Confidential report from Charles Bewley to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)¹
(43/33)

Recent events in Czechoslovakia have succeeded one another with a so bewildering rapidity that it is difficult to keep track of the episodes which have led up to the present crisis. However, the broad principles are clear and worth recording.

I had long ago reported on the origin of the dispute between Czechs and Slovaks (see report of 3rd May 1938, 43/33)². Up to the crisis of September 1938, in consequence of the refusal of the Czechs to fulfil their promise that Slovakia should enjoy full autonomy under the Pittsburgh Agreement³, relations had become strained almost to breaking point. The Catholic population of Slovakia resented more and more the anti-Catholic policy of the Czech Government (see report of 9th July 1938, 43/33)⁴ and in particular the freedom given to Masonic and Bolshevist propagandists. Both the German and Polish Governments looked with sympathy on the Slovak claims; Poland especially owing to the fact that Slovakia was being used as a base for Communist propaganda in Poland (see report of 1st June 1938, 43/33)⁵. A delegation of Slovaks in America came to Slovakia to press their claims on the Prague Government. The Slovak National Party of Father Hlinke demanded an independent state.

Under the compulsion of events, and with the knowledge that England and France did not propose to abide by their promises of support, the Czech Government offered to abide by the Pittsburgh Agreement, which it had disregarded for 20 years. Slovak opinion was divided between the party who stood for an independent Slovak republic and those who were satisfied to remain in association with the other members of the Czecho-Slovak group of nations, - the Czechs and the Carpatho-Ukrainians. The usual arguments against independence were employed by the moderate party, - that the economic life of Slovakia was so closely connected with that of the Czechs that separation would be economic suicide, that Slovakia was too poor to stand alone and that without Czech help it would infallibly fall a prey to some other state, that Czechs and Slovaks, though not identical, had become in the course of time very similar and were united by ties of language, intermarriage and association, that certain Slovaks, as the Minister Hodža⁶, had advanced to high positions in the Czecho-Slovak state, and that the Czechs, whatever their oppression might have been in the past, had experienced a change of heart in 1938 and would doubtless treat the Slovaks as equals. The National party did not believe in these arguments, but it considered it tactically prudent to give a trial to the system of association in a group of 'independent nations.'

Events had proved the justice of the attitude of the National party. As it had anticipated, association between a state so large, wealthy and economically developed as the Czech state and one so small and poor as Slovakia, and still more the Carpathian Ukraine, developed rapidly into a relation in which the Czechs claimed to be able to veto measures of which they did not approve in the other states, and an attempt was made to abolish the governments of both Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine and substitute for them ministers more amenable to the influence of Prague.

From the purely military point of view, Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine alone could not have resisted the Czech army for a week. Monsignor Tiso, however, the successor of Father Hlinka as Slovak national leader and Minister-President of Slovakia in the Czechoslovak state, appealed for help to the German Chancellor, and, so far as I can ascertain, to the Polish Government. Together with the leading supporter Dr Durcanski he arrived in Berlin, where he presumably received promises of support, for on his return to Pressburg he convoked the Slovak parliament, which unanimously declared Slovakia an independent republic. In his declaration Monsignor Tiso has emphasised the Catholic character of his government, and announced the introduction of new legislation dealing with the Jewish problem on German lines. In the meantime Hungarian forces have entered the Carpathian Ukraine, which they will presumably completely occupy and annex. The population of this territory consists of only about one half million, and is among the poorest and most backward in Europe. It possesses no towns, and the capital Chust is a village. By race it is Slav, but with little resemblance to the Czechs, from whom it differs further in being strongly Catholic and anti-Communist. In any event, after the liberation of Slovakia it would be impossible for the Czechs to remain politically united with a district physically separated from their territory, so that incorporation in Hungary would appear to be the best solution to the problem, and is, so far as can be ascertained, probably in accordance with the wishes of the population, which is obviously for economic and cultural reasons incapable of forming an independent state.

As regards the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, their future has been settled by the action of the Czech president Dr Hacha in 'placing the fate of the Czech people and land confidently in the hands of the leader of the German Reich'. The Fuehrer in accepting the declaration of the Czech president has undertaken to guarantee to the Czech people an autonomous development of its national life. How this will work out in the future is a matter on which prophecy would be difficult.

Apart from the fate of the former Czechoslovak republic, the most significant feature of the whole series of events is the complete disregard by all parties of the western democracies. That the prestige of England and France had fallen in September 1938 was clear; it could have been in part restored by a demonstration that their Munich policy had been dictated by a genuine and disinterested desire for peace and not by mere military weakness, but by the subsequent conduct of the English and French Governments, influenced in each country by the official opposition and the fear of popular opinion has convinced not only Germany but the other states of Central Europe that they were willing to wound but afraid to strike, and the estimation in which they are held at present is the inevitable consequence of their failure in every international crisis to abide by their pledges when the fulfilment of such pledges might involve them in danger. The events of the last few days will go far to convince the remaining countries of middle and eastern Europe that democracy as a political system can only lead to weakness and eventually disaster.