Beneš began consulting with his military advisers, party leaders, and top aides. What options did he have? He knew now what to expect from England and France; what about the Soviets? He asked the Russian ambassador the same questions he had earlier posed to Fierlinger. Late in the day, he received an answer. If the French fought, the Soviets would, too. If the French didn’t, the Soviets would bring the matter to the attention of the League of Nations. No help there.
Other Czechs were meeting as well. A group of patriots, among them close friends of my father, had formed a secret council; some were politicians, some journalists, some high up in the armed forces. They were not enemies of Beneš but loyalists who knew him well enough to doubt that he would act with the requisite strength. That afternoon, they sent him an impassioned appeal:
It depends solely on you whether we shall capitulate or fight . . . a defeat would not destroy the nation’s moral force . . . while capitulation means moral and political disintegration, now and for generations to come, from which we could not recover.
On that day, September 20, Beneš was angry enough at his allies to defer to the judgment of friends. At 7 p.m., he replied in writing to the British and French, complaining that their proposals had been made without input from his government and contrary to the interests of his people. “It is hence understandable,” he said, that “the Czechoslovaks would not accept them.”
The president’s advisers were exhilarated, sure that they had done the right thing while Beneš, who had been up before dawn, retired at 1 a.m. thinking that his country had opted to fight. These feelings were short-lived. Barely an hour later, the French and British ambassadors reappeared at the castle. Their governments, they told the bleary-eyed Beneš, would not accept no for an answer; the arrangement worked out between Chamberlain and Hitler must be allowed to stand. The British emissary warned again of the imminence of war; his French counterpart, weeping, told Beneš that if Germany attacked under the present circumstances, his government would not help, treaty or no treaty.
Amid the deepening gloom, Beneš began yet another series of meetings. Counsel was divided, with the moderate politicians leaning toward acquiescence, and the military, the conservative nationalists, and the Communists initially determined to fight. At noon, the two lugubrious ambassadors returned to the castle, wondering what was taking so much time. Beneš pointed out that the loss of the heavily fortified Sudetenland would leave his country defenseless against a further Nazi attack. When Hitler made his next move, what would England do? The British diplomat said he did not know. What would France, the treaty ally, do? The Frenchman remained silent. Beneš delayed until 5 p.m. Finally, faced by the prospect of leading his people into war alone, he sent word that his government would “with feelings of pain” accept the ultimatum.
As the international community was bullying Beneš in one direction, his outraged countrymen continued to push in the other. On September 22, a general strike was organized, a rally took place in Wenceslas Square, and thousands of citizens—Communists and democrats alike—marched to the castle where they demanded weapons to fight. Beneš sought to restore confidence by changing prime ministers. The new head of government, Jan Syrový, was an army general with a reputation for toughness and the political advantage of possessing, as had the revered warrior Jan Žižka, a black patch over a useless eye.
In London, Alexander Cadogan noted in his diary that some in the press had accused the Britons of betraying the Czechoslovaks. That was “inevitable,” he wrote, “and must be faced. How much courage is needed to be a coward! . . . We must go on being cowards up to our limit, but not beyond.” To that point, the terms and timing of the Sudeten secession had not been worked out. Chamberlain assumed it would happen in a civilized fashion, over a period of weeks, with ample safeguards to protect those living in the region who had no desire to join the Reich. His cabinet had spent hours developing the idea of an international commission to accomplish these goals.
On September 22, while the people of Prague took to the streets, Chamberlain and his ever-present umbrella returned to Germany, this time to the city of Godesberg and a luxurious hotel overlooking the Rhine. He had told his cabinet that he would press for favorable terms—including the commission plan, a smaller area of secession, and a reduction in armaments along the border. Meeting again without staff, the prime minister reported to Hitler that London, Paris, and even Prague were now ready to countenance a change in the status of the Sudetenland. He then outlined the ideas his government had devised for implementing the agreement in an orderly fashion. He thought that although Hitler might quibble over the details, he could not help but be pleased.
Instead the führer threw a fit, informing Chamberlain that his efforts were no longer of any use. Czechoslovakia was an artificial state with a made-up history and no right to exist; moreover, it was becoming a base for Communists. There was only one solution: German occupation of the Sudetenland was to be unconditional and would begin on or before the first of October. There would be no need for international supervision, no thought of compensation, no permission to dismantle infrastructure, and no right to remove military or commercial property; every tank must be left behind and so, too, every chicken.
Hearing the news from Godesberg, Cadogan was appalled.
A week ago when we moved (or were pushed) from “autonomy” to cession, many of us found great difficulty in the idea of ceding people to Nazi Germany. We salved our consciences (or at least I did) by stipulating it must be an “orderly” cession—i.e. under international supervision, with safeguards for exchange of populations, compensation etc. Now Hitler says he must march into the whole area at once (to keep order!) and the safeguards and the plebiscites can be held after! This is throwing away every last safeguard that we had.
Chamberlain returned from Germany shaken but still determined to find the basis for an agreement. He informed his cabinet that Hitler “had a narrow mind and was violently prejudiced on certain subjects, but he would not deliberately deceive a man whom he respected and with whom he had been in negotiation.”* The chancellor, he said, was “extremely anxious to secure the friendship of Great Britain . . . [and] it would be a great tragedy if we lost an opportunity of reaching an understanding.” The cabinet, however, was now divided and the media increasingly sympathetic to Prague. Jan Masaryk showed up with a letter denouncing the new German demands and invoking the names of Wenceslas, Hus, and his own father. Even Chamberlain was sufficiently perturbed about Hitler’s intentions to inform the Czechoslovak government that if it wished to mobilize its armed forces, England would no longer object.
That message, delivered to Beneš on the evening of September 23, was joyously received. “It was obvious that he was reading the few sentences on the paper again and again,” recalled Beneš’s personal secretary. “Then he put the paper on the desk and said, ‘Yes’ and began to pace back and forth across the room. . . . I observed that he was as excited as I had ever seen him. Then, he said, ‘This means war! The English advise us to mobilize.’ ”
That night the mobilization order was broadcast. All reservists under the age of forty were to report for duty. Within hours, men in uniform were arriving at their assigned posts or heading for the train station to be dispatched to the border regions. Long fearful of conflict, the country in its excitement could not wait for the clash to begin. All Prague was blacked out. The castle took on the appearance of a military command center, with cots set up in corridors and even Beneš keeping a uniform and gas mask close at hand. Antiaircraft guns were on full alert, while friendly planes kept watch from the sky. In Belgrade, my father prepared to return and take his own place as a lieutenant in the army. He recalled of that night:
The national will manifested a resolution far beyond that of its leadership. . . . Meetings were organized all over the country to demonstrate the determination of the people; resolutions and individual messages poured into the Hrad, the seat
of the president of the republic, giving encouragement and calling for firm resistance.
For a brief moment, a new consensus appeared: Hitler had overreached. The Czechoslovaks were ready, even eager, for battle. In Paris, Daladier was asked what France would do if the Germans crossed the border. He answered without hesitation that his country would go to war. On Monday, September 26, the British issued their firmest communiqué of the crisis, citing all that they had done to achieve an amicable settlement but vowing to stand with France in the event of a fight.
That evening, Hitler addressed an expectant world once more, this time from the Sports Palace in Berlin. Speaking for an hour, he blamed the Czechoslovaks for failing to agree to a demand made by the British and French; he accused Beneš of seeking the overthrow of Chamberlain and Daladier and of placing all his hopes on Soviet Russia. The matter could be reduced, he said, to a test of wills:
Two men stand arrayed one against the other: there is Herr Beneš, and here stand I. We are two men of a different make up. . . . I have made Herr Beneš an offer which is nothing but the carrying into effect of what he himself has promised. The decision now lies in his hands: peace or war! He will either accept this offer and now at last give to the Germans their freedom, or we will go and fetch this freedom ourselves.
Hitler’s nemesis did not hear this melodramatic threat because he had fallen asleep in an armchair at an “undisclosed secure location,” where the military, fearing an air raid, had hidden him. When Beneš awoke and was briefed, he felt flattered. For the first time since the crisis had begun, he had reason to believe that France, England, the Soviet Union, and perhaps the United States were all on his side. He thought that Hitler had isolated himself and that now, if war came, Germany would surely lose.
Beneš had not, however, counted on the lengths to which Chamberlain would go in pursuit of peace. While the Czechoslovaks spent September 27 preparing for war, the British sent a special emissary to Germany with a plea for direct Berlin-Prague discussions backed by London in a mediating role. The envoy called on the führer twice—only to be yelled at and dismissed. News of this humiliation had a crushing effect. Although the Germans were not, in fact, yet prepared to strike, Chamberlain and his advisers assumed that an invasion was imminent. They warned Hitler again that if he attacked, Paris would likely respond, meaning that they too would fight. The Royal Navy was mobilized, as was the French army. Civilians began to stream out of Paris, fearful that bombings were about to begin. In London, the cabinet met at all hours, searching for a way out of the box that seemed to have disaster written on every side. “I’m wobbling all over the place,” Chamberlain confessed to Halifax, just before stepping in front of a microphone for his 8 p.m. radio broadcast. After a day in which all the news had been bad, Chamberlain’s frustration poured forth in words that would define and ultimately desecrate his legacy:
How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.
He continued in a passage less quoted but more fully indicative of his tortured thinking:
However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply upon her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living; but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that the call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.
Chamberlain on his best day was not exactly a compelling orator. Here, on one of his worst, he still spoke of fighting bravely against evil. His presentation, however, was confusing and laced with public hand-wringing. He accepted the necessity of war in some situations but conveyed only puzzlement as to whether such a scenario had in fact arisen. He sought to sound analytical but came across as cynical—even afraid. He had dared to share with the public his innermost thoughts but had been too exhausted to speak as he wished to be heard.
His gloom would soon lift. A few hours after his broadcast, the Foreign Office received an intriguing message from the führer that appeared to invite further discussion. The Germans, wrote Hitler, would not move beyond the Sudetenland; a free plebiscite could be carried out; and Germany would join in guaranteeing Czechoslovakia’s new borders. One cable with three lies was good enough to hook Chamberlain. The prime minister answered that he thought Hitler could achieve his goals without war; perhaps it would be worthwhile to meet again? After a brief delay, Hitler consented, offering to play host in the capital city of Bavaria.
THE MUNICH CONFERENCE brought together four leaders who had little in common except that none had ever set foot in Czechoslovakia. The deliberations began shortly after 1 p.m. on Thursday, September 29, in the mammoth Führerbau, headquarters of the Nazi party. The delegates arranged themselves in Hitler’s spacious office beneath a portrait of Bismarck and in front of a large fireplace. The session was casual, lacking any established agenda, assigned seating, or even official note takers; it was also tedious, because each of the four principals spoke a different language, meaning that every word had to be translated. Hitler and Italian premier Benito Mussolini were perched between the French and British delegations. Hitler began by condemning the Czechs yet again and by insisting that the evacuation (or invasion) start on October 1. Mussolini then put forward a plan that he described as his own but that had been handed to him by the Germans. The document specified what was demanded of Prague. Chamberlain, saying that he could not speak for Beneš, asked that further deliberations be delayed until a Czech representative could be present. The idea was rejected by Hitler as a ploy to buy time.
The Mussolini plan was essentially the same as what Hitler had demanded at Godesberg. The Nazi occupation would commence in little more than twenty-four hours. The area ceded would extend well beyond what Great Britain had originally contemplated and would include many small cities and villages where Germans were in the minority; more than 800,000 Czechs would have to move or live under the Reich. A network of zones was drawn on the map to create the illusion of an orderly transfer of authority, but real control would pass immediately to Berlin. The four parties would guarantee Czechoslovakia’s new borders, but only against unprovoked aggression; the territorial claims of Poland and Hungary could still be heard.
From left: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, and Mussolini—Munich, 1938
Bundesarchiv, Bild (183-R69173)
That afternoon, at Chamberlain’s suggestion, two Czechoslovak diplomats, Hubert Masařík and Vojtĕch Mastný, arrived in Munich. The prime minister had asked that they be available for consultations, but from the British standpoint, events had rendered their role moot. Instead, the Gestapo escorted Masařík and Mastný to a hotel where the two had unsatisfactory meetings with second-tier officials before being left to languish in their rooms. The conference dragged on past midnight as clerks prepared the texts for signing, a process interrupted briefly by a shortage of ink. The fateful agreement, dated the twenty-ninth, was actually completed in the early hours of September 30. Returning to the hotel, Chamberlain and Daladier handed a copy of the pact to the Czechoslovak envoys, who tried to dispute certain points but were told not to bother; the deed was done. Chamberlain, yawning, referred to himself as “tired, but pleasantly tired,” and claimed that the outcome had been the best possible.
Even while the Munich deliberations were under way, Beneš suspected where they were heading. He could no longer hope that the Allies would hold firm. Arou
nd midday, he met with the leaders of his military.
The president himself described the scene:
The representatives of the Czechoslovak army, standing in front of me . . . took the floor, one after another. . . . They tried to prove, unanimously and in different forms, this: “Let the big powers decide and agree on anything. . . . The army will not tolerate acceding now to their pressure. . . . We must go to war, whatever the consequences. If we do, the big Western powers will be compelled to follow. The nation is absolutely united; the army is firm and wants to march.”
Listening to those words, Beneš was deeply moved but not persuaded. The men in front of him, some in suits, others in uniform, had immersed themselves in the ethics of national honor and had prepared all their lives for just such a moment. He admired their sincerity and the bravery that lay behind their arguments but did not believe in steering by the star of emotion. The facts had become inescapable; he knew this because he had tried so earnestly to find a way around them.
Beneš told the generals that he understood how they felt and why the Czechoslovak people were so determined to fight. But he said he could not consider the sentiments only of the nation and the army. I have to see the whole picture and to weigh the consequences, he said. You are wrong about England and France, he told them. They will not intervene. It would be irresponsible for me to lead our nation into the slaughterhouse of an isolated war, but that does not mean we must despair. “A war—a big European war—will come and there will be great upheavals and revolutions. The allies do not want to fight along with us now [but] . . . they will have to fight hard . . . when we are no longer able to.”
In churches and synagogues throughout Czechoslovakia prayers were offered in the name of Wenceslas (by Catholics), Hus (by Protestants), and Moses the deliverer (by Jews). To no avail. German troops crossed into northern Bohemia at 2 p.m. on the first day of October 1938.
Prague Winter Page 10