CZECH TERRITORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 74, 24 September 1938, Page 9

CZECH TERRITORY

GERMAN INFILTRATION

REPORTS OF CLASHES

ARMY MOVEMENTS

(Received September 24, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, September 23. German Black; Guards and Storm troopers are reported to be assisting a Sudeten infiltration of western and northern Czechoslovakia. The situation is very grave at Asch, Rumburg, and Warnsdorf. Twenty-one Czech soldiers and officials are reported to have been killed, 45 injured, and 41 taken prisoner during the week ended September 20. Eeinforcements of the Sudeten Free Corps, after crossing the frontier in lorries at night, reached Haslau, four miles from Oberlohma, outside Franzenbad, and barricaded roads in preparation for checking Czech troops who were approaching Franzenbad in connection with the reoccupation of tiie Sudetenland. One hundred and twenty lorry-loads of troops left Prague in the direction of Carlsbad. Military guards protect all public buildings in the capital. As a result of skirmishes, the main body of Czechs withdrew from Haslau to Tirschnitz and is concentrating in the suburbs of Eger, which the Czechs now again control. One of seventeen Czech police who was captured and taken across the frontier escaped to Czechoslovakia. The Germans took over the Customhouse at Bressnitz after capturing ten police and eight soldiers. Sudetens attacked a Customs guard at Liebenau, near Brno, shot the commandant, and took officials prisoners. They threw hand grenades and used machine-guns at a Czech school at Nikolsburg, while four were killed and twelve wounded in a fight between Czechs and Sudetens at Freiwaldau. Czechs shot three Sudetens at Hablakadrau, and Czech police shot five Sudetens at Zeidler. RAILWAY COMMUNICATION STOPPED. The Dresden representative of the German official news agency reports that railway communication on ten. sections between Germany and Czechoslovakia has been stopped since midnight. It is alleged that this is because railway bridges and tracks have been blown up. j Strasbourg reports that machine-guns ! have been established on the Rhine ! bridgek and along highways leading to the river, while artillery positions six. j miles behind Strasbourg have been reinforced. ! Reuters correspondent at Munich | reports all-day military and air activity, columns of troops marching across the city in the direction of the Salzburg road and trainloads leaving by rail. Several motorised columns were seen on the Bavarian highway with their regimental identifications removed. The "Daily Telegraph's" Munich correspondent, says that squadrons of array planes reconnaissance machines, and bombers are taking off in formation, at ten-minute intervals, heading for Czechoslovakia; 144 were counted taking off in 150 minutes. craft batteries and plane-detectors are placed in the public squares and outside army barracks. The Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says that' the German news agency reports that the Czech army has reoccupied the Eger district The agency declares that Czech tanks and armoured cars open-, ed fire with machine-guns at Grazlitz, Falkenhau, and other towns. Sixteen men and women are reported to have been killed. These measures are declared to be "reprisals for the hoisting of swastikas by the population earlier." The Berlin correspondent, of "The Times" says that anti-aircraft guns are mounted strategically, the crews in full battle order and visible to passers-by. Aircraft are heard over the city at all hours. MARCH INTO SUDETENLAND EXPECTED. An earlier message from Prague stated that the situation was regarded with extreme gravity and that the general expectation was that German troops might march into the Sudetenland at any moment The question was being asked whether they would stop before Prague. It was reported that Baglonz had already passed under Kazi control, Czechs were mining the bridge at Reichenberg as Czech infantry rumbled to the frontier, where civilians were withdrawing. Tension was growing at Eger, th.c Sudetens insisting on sharing the policing of the town with the Czechs, who had issued a warning that the Sudeten Free Corps,' if it crossed the frontier, would be shot down. The Czechs had blown up the bridge at Gasnitz. The Sudetens were in control of Asch, eagerly awaiting the arrival of German troops. Trie Czechs had retired behind wha| was believed to be their new frontier., The official German news agency ; reported that the Czechs had blown up the Grottau railway station and ; the German-owned line connecting I Zittau and Reichenberg, necessitating ! a cessation of the service. ■ The British United Press reports fighting between the Sudeten. Free Corps and Czechs in the village of Satzdorf.