Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Eamon de Valera (Geneva)

My dear Sir,
I am writing this note at half past six in the evening after a day of considerable pessimism in the press and on the wireless both here and in Great Britain. I have not shared this pessimism because I could not imagine the British Government going back at this stage on the principle of self-determination merely because they don't like the methods by which Hitler means to realise it. I have urged on the High Commissioner whenever he sees MacDonald these days with the other High Commissioners to emphasise the extreme folly of having a general war on what is in all the circumstances a mere matter of punctilio. As far as I can see the situation from the confusion of telegrams received today Hitler has told Chamberlain that the Czech army must retreat behind the fifty per cent line, the German army must then advance to that line. Hitler does not object to a plebiscite under an international commission in part of the German occupied area and he avers himself as being ready to withdraw from any areas in which an adverse vote is given. Whether the area in which a plebiscite is to be taken extends beyond the fifty per cent line is not yet clear as we have not yet decoded the memorandum which he handed to Chamberlain before the latter's departure for London. Chamberlain on his side wanted Hitler to accept the suggestion that the Sudeten Germans should themselves police the area in question and that there should be no advance of German troops into Czechoslovakia. Hitler refused to have anything to do with this proposal and Chamberlain left him promising to put Hitler's proposal to the Czech Government but apparently without accepting responsibility for it. The last telegraph we have received takes us back to late last night when the British Ambassador¹ in Paris informed his Government that Beneš Bonnet² seemed to hope that arrangements could be made whereby German troops would occupy gradually and with consent of Czech Government the Sudeten areas because he held that German troops would be more likely to be able to maintain order than the Czech police who would in any case have to leave eventually. While the British Ambassador and Bonnet were talking the news came in of the Czech mobilisation and Bonnet remarked that this would have very grave consequences and might cause Hitler to attack. This statement appears to be at cross purposes with the fact revealed in another telegram that the British and French Ministers in Paris were instructed to tell Beneš yesterday that their Governments could no longer take the responsibility of advising him not to mobilise. The British Cabinet are meeting at the present moment but we have no information as to the reply sent by the Czech Government to Hitler's demand forwarded to them by the British Government this morning. One has a definite impression that the British Government are getting a little funky of the opposition which is growing in Great Britain against yielding to Hitler's demands. Otherwise I feel certain that Chamberlain would insist with on the Czech Government on accepting some compromise which allowed a partial occupation by the German troops. The Poles and the Hungarians are getting away with good propaganda in the United States as I learned on the radio this morning from that country, and I have a definite feeling that the linking up of the demands of the three minorities is going to weaken very much Czechoslovakia's position in the eyes of the world and to lessen considerably the danger of a general war. Moreover British Statesmen must be becoming daily more conscious of the potential evils of joining with Russia to destroy the only barrier, undesirable though it may be, between Western Europe and Bolshevism.

We are looking forward to your early return. The events of the next twenty-four hours will no doubt determine whether you will put an end to the Assembly³ at the beginning of the week or allow it to run its normal course. If anything really serious occurs I shall get on to you on the telephone.