Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

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 10 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, 1938.

It is worthy of note that on September 2nd 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 mélange 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 11 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 attaché 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 attaché on September 21st. The fact that Russia had at least 97 divisions and over 5,000 planes had been reported by the attaché 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 Benes 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 London at the time.

By the third week of September, Czechoslovakia had 1,000,000 men and 34 divisions under arms. The Germans in the course of September increased their mobilization to 31 and ultimately to 36 divisions, but 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 10 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 1,000; France and England together had over 1,000; 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 attaché 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 attaché 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 attaché 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.