851.50/164: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Bullitt ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 10—12:40 p.m.]
739.…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. Czechoslovakia. I asked Daladier if there were any truth in the report that he had decided to go to war with Germany if Germany should attack Czechoslovakia. “With what?” he replied. He went on to say that the contentions in Europe today depended on force and force alone. He had been able to improve French airplane production in the past month from 42 planes to 84 planes per month. This improvement was however totally inadequate to cope with Germany’s production which probably amounted to nearly 500 planes per month. The British had had difficulties with their airplane production [Page 494] and it would be many months before they could reach a total of 250 planes per month.
When he had been in London the British consistently had described their state of preparedness as worse than it really was. The reason for this had been that they wished to make it entirely clear that they were unwilling to engage in war on the continent for Czechoslovakia or any other purpose than the defense of their immediate interests in the coast of the channel.
With the present disparity between the French air force and the German air force it was impossible for France to go to war to protect Czechoslovakia.
An additional ugly element in the situation was the development of the Nazi movement in Luxemburg. Until recently the French had felt that they could count on Luxemburg either for cooperation or at least benevolent neutrality in case of war between France and Germany. At the present time the Nazi movement in Luxemburg was so powerful that the possibility must be envisaged that Luxemburg might fall into Nazi hands. It was true that the Russians had 6,000 planes; but there was some doubt as to their quality and it seemed exceedingly unlikely that the Soviet Union would take any offensive action in Europe to help Czechoslovakia. The Poles had promised the French that they would not participate in any German action to break up Czechoslovakia and had denied that they had ever had the slightest intention of participating in such action. On the other hand if autonomy should be granted to the Sudeten Germans of Bohemia, Poland would demand autonomy for the Poles of Teschen District of Czechoslovakia.
I asked Daladier how the Czechs had received the démarche of the British and French Ministers in Praha advising them to make concessions to the Sudeten Germans.24 Daladier replied that the Czechs had appeared to be most conciliatory and that the British and French Governments hoped that the Czechs might attempt to reorganize their country on a federal basis taking Switzerland as a model. I asked if he did not feel that any such reorganization would simply be the first step toward partition of Czechoslovakia. He replied that he believed this would be the result and added that he had considered the position of Czechoslovakia entirely hopeless since the annexation of Austria by Germany. He added that Germany would not need to take any military action against Czechoslovakia in order to get anything she might desire. Economic pressure would be sufficient.
I derived the definite impression from this portion of our conversation (which was much more detailed than the report given above) that [Page 495] French and British action with regard to Czechoslovakia will be based on the assumption that the ultimate dissolution of Czechoslovakia is inevitable and that the best that can be hoped for is that such dissolution will take place without bloodshed in such a way as to save the face of France and of England.
[For the remaining portions of the telegram, see page 192, and volume III, p. 164.]
- May 7, 1938, British Documents, 3d ser. vol. i, doc. No. 171, p. 241, and doc. No. 186, p. 259.↩