740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/448: Telegram
The Minister in Czechoslovakia (Wright) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:50 p.m.]
2. After first impression created by dramatic announcement of last Saturday this country and its officials show increasing calm. Both President and Minister for Foreign Affairs are of the opinion that Germany has gone too far; that her economic situation is far from permitting fulfillment of either of [the] threat of military self-sufficiency or economic isolation; that notwithstanding the characteristic psychological blunder which caused her to make a military gesture at an inopportune moment and especially to include a wholly gratuitous gesture of this character toward Belgium, she has actually and probably unwittingly contributed in not inconsiderable measure to the cause of peace by eliminating by her outrageous act a great portion of the intangible and beclouded considerations which have so long obscured [Page 247] the situation and has thus reduced it to its simplest elements. In this opinion my Belgian colleague concurs.
If the Council of the League determines upon sanctions Czechoslovakia will cooperate in full accord with the principles of the League, but very reluctantly from a national point-of-view as her commercial relations with Germany forthwith is vital. Neither the President nor the Minister for Foreign Affairs believes that actual application of sanctions will be reached because of increasing signs of Germany’s realization of her weakness, which is evident in her immediate denial of her alleged intention to denounce the agreement for the internationalization of continental rivers96 and her offers of nonaggression pacts with Austria and Czechoslovakia. In connection with peace, this Government calls attention to its separate arbitration treaty with Germany negotiated at Locarno which it considers has not been invalidated by Germany’s denunciation of the Locarno Pact, which point of view has not been denied either by the German Minister here or by German Foreign Office when Czechoslovakian Minister at Berlin discussed the proposal for a nonaggression pact. This Government does not consider the menace of the Anschluss to be immediate; in fact it considers it more remote.
In short, it is officially believed that a profound economic evolution, if not political, is now under way in Germany which this Government compares to that which is taking place in Russia. While alert and as well prepared as its exposed position will permit, this Government is reasonably optimistic as to the eventual outcome.
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