CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND ITS PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND ITS PROBLEMS

The Fear of Germany

The Czechoslovakia!! State, recently violently attacked by her German neighbour because of her alleged proRussian tendencies, has up till now been one of the least contested creations of the Peace Treaties of 1919, ■writes J. E. Low in the Melbourne ‘Argus.” 'This fact is probably due to the political skill of the two leading men of the Czechoslovakian State: the first President, the late Professor Masaryk, and the present President, Mr. Benes. For the problems to be faced by them seem almost inextricable.

Czechoslovakia has a population of nearly 15.000,000 people. The country is more than. 600 miles long, but tlie average width is fewer than 100 miles. From the strategical point of view the boundaries drawn in 1919 make Czechoslovakia most vulnerable. It; is noteworthy that in 1919 considerations of a military and political nature, namely, the wish to establish a common Czecho-slovakian-Rumanian frontier, thus encircling Hungary, induced the Peace Conference to add the most exposed extreme eastern part to the Czechoslovakian territory. After Czechoslovakia’s conclusion of a treaty of assistance with Soviet Itus- ' sia. corresponding to the Fran-co-Soviet Paet of 1935, this extreme part assumed a new military-political importance. The Soviet Russian frontier is fewer than 50 miles distant, a flight of 15 minutes for aeroplanes. In the parts of Czechoslovakia adjoining Hungary lives a strong Hungarian minority of more than 700,000. By far the gravest ethnical problem is the German part of the Czechoslovakian population. Numbering more than 3,000,000, the Germans form about 22 per cent, of the whole population. They live chiefly in the mountains forming the frontier between Germany and Czechoslovakia and in the adjoining plains, thus forming a belt between 50 and 100 miles wide round Czechoslovakia’s north-western frontier. Before tlie Slav invasion, about 1000 years ago, the Germans had settled all over the country; since that time the Czechs have lived in the centre of the country, the Germans iu the mountains and tlie neighbouring valleys. For centuries the Czechoslovakian territory formed an integral part of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire. In spite of the religious and linguistic barriers between the German and. the Czech parts of the population both were regarded as Bohemians, Moravians, Silesians and so forth, without any further ethnical distinction. It is beyond doubt that in tlie pre-war days the German part had more influence. In 1918, by far the largest part of the Czechoslovakian batiks, factories, and other economical enterprises was in German hands. By legal, administrative, and other means the Czechs have brought them under their control. The use of the German language is discouraged; German villages get Czech teachers, and officials seem to have forgotten all their German knowledge. The foreigner travelling in Czechoslovakia is surprised to see only Czech street indicators in the German part of the country. '[’lie growing distress among the Germans in Czechoslovakia, who suffered severely from the depression. Ims caused the rise of a German nationalist party, aud united the Germans in Czechoslovakia under a leader, Mr. Henlein. The Czechs accuse the German Nazi party of aiding this movement, which certainly has much in common with the German NationalSocialist creed.

One day the idea to unite all people of German blood in the German Reich might become a sudden vital threat to Czechoslovakia. That, is what the Czechs fear. And that is what has induced them to sign the pact of assistance with Soviet Russia, no doubt the most formidable military power in Europe. And they stick to it. That is why Germany attacks them for becoming “Bolshevik.” II seems tragic that, in 1919 the chance of reconciling the Germans and tlie Czechs in giving them equal rights in tlie newly-created State was omitted. Switzerland is the best example that three ’people of different. language and religion can form a lasting union and produce a nation of. liscas®.