760F.62/941: Telegram

The Minister in Czechoslovakia (Carr) to the Secretary of State

208. No official information is yet available either as to the Anglo-French terms or probable Czechoslovak reply. The Cabinet is now sitting with Beneš. The British and French Ministers have been promised replies in the early afternoon. I hope then to learn nature of them. After a conversation with a high official of the Foreign Office I am convinced that the published proposals are substantially correct and believe that they will be accepted by the Government. If so, the acceptance would have to be approved by Parliament which would be convened immediately. The Sudeten Senators and Deputies retain the right to vote since individually they still function notwithstanding the dissolution of the Sudeten Party. Slav population is now united on questions affecting the integrity and external relations of the state.

There is deep resentment at the course of the French and the British. My informant said that Czechoslovakia was approached by Germany before the German-Polish Treaty55 and asked to conclude a similar treaty and that Czechoslovakia refused unless France and Great Britain could also be included. Germany was unwilling. He implied that had Czechoslovakia not been true to her commitments to France she might have then signed a pact with Germany and today been in a much more advantageous position. He still holds, however, that if Germany should attack this country France would be bound to honor her treaty obligation but he clearly did not feel sure that she would. He was non-committal in regard to Russia.

My informant agrees with me that there is real danger on the German border where the Henleinist Refugee Legion is organizing and menacing Czech customhouses and gendarmerie under the guise of protecting the Sudeten population on the Czech side of the border. This is unquestionably part of a plan to create a situation along the border which would furnish a plausible excuse for entry of German troops into the Sudeten region.

In reply to my question whether, assuming acceptance of the Anglo-French proposals as published, the public would support the President and the Government or whether there might be a revolt, the official said he was not certain. The President has great influence and the people have shown extraordinary calmness and self-control but when faced with a proposal to surrender territory they claim historically a part of the country for centuries, essential to it economically [Page 629] and in which its main defenses are located the people might overthrow the present Government.

He seemed not to have reached a definite opinion upon this point however.

No information was obtainable in regard to Horthy’s reported visit to Hitler but it was thought probable he would demand for the Hungarian minority the same treatment as might be given the Sudeten Germans although he did not regard the merits as equal.

Carr
  1. Signed January 26, 1934, British and Foreign State Papers, vol. cxxxvii. p. 495.