T.G. MASARYK’S ROLE IN THE CREATION OF ‘THE MIRACLE OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA’
T.G. Masaryk was an extraordinary man, and is without a doubt the most important figure in the creation of Czechoslovakia. Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk started out as an academic and stood up against the most radical elements within Czech nationalism, with its strong undercurrents of anti-Semitism (earning him life-long appreciation and support from the Jewish community in the United States). He was convinced that there was no possible way for the Czechs to gain equality within Austria-Hungary and therefore sought the downfall of this multiethnic state. He and his supporters also feared that an Austro-German victory in the First World War would mean the end of any aspirations for a Czech state, and the total and final integration of their lands into a Greater Germany.
During the First World War, Masaryk went into exile, marrying an American — even taking her name, Garrigue, which was highly unusual at the time. He ceaselessly lobbied allied French, British and American figures, from lowly secretaries to presidents and prime ministers. British publicist, Robert William Seton-Watson, did much to popularise Masaryk’s cause. It is worth noting, however, that Masaryk did face considerable opposition from Czech groupings within Austria-Hungary during the First World War. They felt his aims were too idealistic and potentially dangerous. As late as 1917, the Czech Union of the Czech political parties during the war, declared its loyalty to Austria-Hungary. The leaders of the Agrarian movement and those of the Czech Social Democrats, Antonin Svehla and Bohumir Smeral, worried that Masaryk would lead the nation to a new White Mountain fearing a Czech state surrounded by a sea of Germany where one could be no more than a buffer state with limited real autonomy.(13)
Nevertheless, Masaryk remained unequivocal, and supremely optimistic of Allied victory when many others faltered. He argued forcefully that an independent state for the Czechs and Slovaks would act as an important bulwark against German expansion, and this was music to many Allied leaders’ ears. His staunchest supporters were Edvard Beneš (later president of Czechoslovakia) and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, the dashing Slovak who, at the outset of the war, had taken French citizenship and joined the French air force to become a war ace. Both upheld Masaryk’s view that ‘Slovaks were Czechs’.xlvi (14) Masaryk had initially won Allied support through his opposition to Czechs being conscripted to fight Austria-Hungary’s war. However, his status soared to new heights when the incredible story of the Czech Legion made headlines all over the world. After the start of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Russian surrender to the Central Powers, Czech and Slovak prisoners of war, who had been conscripted to fight under the flag of Austria-Hungary began their long march back from Russian captivity. Along the way, they encountered Hungarian units who lambasted them as traitors, and fighting broke out between them. The Czechs then sided with the White counter-revolutionary forces against the Bolsheviks, initially routing their southern advance and continuing the fight against them in Siberia, where they not only took control of much of the railway, but also captured the Tsar’s gold reserves as well. Their epic struggle for freedom, fighting all the way through Siberia to reach the Pacific, is one of the more remarkable tales of the First World War.(15)
Masaryk was instrumental in persuading US President Woodrow Wilson, to embrace the idea of national self-determination for the peoples of Central Europe. As a result, Wilson did more than any other Allied leader to champion this. Masaryk naturally did not demonstrate a similar enthusiasm for the national self-determination of the German communities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Events on the ground, however, were developing along an entirely different trajectory. On 21st October 1918 the German delegates of the Viennese parliament declared the independence of the German-Austrian state. This included the German-speaking communities of Bohemia and Moravia.(16) Between 29th October and the 3rd November those German-speaking deputies elected from Bohemia declared the province of German-Bohemia to be part of the new Austria. Other German communities in the Sudetenland, Böhmerwaldgau and German southern Moravia soon declared their intent to stay within Austria, demanding the same right be given to all peoples: namely a plebiscite to decide whether their German communities would join ‘rump Austria’ or Germany.
There was no question that they wanted or expected to become part of a Czech dominated state.(18) This resulted in the Allied occupation of Austrian Bohemia, and the protests that followed resulted in the first fatalities among the Austro-German civilian population, with the deaths of twenty-one men, women and children.(19)
After four years of the most bitter and bloodiest war in history, the Allies had no intention of honouring the principals of self-determination if this meant creating a larger German state in the centre of Europe. They had had the narrowest of victories only six months after Germany knocked Russia out of the war. Only the involvement of the United States had tipped the balance and broken the four-year stalemate on the Western Front, which gave America pre-eminent power in the peace that followed. They had won victory for the Allies and their vision of Europe would shape its outcome. Or so it seemed. Wilson’s ideals were in practice quickly shoved to the sidelines as the rest of the Allies focused on retribution and humiliation. Beneš (a leading Czech delegate sent to Versailles) had been in Paris since 1915 and had worked hard in Europe to support the efforts of his friend Masaryk in the United States. By the time of the Versailles Peace Conference, the territorial boundaries that the Czechs laid claim to before the Supreme Council had grown exponentially. Beneš argued for more of Poland, Hungary, Austria and Germany, more territory along the Danube, and Pressburg — a major river port (now Bratislava, even though it was an entirely German-speaking city in Hungary). He argued that the Ruthenians would prefer Czechoslovak rule over Hungarian, and of course that would give his new state a border with friendly Romania. The most outlandish of all his requests, however, was that there be a land corridor carved from Bohemia through Austria to link the Czech state to the new South Slav state of Yugoslavia. Beneš stated that after 300 years of servitude these were entirely ‘modest and reasonable’ requests. However, the British Prime Minister Lloyd George replied they were ‘very audacious and indefensible’.(20)
In Beneš’ Memorandum Number Three entitled ‘The problem of the Germans in Bohemia’ that he presented to the Allies, he described the Germans as ‘colonists and colonial bureaucrats’. Beneš lied about the huge number of minorities this new ‘Nation’ would contain, falsifying the number of ethnic Germans to the tune of 1 million. In fact there would be 3.5 million Germans, 2 million Slovaks, almost 1 million Hungarians and 200,000 Jews which, with nearly 8 million Czechs, only gave them a narrow ethnic majority over the rest. It was plain for Lloyd George to see that this was ‘not a Nation state at all’, but as A.J.P. Taylor accurately described it, ‘(Czechoslovakia was) a state of nationalities, not a nation state. Only the Czechs were genuine Czechoslovaks; and even they interpreted that to mean a centralised state of Czech character.’(21) Beneš laboured on, arguing, ‘Czechoslovakia could not survive without the (German) Sudetenland’s sugar refineries, glassworks, textile mills, smelters and breweries. And Czechoslovakia needed its old frontiers, which ran along these mountains and hills, to defend themselves.’xlvii (22)
An American expert on the Council wrote, ‘In Bohemia they (the Czechs) demand their “historic frontiers” regardless of the protests of the large numbers of Germans who do not wish to be taken over in this way. In Slovakia they insist on the rights of nationality and pay no heed to the ancient and well marked “historic frontiers” of Hungary.’(23) The overall problem with the various peace settlements pertaining to the Axis powers, from Versailles to Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Trianon, was the piecemeal way in which they were formed through these councils. No one saw how catastrophic and gargantuan the carve-up was until the whole thing was rolled out at the very end, at which point many — particularly in the British delegation, and especially Lloyd George and General Smuts — drew a
sharp intake of breath, suggesting a return to the drawing board.
Upon discovering how many ethnic Austro-Germans were going to be stranded in Czechoslovakia, Woodrow Wilson exclaimed, referring to Masaryk, ‘He never told me that!’ His colleague Robert Lansing fretted, ‘We are ignoring the principle of self-determination.’(24) A memorable quote from A.J.P. Taylor is, ‘The Allies at Versailles threatened to choke Germany and she (in turn) threatened to die.’(25) This was even more true with Austria and Hungary. However, the Allied leaders had expended a huge amount of their personal time, energy, and in Wilson’s case his health, on trying to reach an agreement. It would be unthinkable for world leaders of today to spend the better part of six months abroad on nothing other than hammering out a peace settlement. The French harangued them into meting out the ‘appropriate’ punishment to their erstwhile enemies, and the clever Czechs humoured them with promises to be the ‘Switzerland’ of central Europe.xlviii (26) Austria-Hungary was dismembered. It went from being Europe’s largest state (outside Russia) to one of its smallest. Four million Hungarians, over a third of Hungary’s population, were set adrift as minorities in Romania, Slovakia and Yugoslavia. German-Austria’s population was scattered across the former multiethnic state with the largest concentration, outside of rump Austria, waking up one morning stranded in a hitherto unknown and unheard of country called Czechoslovakia. They were just over 3.5 million Austro-Germans, nearly double the Slovak population of the new country, but they were not promised autonomy, and were barely recognised at all.
A cursory look at the map of the region shows that Prague lies west of Vienna, roughly half way between Berlin and Vienna. However, the German-speaking parts of Bohemia and Moravia not only held the key natural terrain that lent itself to creating a new frontier, but also most of its large towns and industrial centres. These areas contained 60 per cent of the Austrian Empire’s industry, and the bulk of her coal and war production. Beneš had argued that without these industries, an independent Czechoslovakia would have been economically unviable. With them, it made her the seventeenth largest economy in the world overnight, and the seventh largest exporter. It also gave the Allies a useful and loyal community conveniently situated slap-bang in the middle of the two German states.(28) Germany lost territory on every border it had, with the exception of its frontier alongside Switzerland and rump Austria. To France, it lost Elsass and Lothringen (Alsace/Lorraine); to Belgium it lost Eupen and Malmedy; and to Denmark it lost part of Schleswig. To Poland it lost part of Silesia, as well as another territory containing an outright German majority, which became known as the ‘Polish Corridor’, enabling Poland to have access to the sea. That Austria and Hungary became landlocked countries and lost their access to the sea appeared to be neither here nor there to those carving out this new patchwork Europe.
The economy of Central Europe lay in ruins. Gone were the ties that used to bind: currency, markets, logistical lines of communication, questions of land and factory ownership, and even the language of administration and trade. In its place arose a plethora of new borders, checkpoints, customs houses and barriers to trade. Only Austria was obliged to follow a ‘Swiss federal model’ in the text of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, despite the fact that her citizens’ rights to self-determination had been rudely violated, and what was left of her territories contained insignificant numbers of minorities when compared to Czechoslovakia and other successor states. Beneš, the author of the notion that the Austrian Empire’s successor states become the new Switzerlands of Central Europe was not bound to any such federal commitments. The Treaty of Saint-Germain was a piece of rank hypocrisy.
Czechoslovakia had been created out of the ether by a group of unelected, exiled politicians with no democratic legitimacy who had not had the support of the majority of the Czech deputies at the Viennese Parliament. Czech deputies had continued to consistently vote for greater autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and as late as 24 May 1917 attended the parliament, in defiance of Masaryk and Beneš’ calls to boycott it, where they called not for an independent Czechoslovakia but for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to be reordered along ethnic lines into a new confederation of states, a request that was granted them by the Emperor Charles I in October 1918, but which fell on the deaf ears of the Allies, Masaryk and Beneš who were set on a path to break up the old empire and create in its place not only a buffer against German expansion but a new set of primarily French satellite client states.
The German minority in the newly created Czechoslovakia did not have to wait too long before witnessing the true colours of the Czech regime. Masaryk assumed the presidency, and stated, as early as the 22nd December 1918 that: ‘Concerning the Germans in our country, our plans are clear: the territory occupied by the Germans is our land and will remain our land…’(29) Early in 1919, the Czech Finance Minister, Rasin, stated, ‘The Czech state, for which we have fought, must remain Czech. According to the Peace Treaty we have the right to organise our affairs as though other nationalities simply do not exist.’(30) The Prague newspaper Zlata Praha wrote in the same year, ‘Czech legions should simply whip the Germans across the border.’ On the 4th March 1919 when the German Austria Reichstag (Parliament) in Vienna met for the first time, mass demonstrations for the right to self-determination took place across the German-speaking parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia that made up Czechoslovakia (later to become known as the Sudetenland). This was greeted by the Czech military, who fired on unarmed crowds in numerous Sudeten towns and killed fifty-four German Sudeten civilians.(31) The future of Czechoslovakia was precarious from the outset and the Czech leadership knew it. A state of nationalities prepared to be this repressive for the benefit of being ruled by the privileged majority was never likely to gain the support of its substantial minorities.
When the Czechoslovak Republic’s constitution was announced on 29th February 1920 there was no mention of a Swiss canton-style federal system let alone any form of autonomy for Slovaks, Germans or any of the states other substantial minorities. And the state authorities lost no time in making life for all Czechoslovakia’s minorities increasingly difficult, encouraging their emigration. The Czech government initiated ‘land reform’ which hit the German communities in the Sudetenland the hardest. Landowners were dispossessed, with their land either nationalised or sold to Czechs, which led to a significant increase in the number of Czechs moving into the Sudetenland.xlix (32)
A wholly biased education policy — nothing like a Swiss model — vastly favoured the Czech minority in German areas and did nothing for minority Germans in majority Czech areas. By 1922, 193 publicly funded German schools had been closed, and in a further 1,783, German classes were abolished. In 1929, the Czech authorities had established 594 state minority kindergartens for Czech children in the Sudeten areas and only five for the Germans. In 1930 a further 111 Czech language kindergartens were established for their minorities in the Sudetenland, although none were created for the Germans.(33) It was also hard to find work, especially for members of the German minority. All of the top administrative positions and a hugely disproportionate number of civil service jobs in the German-speaking Sudeten region went to Czechs. Unemployment rates among Germans were far higher than among their Czech counterparts, and they were not treated as equals by the government in Prague.(34)
The First Czechoslovak Republic was also far from the model democracy that many post-war historians have tried to portray it as being. Mary Heimann’s recent and superbly researched book Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed describes not only the First Republic’s democracy as seriously flawed but details the extent to which authoritarian, anti-clerical and anti-Semitic policies were pursued by the government in Prague both during the First and Second Republic before the German invasion and establishment of the Protectorate.l
Following on the heels of the global depression, beginning in 1929, the Czechs initiated a boycott of German goods, shops and professionals, urging their compatriots to buy a
nd do business only with fellow Czechs. By the early 1930s, of the 800,000 unemployed, 500,000 were Sudeten Germans. They made up 25 per cent of the population but 60 per cent of the unemployed. There were strikes and protests over such prejudicial campaigns against Sudeten Germans, which were met by the authorities opening fire on unarmed protesters. At one protest in Freiwaldau in 1931, eight Sudeten Germans were killed. Many questioned how they could survive under such circumstances. They packed their bags and crossed the new borders. However, the majority had nowhere to go and had no choice but to tough it out and hope for a better future.(35)
The leader of the Austrian Socialists, Karl Renner, said that the Allies had created [Czechoslovakia] out of several nations, ‘All filled with hatred against one another, arrested in their whole economic and social development and in the progress of their civilisation by hate and national strife, nourished by tyranny and poisoning their whole public life.’(36) Leading figures in Austria, fearing their state now to be militarily undefendable and economically unviable, increasingly called for and eventually voted for an Anschluß (union) with Germany. A prospect the Allies, and France in particular, were hell-bent on preventing, irrespective of the major breach in the principal of self-determination that this represented.(37)
As for the 2 million Slovaks in the new state, whilst they had spent over a thousand years as part of Hungary, they preferred the idea of being in a state with Czechs rather than Hungarians. However, they soon found that their aspirations for greater autonomy within a new federal structure, greater support for their economy, decent representation in state institutions such as the civil service and, not least, the recognition of their own language, were not to be realised. It became apparent that soon there would be no one else in love with Czechoslovakia other than the Czechs. Many historians have praised the ‘democracy’ of Czechoslovakia in the inter-war period, but when the Czech state needed the loyalty of all its citizens most — during the Munich crisis — the overwhelming majority of the non-Czech population (close to 45 per cent) abandoned her to her fate, or actively worked towards her dissolution.
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