760F.62/442: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:41 p.m.]
987. Daladier67 said to me yesterday that he considered the present appearance of an improvement in the general European situation a mirage. Nothing had yet been settled and he was not optimistic that any settlement could be achieved. He believed that the Czechs would make a reasonable offer to the Sudeten but he had no confidence that this offer would be accepted either by the Sudeten or by Hitler. He believed that while France should continue to insist that the Czechoslovak Government should make the most reasonable offer possible to the Germans, France should not hesitate to go to war if Germany should invade Czechoslovakia after such an offer should have been made.
I asked if he were sure that the Czech offer would be a reasonable one. He said that he felt confident that it would be. I asked if this confidence was shared by the British Government and if he were certain that the British Government would stand by Czechoslovakia in case the Sudeten and Hitler should reject the Czech proposal and attempt to use force.
He then replied that it would make no difference to him what the British conclusion might be. [If] the French Government should judge the offer reasonable and the Germans should then attempt to use force against Czechoslovakia, France would go to war immediately whether England liked it or not. France could not preserve her honor if she should run away from war.
As you will observe there has been a great stiffening in Daladier’s personal attitude.
I participated later in a conversation between Daladier and Osusky, Czechoslovak Minister to Paris. Daladier began by thanking Osusky for the great efforts he had made to persuade the Czechoslovak Government to make large concessions to the Sudeten. He said that he realized the task which the French Government had imposed on Osusky was a most disagreeable and difficult one. He added for my benefit that the French Government had had the question of the concessions which the Czechoslovak Government should make to the Sudeten studied with the utmost care. The French Government had then informed Osusky of the nature of the concessions it would expect the Czechoslovak Government to make and had asked Osusky to go to Praha and see to it that these concessions should be made. He (Daladier) was entirely ready to support Czechoslovakia to the limit [Page 527] if these concessions should be made and Germany should refuse to be reasonable.
I then suggested that I had heard yesterday from a man who had talked with Beneš 2 days ago that the concessions might be rendered illusory by a system of gerrymandering. I had been told that Beneš proposed to organize the country on the basis of three large districts: Bohemia in which the Sudeten minority would be outnumbered greatly by the Czechoslovak majority; Moravia in which the Polish and German minorities would be greatly outnumbered by the Czechs and Slovaks; Slovakia in which the Hungarian and Ruthenian minorities would be greatly outnumbered by the Slovaks.
Osusky admitted that this would be the solution proposed; but argued that there was nothing unnatural in the arrangement and finally stated flatly that there would be no autonomy offered to racial areas. There would be complete administrative autonomy for villages, municipalities and departmental districts; there would be autonomy for schools with control of school budgets by the local authorities; but the Ministry of National Education would not be abolished and would have oversight over school programs.
In the ensuing discussion it became evident that Daladier’s personal acquaintance with the geographic and racial problems of Czechoslovakia was not profound and that he had absolute confidence in Osusky whose assurances that the Czechoslovakian Government would make the fullest and most generous concessions possible carried, to him, complete conviction.
Osusky stated that the proposals of the Czechoslovak Government would be presented to the Sudetens before the first of July. Whether the Sudetens should accept them or not they would be presented in the form of papers to the members of the Czech Parliament immediately after the first of July and would be voted on by the Czechoslovak Parliament shortly after July 15.
Osusky said that he had received from his Government today the information that the leaders of the Sudeten had appeared to be relatively reasonable and conciliatory in their most recent conversations in Praha. For the moment therefore it appears that the Czechoslovak Government will have the full support of the French Government for the concessions that it will propose—which may or may not be sufficient to produce a temporary appeasement.
Day before yesterday I had a long conversation with Osusky in the course of which he explained in detail the demands of the Sudeten and the attitude of the Czechoslovak Government toward these demands. The only new development concerns the demand of the Sudeten for a German National Assembly in which all Germans living in the area along the German frontier or otherwise in Czechoslovakia [Page 528] should be represented and the supplementary demand that the President of this assembly should be ipso facto a member of any Czechoslovak Government.
Osusky said that the Czechoslovak Government had decided definitely to reject the demand that the President of any such assembly if one should be permitted should be ipso facto a member of the Government. As to whether or not such an assembly should be permitted had not yet been decided definitely. Hodza68 had said to representatives of the Sudeten that he could see no reason for such an assembly and had asked them to specify in detail what such an assembly would do if one should be formed. He had not yet received a report from the Sudeten leaders.
Osusky asserted that if such a reply should be forthcoming and should show good grounds for the existence of such an assembly it would be considered seriously.
In view of Osusky’s statements to Daladier in my presence last evening, however, I am inclined to believe that the Czechoslovak Government has already decided that there shall be no such assembly and it seems possible that this will be the point of acute dispute.