear of war was rampant. Moreover, in France, even more obviously than in England, fear of Bolshevism was a powerful factor, especially in influential circles of the Right. The ending of the Soviet Alliance, the achievement of a four-Power pact, and the termination of Czechoslovakia as "a spearhead of Bolshevism in central Europe" had considerable appeal to those conservative circles which regarded the Popular Front government of Leon Blum as "a spearhead of Bolshevism" in France itself. To this group, as to a less vociferous group in Britain, even a victory over Hitler in war to save Czechoslovakia would have been a defeat for their aims, not so much because they disliked democracy and admired authoritarian reaction (which was true) as because they were convinced that the defeat of Hitler would expose all of central, and perhaps western, Europe to Bolshevism and chaos. The slogan of these people, "Better Hitler than Blum," became increasingly prevalent in the course of 1938 and, although nothing quite like this was heard in Britain, the idea behind it was not absent from that country. In this dilemma the "three-bloc world" of the Cliveden Set or even the German-Soviet war of the anti-Bolsheviks seemed to be the only solution. Because both required the elimination of Czechoslovakia from the European power system, Czechoslovakia was eliminated with the help of German aggression, French indecision and war-weariness, and British public appeasement and merciless secret pressure.
There is no need to follow the interminable negotiations between Henlein and the Czech government, negotiations in which Britain took an active role from March 1938 to the end. Plan after plan for minority rights, economic concessions, cultural and administrative autonomy, and even political federalism were produced by the Czechs, submitted to Britain and Germany, and eventually brushed aside as inadequate by Henlein. The latter's "Karlsbad Demands," enunciated on April 24th after Henlein's conference with Hitler, were extreme. They began with an introduction denouncing the Czechs and the Czechoslovak state, insisting that the country must abandon its foreign policy and cease to be an obstacle to the German "Drive to the East." They then enumerated eight demands. Among these we find (1) complete equality between Czechs and Germans, (2) recognition of the German group as a corporation with legal personality, (3) demarcation of the German areas, (4) full self-government in those areas, (5) legal protection for citizens outside those areas, (6) reparation for damages influenced by the Czechs on the Sudetens since 1918, (7) German officials in German areas, and (8) full freedom to profess German nationality and German political philosophy. There is here no hint of revision of the frontiers, yet when, after long weeks of negotiations, the Czech government substantially conceded these points under severe pressure from Britain, Henlein broke off the negotiations and fled to Germany (September 7-12, 1938)..
As early as March 17, 1938, five days after the Anschluss, the Soviet government called for consultations looking toward collective actions to stop aggression and to eliminate the increased danger of a new world slaughter. This was summarily rejected by Lord Halifax. Instead, on March 24th, Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons Britain's refusal to pledge aid to the Czechs if they were attacked or to France if it came to their rescue. When the Soviet request was repeated in September 1938, it was ignored.
The French prime minister and the French foreign minister went to London at the end of April and tried to get Britain to agree to three things: (1) naval conversations aiming to ensure France's ability to transport its African troops to France in a crisis; (2) economic support for the Little Entente to save them from German economic pressure; and (3) a promise that if Anglo-French pressure on Czechoslovakia resulted in extensive concessions to the Sudetens and Germany then refused these concessions and tried to destroy the Czech state, an Anglo-French guarantee would then be given to Czechoslovakia. The first two of these were postponed and the third was refused. It was also made clear to the French that, in the event of any British-French war against Germany, Britain's contribution to this joint effort would be restricted to the air, since this was the only way in which Britain itself could be attacked, although it might be possible at some time to send two divisions to France. When the French tried to obtain assurance that these two divisions would be motorized, it was reiterated that these units were not being promised but were merely a possible future contribution and that no assurance could be given that they would be motorized. The violence of these Anglo-French discussions is not reflected in the minutes published by the British government in 1949. The day after they ended, Chamberlain wrote to his sister, "Fortunately the papers have had no hint of how near we came to a break [with the French] over Czechoslovakia."
It is clear from the evidence that Chamberlain was determined to write off the Sudetenland and not to go to war with Germany unless public opinion in England compelled it. In fact, he felt that Germany could impose its will upon Czechoslovakia by economic pressure alone, although he did not go so far as to say, with Sir Nevile Henderson and Lord Halifax, that this method could be successful "in a short time." "If Germany adopted this course," according to Chamberlain, "no casus belli would then arise under the terms of the Franco-Czechoslovak treaty, and Germany would be able to accomplish everything she required without moving a single soldier." If Germany did decide to destroy Czechoslovakia, he did not see how this could be prevented. But he "did not believe that Germany wanted to destroy Czechoslovakia." Accordingly, by putting Anglo-French pressure on the Czechs to negotiate, it would be possible "to save something of Czechoslovakia and in particular to save the existence of the Czechoslovak State." In any case, he was determined not to go to war over it, because nothing could prevent Germany from achieving immediate victory over the Czechs and, even if the Germans were subsequently defeated after a long war, there was no guarantee that Czechoslovakia could be reestablished in its existing form.
Chamberlain's point of view (which was the decisive force in this whole crisis) was presented in more positive terms to a group of North American journalists at a luncheon at Lady Astor's house on May lo, '938: he wanted a four-Power pact, the exclusion of Russia from Europe, and frontier revisions of Czechoslovakia in favor of Germany. Since these things could not be obtained immediately, he kept up the intense diplomatic pressure on Czechoslovakia to make concessions to the Sudeten Germans. Under French pressure he also asked Germany what it wanted in this problem, but, until September, obtained no answer, on the grounds that this was a question to be settled by the Sudetens and the Czechs.
In the meantime, the German occupation of Austria changed the strategic situation for Germany so that it was necessary for Hitler to modify his general order to the armed forces for operational plans against France, Czechoslovakia, and Austria. These orders had been issued on June 24, 1937. The new directive, as drafted by General Keitel on May 20, 1938, and submitted for Hitler's signature, began, "It is not my intention to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the immediate future without provocation, unless an unavoidable development of the political conditions within Czechoslovakia forces the issue, or political events in Europe create a particularly favorable opportunity which may perhaps never recur."
This draft was entirely rewritten by Hitler and signed on May 3o, 1938. Its opening sentence then read, "It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future." It then went on to say that in case of war with Czechoslovakia, whether France intervened or not, all forces would be concentrated on the Czechs in order to achieve an impressive success in the first three days. The general strategic plan based on this order provided that forces would be transferred to the French frontier only after a "decisive" blow against Czechoslovakia. No provision was made for war against the Soviet Union (except for naval activity in the Baltic), and all regular forces were to be withdrawn from East Prussia in order to speed up the defeat of the Czechs. X-day was set for October 1st with deployment of troops to begin on September 28th.
These orders were so unrealistic that the German military leaders were aghast. They realized that the reality was so different from Hitler's picture of it that Germany would be defeated fairly readily in any war likely to arise over Czechoslovakia. All their efforts to make Hitler see the reality were completely unsuccessful and, as the crisis continued, they became more and more desperate until, by the end of August, they were in a panic. This feeling was shared by the whole Foreign Ministry except Ribbentrop himself. Hitler was isolated in his mountain retreat, living in a dream world and very short-tempered. He was cut off from outside contacts by Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Hess, who told him that Russia, France, and Britain would not fight and that the Czechs were bluffing. One of the mysteries yet remaining is why Ribbentrop was so sure that Britain would not fight. He was right.
The German generals tried to dissuade Hitler from his project, and, when they found that they had no influence over him, they persuaded various important people who saw him to intervene for the same purpose. Thus, they were able to get Admiral Mikl๓s Horthy, Regent of Hungary, to try to influence the Fhrer during his visit of August 21-26, 1938. Hitler interrupted by shouting, "Nonsense! Shut up!" The generals and several important civil leaders then formed a conspiracy led by General Ludwig Beck (chief of the General Staff). All the important generals were in it, including General Erwin Witzleben (governor of Berlin) and General Georg Thomas (chief of supply). Among the civil leaders were Baron Ernst von Weizsไcker (state secretary in the Foreign Ministry), Erich Kordt (head of Ribbentrop's office), and Ulrich von Hassell (ambassador to Rome, 1932-1938). Their plot had three stages in it: (1) to exert every effort to make Hitler see the truth; (2) to inform the British of their efforts and beg them to stand firm on the Czechoslovak issue and to tell the German government that Britain would fight if Hitler made war on Czechoslovakia; (3) to assassinate Hitler if he nevertheless issued the order to attack Czechoslovakia. Although message after message was sent to Britain in the first two weeks of September, by Weizsไcker, by Kordt, by the generals, and by others in separate missions, the British refused to cooperate. As a result, the plan was made to assassinate Hitler as soon as the attack was ordered. This project was canceled at noon on September 28, 1938, when news reached Berlin that Chamberlain was going to Munich to yield. The attack order was to have been given by Hitler at 2:00 P.M. that day.
In the meantime the Czechs were negotiating with Konrad Henlein in an effort to reach some compromise less radical than his Karlsbad demands. Pressure was exercised on the Czechs by Britain and France.
From May 31st onward, Lord Halifax tried to force France to threaten the Czechs that their alliance would be revoked or at least weakened if they did not make concessions to the Sudetens. This threat was finally made on September 21, 1938.
The pressure on the Czechs was greatly increased by the sending of a British mission under Lord Runciman to Czechoslovakia at the beginning of August. This mission was presented to the public as being sent to mediate between Henlein and the government at the request of the Czech government. In fact, it was imposed on the Czech government, and its chief function was to increase the pressure on that government to make concessions. It was publicly announced that the members of this mission went as private persons and that the British government was not bound by anything which they did. Under this pressure the Czechs yielded little by little and, as already stated, conceded the essence of the Karlsbad Demands on September 6th. Since the Sudeten leaders did not want any settlement which would not ensure the destruction of Czechoslovakia, they instigated a street riot and broke off negotiations. The official British investigation reported that the riot in question was entirely the fault of the Sudeten leaders (who had attacked a policeman).
In the meantime the British had been working out a plan of their own. It involved, as we have said, (1) separation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, probably through the use of a plebiscite or even by outright partition; (2) neutralization of the rest of Czechoslovakia by revising her treaties with Russia and France, and ( 3 ) guarantee of this rump of Czechoslovakia (but not by Britain). This plan was outlined to the Czech ambassador in London by Lord Halifax on May 25th, and was worked out in some detail by one of Lord Halifax's subordinates, William (now Lord) Strang, during a visit to Prague and to Berlin in the following week. This was the plan which was picked up by Lord Runciman and presented as his recommendation in his report of September 21, 938.
It is worthy of note that on September and Lord Runciman sent a personal message by Henlein to Hitler in which he said that he would have a settlement drawn up by September 15th. What is, perhaps, surprising is that Lord Runciman made no use whatever of the Karlsbad Demands or the extensive concessions to meet them which the Czechs had made during these negotiations, but instead recommended to the British Cabinet on September 16th, and in his written report five days later, the same melange of partition, plebiscites, neutralization, and guarantee which had been in the mind of the British Foreign Office for weeks. It was this plan which was imposed on the Czechs by the Four-Power Conference at Munich on September 30th.
It was also necessary to impose this plan on the French government and on the public opinion of the world, especially on the public opinion of England. This was done by means of the slowly mounting war scare, which reached the level of absolute panic on September 28th. The mounting horror of the relentless German mobilization was built up day by day, while Britain and France ordered the Czechs not to mobilize in order "not to provoke Germany." The word was assiduously spread on all sides that Russia was worthless and would not fight, that Britain certainly would not go to war to prevent the Sudetens from exercising the democratic right of self-determination, that Germany could overwhelm the Czechs in a few days and could wipe out Prague, Paris, and London from the air in the first day, that these air attacks would be accompanied by gas attacks on the civilian population from the air, and that, even if Germany could be defeated after years of war, Czechoslovakia would never be reconstructed because it was an artificial monstrosity, an aberration of 1919.
We now know that all these statements and rumors were not true; the documentary evidence indicates that the British government knew that they were not true at the time. Germany had 22 partly trained divisions on the Czech frontier, while the Czechs had 17 first-line and 1l other divisions which were superior from every point of view except air support. In addition, they had excellent fortifications and higher morale. These facts were known to the British government. On September 3rd the British military attache in Prague wrote to London that "there are no shortcomings in the Czech army, as far as I have been able to observe, which are of sufficient consequence to warrant a belief that it cannot give a good account of itself [even fighting alone.] . . . In my view, therefore, there is no material reason why they should not put up a really protracted resistance single-handed. It all depends on their morale."
The fact that the Germans were going to attack with only 22 divisions was reported to London by the military attache on September 21st. The fact that Russia had at least 97 divisions and over 5,000 planes had been reported by the attache in Moscow, although he had a very low opinion of both. The fact that Russia sold 36 of their latest-model fighting planes to Czechoslovakia was also known. That Russia would fight if France fought was denied at the time, but it is now clear that Russia had assured everyone that it would stand by its treaty obligations. In 1950 it was revealed by President Bene that Russia had put every pressure on him to resist the German demands in September 1938. Similar pressure was put on France, a fact which was reported to 1,ondon at the time.
By the third week of September, Czechoslovakia had l,000,000 men and 34 divisions under arms. The Germans in the course of September increased their mobilization to 31 and ultimately to 36 divisions, hut this probably represented a smaller force than that of the Czechs as many of the 19 first-line divisions were at only two-thirds strength, the other one-third having been used as a nucleus to form the reserve divisions. Of the 19 first-line divisions 3 were armored and 4 were motorized. Only 5 divisions were left on the French frontier in order to overcome Czechoslovakia as quickly as possible. France, which did not completely mobilize, had the Maginot Line completely manned on a war basis, plus more than 20 infantry divisions. Moreover, France had available lo motorized divisions. In air power the Germans had a slight edge in average quality, but in numbers of planes it was far inferior. Germany had 1,500 planes while Czechoslovakia had less than l,000; France and England together had over l,000; Russia is reported to have had 5,000. Moreover, Russia had about 100 divisions. While these could not be used against Germany., because Poland and Romania would not allow them to pass over their territory, they would have been a threat to persuade Poland to remain neutral and to bring Romania to support Czechoslovakia in keeping the Little Entente intact and thus keeping Hungary neutral. With Poland and Hungary both neutral, there is no doubt that Germany would have been isolated. The neutrality of Poland and Romania would not have prevented the Russian Air Force from helping Czechoslovakia and, if worse came to worst, Russia could have overrun East Prussia across the Baltic States and from the Baltic Sea, since it had been almost completely denuded of regular German Army forces. It is quite clear that Italy would not have fought for Germany.
The evidence shows that the Chamberlain government knew these facts but consistently gave a contrary impression. Lord Halifax particularly distorted the facts. Although all reports indicated that the morale of the Czech Army was high, he took an isolated sentence from a poorly written report from the British military attache in Berlin as authority for stating that the morale of the Czechoslovak Army was poor and the country would be overrun. Although General Maurice Gamelin, the French commander in chief, gave a very encouraging report on the Czech Army, and was quoted to this effect by Chamberlain in a Cabinet meeting of September 26th, Halifax the next day quoted him as saying that the Czech resistance would be of extremely brief duration. The military attache in Prague protested about the statement in reference to Czech morale, pointing out that it was made in reference to the frontier police, which were not military. The military attache in Paris questioned Lord Halifax's statement about Gamelin's views, and quoted contrary views from Gamelin's closest associates in the French Army. The falsehood that Gamelin was defeatist was spread in the newspapers, and is still widely current.
Just when the crisis was reaching the boiling point in September, the British ambassador in Paris reported to London that Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh had just emerged from Germany with a report that Germany had 8,000 military airplanes and could manufacture 1,500 a month. We now know that Germany had about 1,500 planes, manufactured 280 a month in 1938, and had abandoned all plans to bomb London even in a war because of lack of planes and distance from the target. Lindbergh repeated his tale of woe daily both in Paris and in London during the crisis. The British government began to fit the people of London with gas masks; the prime minister and the king called on the people to dig trenches in the parks and squares; schoolchildren began to be evacuated from the city; the Czechs were allowed to mobilize on September 24th; and three days later it was announced that the British fleet was at its war stations. In general, every report or rumor which could add to the panic and defeatism was played up, and everything that might contribute to a strong or a united resistance to Germany was played down. By the middle of September, Bonnet was broken, and Daladier was bending, while the British people were completely confused. By September 27th Daladier had caved in, and so had the British people.
In the meantime, on September 13th, without consulting his Cabinet, Chamberlain asked Hitler by telegraph for an interview. They met on September 15th at Berchtesgaden. Chamberlain tried to reopen at once the discussions toward a general Anglo-German settlement which Halifax had opened in November 1937, but which had been broken off since Nevile Henderson's conference with Hitler on March 3rd. Hitler interrupted to say that he must have self-determination for the Sudeten Germans at once and that the Czech-Soviet treaty must be abolished. If he did not get these, there would be an immediate war. Chamberlain asked to be allowed to return to London to confer with the French and Lord Runciman.
The Anglo-French conference of September 18, 1938, saw the last glimmering of French resistance to Britain's plans, chiefly from Daladier. Chamberlain blamed Bene for Czechoslovakia's plight, while Lord Halifax repeated all the mistaken arguments about the hopelessness of resistance and the improbability of Czechoslovakia being revived with its present boundaries even after a costly victory. Chamberlain excluded all possible solutions from discussion except partition. To him the problem was "to discover some means of preventing France from being forced into war as a result of her obligations and at the same time to preserve Czechoslovakia and save as much of that country as was humanly possible." Daladier feebly tried to get the discussion to the real problem, German aggression. Eventually he accepted the British solution of partition of all areas of Czechoslovakia with over 50 percent Germans, and a guarantee for the rest.
As he yielded on the main issue, Daladier tried to get certain concessions: (1) that the Czechs must be consulted; (2) that the rump of Czechoslovakia should he guaranteed by Britain as well as others; (3) that economic aid should be extended to this rump. The last was rejected; the second was accepted on the understanding that Czechoslovakia give up its alliances and generally do what Britain wanted "in issues involving war and peace"; the first was accepted.
The way in which Chamberlain applied "consultation with the Czechs" before partition was imposed is an interesting example of his mind at work. The British, French, and Czechs were agreed in opposition to the use of a plebiscite in this dispute, although the Entente suggested it to put pressure on the Czechs. Chamberlain said: "The idea of territorial cession would he likely to have a more favorable reception from the British public if it could be represented as the choice of the Czechoslovak Government themselves and it could be made clear that they had been offered the choice of a plebiscite or of territorial cession and had preferred the latter. This would dispose of any idea that we were ourselves carving up Czechoslovak territory." He felt it particularly important to show that the Czechoslovak government preferred cession because they were so definitely opposed to a plebiscite that they would fight rather than accept a plebiscite.
This Anglo-French decision was presented to the Czechoslovak government at 2:00 A. M. on September 19th, to be accepted at once. The terms leaked to the press in Paris the same day. After vigorous protests, the Czechoslovaks rejected the Anglo-French solution and appealed to the procedures of the German-Czechoslovak Arbitration Treaty of 1926. The Czechs argued that they had not been consulted, that their constitution required that their Parliament be consulted, that partition would be ineffective in maintaining peace because the minorities would rise again, and that the balance of power in Europe would be destroyed. Bene refused to believe that new guarantees could be more effective, when Czechoslovakia would be weaker, than those which were now proving inadequate. London and Paris rejected the Czech refusal. Pressure was increased on the Czechs. The French threatened to revoke the French-Czechoslovak alliance and to abandon the whole country to Germany if the Anglo-French solution was not accepted. The British added that the Sudetenland would not be returned to Czechoslovakia even after a successful war against Germany. The British minister in Prague threatened to order all British subjects from the country if he did not receive an immediate acceptance. The Czechoslovak government accepted at 5:00 P.M. on September 21st. Lord Halifax at once ordered the Czech police to be withdrawn from the Sudeten districts, and expressed his wish that the German troops move in at once.
The next day, September 22nd, Chamberlain took the Czech acceptance to Hitler at Godesberg on the Rhine. He found the Fhrer in a vile temper, receiving messages every few minutes about the atrocities being inflicted on the Sudetens by the Czechs. Hitler now demanded self-determination for the Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia, as well as for the Sudetens. He insisted that he must have the Sudeten areas at once. After that, if the Czechs challenged his choice of a frontier, he would hold a plebiscite and prove how wrong they were. An international commission could supervise the vote. At any rate, he must have the German areas before October 1st, for on that day the German forces would move in, war or no war. At Chamberlain's request he embodied his demands in a memorandum which proved to be an ultimatum. This ultimatum was at once carried to Prague to be presented to the Czechs by the British military attache.
Back in London, the Cabinet agreed to reject the Godesberg Demands and to support France if it had to go to war as a result. The French Cabinet also rejected these demands. So did a new Czech Cabinet under General Jan Syrov. The Soviet Union explicitly recognized its commitments to Czechoslovakia, and even promised to come to the aid of the Czechs without the necessary preliminary action by France if the case were submitted to the League of Nations (this was to prevent Britain and France from charging Russia with aggression in any action it might take in behalf of Czechoslovakia). On the same day (September 23rd) Russia warned Poland that it would denounce their Nonaggression Treaty if Poland attacked Czechoslovakia.
Apparently a united front had been formed against Hitler's aggression—but only apparently. Mr. Chamberlain was already beginning to undermine the unity and resolution of this front, and he now received considerable assistance from Bonnet in Paris. This culminated on September 27th when he made a speech on the radio in which he said, "How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that 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 . . . a quarrel that has already been settled in principle...." The same day he sent a telegram to Bene that if he did not accept the German demands by 2:00 P. M. the following day (September 28th) Czechoslovakia would be overrun by the German Army, and nothing could save it. This was immediately followed by another message that in such a case Czechoslovakia could not be reconstituted in its frontiers whatever the outcome of the war. Lastly, he sent another note to Hitler. In this he suggested a four-Power conference, and guaranteed that France and Britain would force Czechoslovakia to carry out any agreement if Hitler would only abstain from going to war.
At 3:00 P.M. on Wednesday, September 28th, Chamberlain met Parliament for the first time during the crisis to inform it of what had been done. The whole city of London was in a panic. The Honorable Members sat hunched on their benches, waiting for G๖ring's bombs to come through the roof. As Chamberlain drew to the end of his long speech, a message was brought to him. He announced that it was an invitation to a four-Power conference at Munich on Thursday. There was a roar of joy and relief as Chamberlain hurried from the building without any formal ending to the session.
At Munich, Hitler, Chamberlain, Mussolini, and Daladier carved up Czechoslovakia without consulting anyone, least of all the Czechs. The conference lasted from 12:30 P. M. on September 28th to 2:30 A. M. when the agreement of the four Powers was handed to the Czech minister in Berlin, who had been waiting outside the door for over ten hours. The agreement reached Prague only eighteen hours before the German occupation was to begin.
The Munich agreement provided that certain designated areas of Czechoslovakia would be occupied by the German Army in four stages from October 1st to October 7th. A fifth area, to be designated by an international commission, would be occupied by October 10th. No property was to be withdrawn from these areas. The international commission would order plebiscites which must be held before the end of November, the areas designated being occupied by an international force during the interval. The same international commission was to supervise the occupation and draw the final frontier. For six months the populations concerned would have the right of option into and out of the areas transferred under the supervision of a German-Czechoslovak commission. The rump of Czechoslovakia was to be guaranteed by France and Britain. Germany and Italy would join this guarantee as soon as the Polish and Hungarian minority problems in that state had been settled. If they were not settled in three months, the four Powers would meet again to consider the problem.
The Munich agreement was violated on every point in favor of Germany, so that ultimately the German Army merely occupied the places it wanted. As a result, the Czech economic system was destroyed, and every important railroad or highway was cut or crippled. This was done by the International Commission, consisting of German Secretary of State Weizsไcker and the French, British, Italian, and Czech diplomatic representatives in Berlin. Under dictation of the German General Staff, this group, by a 4 to 1 vote, accepted every German demand and canceled the plebiscites. In addition, the guarantee of the rump of Czechoslovakia was never given, although Poland seized areas in which the majority of the population was not Polish on October 2nd and Hungary was given southern Slovakia on November 2nd. The final frontier with Germany was dictated by Germany alone to the Czechs, the other three members of the commission having withdrawn.
Bene resigned as president of Czechoslovakia under the threat of a German ultimatum on October 5th and was replaced by Emil Hแcha. Slovakia and Ruthenia were given complete autonomy at once. The Soviet alliance was ended, and the Communist Party outlawed. The anti-Nazi refugees from the Sudetenland were rounded up by the Prague government and handed over to the Germans to be destroyed. All these events showed very clearly the chief result of Munich: Germany was supreme in central Europe, and any possibility of curtailing that power either by a joint policy of the Western Powers with the Soviet Union and Italy or by finding any openly anti-German resistance in central Europe itself was ended. Since this was exactly what Chamberlain and his friends had wanted, they should have been satisfied.
Chapter 46: The Year of Dupes, 1939
Plans for appeasement by Chamberlain and plans for aggression by Hitler did not end with Munich. Within three weeks of this agreement (October 21, 1938), Hitler issued orders to his generals to prepare plans to destroy the rump of Czechoslovakia and to annex Memel from Lithuania. A month later he added Danzig to this list, although he signified his desire to achieve this through a revolutionary action without a war against Poland. This reluctance for war against Poland did not arise from any affection for peace but from the fact that he had not made up his mind whether to attack France or Poland. He was inclined at first to attack westward, and did not change his mind and decide to deal first with Poland until April 1, 1939. The plans to attack France and the Low Countries soon were reported to London and Paris and had a good deal to do with building up the war spirit in those areas.
In addition, Italian demands for territorial concessions from France in November 1938 aroused the fighting spirit of that country from the level to which it had sagged in September. Mussolini was seeking his share in the booty of appeasement but lacked the strength to do much more than make a nuisance of himself. His followers staged a great demonstration in the Italian Chamber of Corporations on November 3o, 1938, in which there were loud demands for Nice, Corsica, and Tunis from France. In December the old Laval-Mussolini agreement of January, 1935, was denounced as inadequate, and a violent anti-French campaign was waged in the Italian press. These disturbances were encouraged by Chamberlain when he pointedly announced in the House of Commons on December 12th that Britain was not bound to come to the aid of France or its possessions if they were attacked by Italy.
Bonnet at once tried to repair this damage by asking Chamberlain to make a reference to the fact that Italy had bound itself to preserve the status quo in the Mediterranean in the Anglo-Italian ("Ciano-Perth") Agreement of April 1938. Chamberlain refused. Bonnet at once pointed out to London that France had bound itself on December 4, 1936, to come to the assistance of Britain if it were attacked and that this promise was still completely valid. Nonetheless, it was only on February 6th, when Hitler's plans to attack Holland and France "almost immediately" were reported in London, that Chamberlain could persuade himself to state in Commons that "any threat to the vital interests of France, from whatever quarter it came, must evoke the immediate cooperation of this country."
The Italian demands on France had two important results. The fighting spirits of the French people were revived by being threatened by such a weak Power as Italy, and Bonnet was driven to a new appeasement of Germany. On December 6th Ribbentrop came to Paris, signed a treaty of friendship and neutrality, and opened a series of economic discussions. On this occasion the German foreign minister received from Bonnet the impression that France would give Germany a free hand in eastern Europe. French fears that Britain would seek to detach Mussolini from Hitler by making concessions to Italy at the expense of France did not end until February 1939, and reached their peak in January, when Chamberlain and Halifax made a formal visit to Rome to recognize the King of Italy as Emperor of Ethiopia. This had been agreed between the two Powers in the Ciano-Perth Agreement of April 1938, and was carried into effect in November, although the conditions originally set by Britain, the withdrawal of Italian troops from Spain, had not been fulfilled.
Before Hitler could carry on any further aggressions, he had to dispose of the carcass of Czechoslovakia. He and Ribbentrop were outraged that they had been cheated out of a war in September, and immediately made up their minds to wipe the rest of Czechoslovakia off the map as soon as possible and proceed to a war. The next time, said Hitler, he hoped no "dirty pig" would suggest a conference.
Orders to plan an invasion of the rump of Czechoslovakia were issued on October 21st, as we have said. Keitel's plans, presented on December 17th, provided that the task would be done by the peacetime army without mobilization. Any possibility of opposition from Britain or France was effectively disposed of by Lord Halifax's insistence that the guarantee to Czechoslovakia be worded so as to be binding on all four of the Munich Powers jointly (or at least on three of them) and would not be accepted by Britain if worded in such a way as to bind the signers individually. This made any guarantee meaningless, and this distasteful project was indefinitely postponed by a German note to Lord Halifax on March 3, 1939.
By this last date Hitler was ready to strike at the rump of Czechoslovakia. Hungary was invited to join in this operation, and eagerly accepted on March 13th. In the meantime the projected victim was a nest of intrigue. Sudeten Nazis were everywhere, seeking to make trouble. Poland and Hungary were working to get a common frontier by obtaining Slovakia as a protectorate for Poland and Ruthenia as a province of Hungary. They hoped in this way to block Germany's movement to the east and to keep Russian influence out of central Europe. Within the two autonomous provinces, Slovakia and Ruthenia, and to a much lesser degree in Bohemia-Moravia, there was turmoil as various reactionary and semi-Fascist groups angled for power and German favor.
The degree of political maturity in Slovakia may be judged from the fact that the members of Monsignor Tiso's Cabinet personally took bombs from the Nazis to stir up trouble in their own province. Their efforts to break away from Prague completely were hampered by the financial insolvency of Slovakia. When they appealed to Prague for financial assistance on March 9, 1939, President Hแcha deposed the Slovak premier and three of his ministers. Seyss-Inquart, accompanied by several German generals, forced the Slovak Cabinet to issue a declaration of independence from Prague. Tiso, summoned to Hitler’s presence in Berlin on March 13th, was “persuaded” to approve this action. The declaration was received with profound apathy by the Slovak people, although the German radio filled the air with stories of riots and disturbances, and various Nazi bands within both Slovakia and Bohemia did their best to make the facts fit this description.
On March 14th, Hแcha, the president of Czechoslovakia, was forced to go to Berlin. Although he was sixty-six years old, and not in the best of health, Hแcha was subjected to a brutal three-hour long tongue-lashing by Hitler during which he had to be revived from a fainting spell by an injection administered by Hitler's physician. He was forced to sign documents handing Czechoslovakia over to Hitler and ordering all resistance to the invading German forces to cease. Ruthenia had already proclaimed its independence (March 14th). Within a week, Bohemia-Moravia and Slovakia were declared German protectorates, and the former was taken within the German economic system. Ruthenia was annexed by Hungary after one day of independence.
Europe had not yet recovered from the shock of March Isth when Germany seized Memel from Lithuania on March 22nd, and Italy obtained its crumb of satisfaction by seizing Albania on April 7, Iq39..
It is usually said that the events of March 1939 revealed Hitler's real nature and real ambitions, and marked the end of appeasement. This is certainly not true as stated. It may have opened the eves of the average man to the fact that appeasement was merely a kind of slow suicide, and quite incapable of satisfying the appetites of aggressors who were insatiable. It also made clear that Hitler was not really concerned with self-determination or with a desire to bring all Germans "back to the Reich." The annexation of territories containing millions of Slavs showed that Hitler's real aim was power and wealth and eventually world domination. Thus, from March onward, it became almost impossible to sell appeasement to the public, especially to the British public, who were sufficiently sturdy and sensible to know when they had had enough.
But the British public and the British government were two different things, and it is quite untrue to say that the latter learned Hitler's real ambitions in March 1939 and determined to oppose them. Above all, it is completely wrong to say this of Chamberlain, who, more and more, was running foreign policy as his own personal business. Hitler's real ambitions were quite clear to most men in the government even before Munich, and were made evident to the rest during that crisis, especially by the way in which the German High Command seized hundreds of villages in Czechoslovakia with overwhelming Czech populations and only small German minorities, and did so for strategic and economic reasons in the period October 1-10, 1938. But for the members of the government, the real turning point took place in January 1939, when British diplomatic agents in Europe began to bombard London with rumors of a forthcoming attack on the Netherlands and France. At that moment, appeasement in the strict sense ceased. To the government the seizure of Czechoslovakia in March was of little significance except for the shock it gave to British opinion. The government had already written off the rump of Czechoslovakia completely, a fact which is clear as much from their direct statements as by their refusal to guarantee that rump, and the attention given to other matters even when the seizure was known (as it was after March 11th). For example, Lord Halifax sent President Roosevelt a long letter analyzing the international situation on January :4th; it is completely realistic about Hitler's outlook and projects, but Czechoslovakia is not mentioned; neither is appeasement.
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