Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 1930s by Igor Lukes

Author:Igor Lukes [Lukes, Igor]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1996-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

Notes

1. AMFA, Bohdan Pavlů, the Czechoslovak Legation, Moscow, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague, 2 August 1937. Pavlů heard from the deputy commissar on foreign affairs, Potemkin, that the purge-—he called it “measures recently taken”—did not weaken the Soviet Union. The purge had merely “simplified the internal order.… Our friends in the West can be sure that the recent events had strengthened the Soviet Union’s direction.… We don’t insist on implementing communism [in the West]. [However we] won’t allow the victory of fascism in the West. We would like to see the strengthening of democracy.”

2. NA 760F.61/67, Wilbur J. Carr, the U.S. Legation, Prague, to the Secretary of State Washington, D.C., 18 February 1938.

3. AMFA, Zdeněk Fierlinger, the Czechoslovak Legation, Moscow, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague, 19 December 1937. The greatest pessimists regarding the value of the Red Army among foreign diplomats in Moscow were in the German embassy; their views on the severity of the crisis were shared by others, particularly the Poles and Baits. The British probably also subscribed to the pessimistic view, but they were too cautious to express it openly. There were two notable optimists among diplomats in Moscow: U.S. Ambassador Davies and the new Czechoslovak Minister Zdeněk Fierlinger, who assumed Minister Pavlů’s duties in Moscow on 5 October 1937. Ambassador Davies (Fierlinger consistently spelled his name “Davis” and Davies misspelled Fierlinger’s name in his memoirs as “Feirlinger”) told Fierlinger that President Beneš and President Roosevelt were the two best politicians in the world. The U.S. ambassador was very supportive of Czechoslovakia’s alliance with the Soviet Union. It had a moral as well as real, practical value for Prague because the Soviets, Davies claimed, had a “vital interest in the security of Czechoslovakia.”

4. PRO FO 408/68.R802/385/12, Mr. Newton to Mr. Eden, Prague, 22 January 1938.

5. AMFA, Zdeněk Fierlinger, the Czechoslovak Legation, Moscow, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, secret, 17 January 1938.

6. Ibid., 1 January 1938. Fierlinger quotes from a memorandum by U.S. Ambassador Davies, who had spoken with many European politicians and businessmen and “failed to find one whose opinion was that in the event of a German Putsch against Czechoslovakia, France, despite her offensive and defensive alliance, would come to Czechoslovakia’s aid. One Foreign Minister went so far as to say that he had found in England a very substantial group that had expressed the opinion that the one country that could be wiped out without serious consequences in Europe was Czechoslovakia. He stated further that a substantial group in England was making plans on that basis.”

7. Magda Ádám, Richtung, Selbstvernichtung: Die Kleine Entente 1920–1938 (Budapest: Corvina and Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1988).

8. ANM-M, Mastny, the Manuscript, 46.

9. Lidové Noviny, 19 January 1938, showed how the Czechoslovak economy had improved in 1937 (in million crowns, Kc): The stock market also started showing signs of life after several lean years.

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