Eduard Beneš
I
SMALL, clean-shaven, and with a melancholy bitterness about his tightly shut mouth, President Beneš is a simple man, but distinguished in his simplicity. His grave, well-cut features are dominated by intense and highly intelligent eyes. You feel at once that here is a man who has fought and won many battles. His self-possession has the unmistakable evidence of will power and intelligence. He is a self-made man in the best sense of the word.
Yet Beneš wears an air of silence. It is not mystery exactly, but a great stillness. He is aloof from other men. He has no close friends — no ‘close enemies’ either. His adversaries are opponents; they cannot reach him. Some years ago attempts were made to involve Beneš in political scandals; he was accused of enriching himself at the expense of the public. He gave an open account of his finances, in great detail, and the agitation ceased. His detractors simply had not known the facts.
There are plenty of anecdotes about most men in public life, particularly if they have been in the midst of things as long as President Beneš of Czechoslovakia. He has been active for more than twenty years, usually in positions of great trust. But there are no stories about Eduard Beneš, at least none that are worth telling. This lack of all eccentricity is perhaps his most striking feature. He is an old Roman in his severity: you picture him as a colleague of the implacable Cato.
There is not the slightest touch of gay living about Beneš. We hear of no adventures interrupting the hard struggle of his student days. Even Paris — the golden, light-hearted paradise of pre-war days — for him meant hard work, incessant labor day and night to keep himself going as the ill-paid correspondent of small Czech journals. His rigid moral calm is that of the Czech peasant. The stony soil of Kozlan, where he was born in 1884, yielded a living only to those who worked hard and without flinching. Beneš feels proud to be the son of a peasant, and, though his father must have been a hard master, Eduard bears him no grudge. The boy’s natural bent for work was strengthened by his early experience; as the youngest of eight children, he received little coddling. No matter how exacting the school, his father grimly insisted that Eduard return home to the farm during any vacations to help in the fields . . . ‘so he knows how hard it is to win one’s daily bread.’
Though as grim a toiler as the frontier settler who won American freedom, Beneš is essentially a gentle person. Only a man gifted with high sensitivity could have become so remarkable a diplomat. His skill in human relationships is extraordinary. Undoubtedly his long study in other countries contributed to his knowledge of men and affairs. But it might have remained, as with so many, a purely academic insight. From the beginning, an intense æsthetic reaction moulded his outlook on other people. He loved and admired the French; was repelled by the English; feared, disliked, but respected the Germans of the Kaiser’s day. The many articles he wrote at the time give us a vivid picture of his youthful impressions. Though not always very original, they offer clear and distinctive sketches of life and society as seen by a pragmatic materialist.
He returned from his travels in his late twenties, armed with a French doctorate of law and political science. At Prague he became a college professor. His field was then called sociology, but it was really what in America to-day passes under the name of political science. Political theory and the study of parties were his special interests. His dissertation had been concerned with the problem of the Czechs within the Hapsburg Empire, and he argued for a federal solution of Austria-Hungary’s nationality problems. Next he published a volume on party politics, for, like his great friend and predecessor, Masaryk, he sought to rationalize his political impulses.
Though still very young, Beneš developed views which were very different from Masaryk’s. Masaryk was a great teacher. An orator of magnetism, he set his pupils afire with an ardent idealism, emphasizing ideas and religion as a guide in human affairs. Beneš, the self-controlled and outwardly cool ‘realist,’ distrusted the ardor of this message. Though deeply touched by Masaryk’s fervor, Beneš became a pragmatist, a materialist. His intimate association with French Socialists while studying at Paris had strengthened his conviction that the root of human conflicts is economic.
II
It is remarkable that at this early age the future president of Czechoslovakia formulated the conception of a scientific politics. It is impossible to understand Beneš the statesman without grasping this idea, quaintly reminiscent of Alexander Hamilton’s notions. In Beneš’s view, scientific politics was the natural corollary of democracy, as theology had been of monarchy and absolutism. The Hapsburg Empire had always been closely linked with the Catholic Church. The new republic would rest upon science.
Such a proposition may seem a bit dogmatic and abstract, particularly to those who live in older democracies, but it fits the sober, didactic mind of Beneš. ‘Scientific politics studies situations step by step (as they develop). After such study, it seeks the most appropriate solutions. Inspired by democratic principles, scientific politics does not bind itself by some a priori plan, because such a plan may be contrary to the evolution. When reform is in question, scientific politics analyzes the situation it finds, its conditions and its consequences for society. It proceeds, not toward an objective fixed beforehand, — it has merely a presentiment of such final objectives, — but according to the exigencies and necessities of the given conditions. Scientific politics thus has its proper tactics and its characteristic method. It works for a natural evolution.’
This idea is very typical of Beneš’s whole way of thinking and acting. Its sober disbelief in spectacular solutions resembles the American outlook. It is rooted in a quiet but firm confidence that man is neither the absolute master nor the helpless slave of nature.
Such a view did not lend itself to spectacular academic orations. Beneš worked quietly but intensely with a few advanced students in his newly founded sociological seminar at the University for two years. Then the World War broke out. He was just thirty. A crippled shinbone saved him from being drafted, and he continued what little teaching there was. One day, going to a meeting, he and Masaryk began to talk about the plight of the Hapsburg monarchy, about the prospect of their people’s independence. They discovered that despite their philosophical disagreements they were of the same opinion in matters of immediate, political concern. ‘The hour has struck,’ Masaryk said, ‘we have begun to work. But we need money. Without money, nothing can be done.’ Beneš replied, ‘I have an aunt. She may help. My brother can go to America and enlist the support of Americans of Czech and Slovak descent.’ When, after the successful outcome of his work, an American friend asked him how he ever secured the sympathy and help of the Allied statesmen for his cause, Beneš replied, ‘By telling the truth.’
Thus the association started between the idealist Masaryk and the realist Beneš. They made a powerful team, since each had enough of the other to realize his ally’s value. Masaryk has declared that, no matter how far apart they were from each other, they worked in remarkable unison. This was of vital importance, especially after December 1914, when Masaryk had to leave the Hapsburg realm.
Once the Austrian authorities had uncovered the Czech secret society, Beneš had to make his own escape — which he did with remarkable sang-froid. He succeeded in securing a false passport. But, rather than trust it at the Austrian border, he arranged with a friend to meet him there. This fellow, a doctor in the Austrian army, walked ahead of Beneš as they approached the frontier, ready to make a sign if he sighted a frontier patrol. He did, and Beneš vanished into the bushes. After his friend had gone, Beneš made his way over the frontier into Germany and went on to Switzerland, where he met Masaryk. The two divided the world between them, Masaryk taking for his share Russia, Great Britain, and America, Beneš taking France and Italy. With the connivance of the French and British secret police, they set to work to convince the Allies that Austria must be destroyed. Beneš, like Cato, had his Ceterum censeo. Austria est delenda.
Beneš’s flight meant a bitter personal sacrifice. He had to leave behind his truest friend, his charming young wife. It must have been a dreadful decision for him to abandon her to the mercy of the Hapsburg police. She was soon jailed, since she too had helped in the secret activities. But after weeks of questioning she was released. The Hapsburg authorities hesitated to be too severe; after all, many Czechs were then fighting in the Imperial armies. Still, it was a melancholy position, that of Beneš in 19161917, sitting in Paris with no money or friends, no means of communication with people at home, while the Central Powers were smashing Russia, the first hope of the Czech nationalists. His old friends, the French Socialists, were increasingly hostile to the war; revolts were breaking out in the French army.
His staunch faith was amply rewarded in the end. Sometimes a childhood tale will reveal the essence of a man. As a schoolboy, Beneš was an ardent soccer player. One day, while running for the ball, he collided with an opponent who accidentally kicked him on the shinbone. Eduard dropped to the ground, his leg broken. Next morning, when he opened his eyes in the hospital, his first question was ‘Have we won?’ This capacity to forget himself in the fight is the characteristic that made it possible for him to carry on the almost hopeless struggle at the beginning of the war.
The story of Beneš’s activity in wartorn Paris is a fascinating case study in propaganda. The professor toiled day and night preparing memoranda, persuading journalists and politicians to his point of view, and providing them with the necessary information. At the same time he managed now and then to smuggle encouraging reports into the hands of his Czech and Slovak friends at home. As in his student days, Beneš lived in a simple room, furnished by himself, getting along on the scantiest meals. Like a peasant he tilled the soil of French, English, and American opinion. Stubbornly he went about his task. Patient, unyielding, like his forbears, he kept on breaking up the rocky ground, spreading the seed, tending the harvest. Only a man of extraordinary tenacity could have worked under these conditions.
But what is truth in matters such as these? Naturally Beneš gave the interpretation of the Czech problem which he himself considered ‘true.’ Yet he was much too deeply inspired by his national passion not to overlook academic niceties. In men of will and action, the true thing and the right thing are apt to be confounded. The secret of Beneš’s success in Paris, as well as of his power to-day, is his indomitable will, rooted in an unshakable belief that righteousness will triumph.
Here is a man after the heart of the Pilgrim Fathers. Is this a great wonder? Was not a Czech, John Hus, the first after Wyclif to raise his voice and demand the reformation of the Church, almost five hundred years ago? Did not the Czechs lose their independence and freedom in fighting for the faith of John Calvin?
III
On the whole, the Czech propaganda fitted very nicely into the pattern of Western democratic thinking. Nor was this simply a matter of cold calculation. Masaryk was an ardent democrat, and so was Beneš. The firmly held traditions of the Western Slavs were alive in both men. Was not the Czech problem a clear case of the right of self-determination? But there was a serious flaw in the argument. The case for the Czechs was clear enough; and as long as the Slovaks were united with the Czechs in the fight the two rights might be compounded into one. No one, however, had ever seen a Czechoslovak.
There are many jokes arising from the well-known antagonism between the two nationalities. On one occasion friends are said to have asked Beneš to define his Czechoslovak nation. He could not do it to their satisfaction. Well, his interview-
ers said, let us see what can be done by illustration. Are you not a Czech? Yes. And Masaryk? Is he not a Slovak? And Hodza? Is he not a Slovak? Yes. Well, who then is a Czechoslovak? After some hesitation Beneš replied, with a wry smile, ‘Perhaps Konrad Henlein.’
But, at the time, the Czechs and the Slovaks seemed to work hand in hand, particularly after Masaryk had succeeded in negotiating the treaty of Pittsburgh. Hence the two nationalities were looked upon as one. There were, however, further complications. The ancient crownlands of Bohemia had embraced sizable regions predominantly Germanspeaking, and containing Hungarian, Polish, and Ruthenian elements. Had the Czechs, including Beneš, remained thoroughly faithful to the principle of the self-determination of nations, they would have been obliged to say, ‘We do not want these people included within our country unless they voluntarily choose to join us.’ Few of these people would have done that if left to themselves. Indeed, the German-speaking regions of Bohemia wanted to join German-speaking Austria after the war. That would have left Czechoslovakia with an indefensible boundary. The natural boundary of the country facing Germany is formed by the mountain ranges from which the German-speaking peoples derive their name, Sudeten Germans.
But this strategic consideration was not the only one. From the very beginning the Czechoslovak propaganda had laid claim to the ‘ancient crownlands’ of Bohemia. These were the lands once ruled over by the Czech kings, before the Hapsburgs gained control of the country. Indeed, even after the Hapsburgs had become kings of Bohemia, these crownlands remained united. For almost a hundred years, after 1526, the Bohemians maintained their autonomy. Bohemia was a very important part of the Holy Roman Empire, and its king one of the seven electors of the Reich who chose the Emperor. The Hapsburgs did not come as conquerors; they were duly elected by the representatives of the Bohemian people. But when these representatives dethroned the Hapsburg Emperor, Ferdinand II, because they wanted a Protestant king, and elected Frederick of the Palatinate to the throne, then the Hapsburg armies reconquered Bohemia by force of arms. At the battle of the White Hill in 1620, Bohemian autonomy was lost in fact, if not in form. Each of the nationalities was protected by a minority treaty under the peace settlement. In the face of recent propaganda, it cannot be repeated too often that the Czechs administered these treaties with a remarkably strict regard for legality. No other country containing minorities, except possibly the German (Weimar) Republic, was equally considerate. Who will blame the Czechs if they expropriated the landed estates of their former overlords, the German and the Hungarian nobility? Or if, in distributing these estates, they favored their own rather than the Germans or the Hungarians? The Czechs themselves admit that ‘mistakes’ were made at the time. Certainly they availed themselves of every legal method for strengthening their own position. There was a good deal of administrative discrimination. But had there not been such discrimination under the rule of the Germans and the Hungarians? Only after the so-called Badeni decrees in 1899 had the Czechs acquired a moderate measure of autonomy. Even though the nationalities in the old Hapsburg realm were not brutally suppressed, they did suffer from many handicaps. A deep resentment of all things German and Hungarian was the result, and this hatred was hard to tame after independence had been won. For reasons which to-day are obvious, Beneš vigorously opposed the Anschluss of the Austrian Republic which was at that time so ardently desired by Austrians and Germans alike. Throughout the years Beneš stuck to this policy. In the opinion of those who believe that the Anschluss was bound to come, sooner or later, this policy must appear unwise to-day. But do we ever act on such assumptions where our vital interests are concerned? The very position in which Czechoslovakia finds herself now makes it clear why the union of Germany and Austria must trouble Prague. The after-the-event oracle now declares that Czechoslovakia could surely have lived with a united Germany-Austria if they were democratic republics, whereas she must now survive the fierce and aggressive nationalism of the Third Reich. Be that as it may, opposition to the reunion was the second pillar of Beneš’s foreign policy.
These historical memories were a living reality in the minds of men like Masaryk and Beneš. Great Czech historians, like Palacky, had interpreted the entire history of Bohemia in such national terms, often doing violence to the facts. There is always a danger of projecting ancient ideals into the present. Yet these ghosts became potent factors of high diplomacy, in 1918, exactly three hundred years after the fatal conflict between the Bohemian people and their Hapsburg rulers. So a historian makes history.
The vigorous and bold manner in which Beneš had pursued an openly revolutionary policy during the war placed his people in a powerful position at the time of the peace conference. Indeed, of all the associated nations seeking consideration of their claims the Czechs and the Serbs were probably the most favored. Beneš had played a decisive rôle in thwarting the efforts of young Emperor Charles of Hapsburg, who sought to make a separate peace. Such a peace, Beneš feared, would prevent the Czechs and Slovaks from securing complete independence. There are critics who say to-day that it might have been better for the future of Europe if Austria-Hungary had been preserved. Maybe. But have we any reason to demand of the Czechs that they be saints?
As one of the victorious powers the new Republic, skillfully represented by her youthful foreign minister Beneš, laid claim to considerable territories which were neither Czech nor Slovak in population. Just as during the war, Beneš was ceaselessly at work with his memoranda, impressing everyone whom he could reach with Czechoslovakia’s need for strategical frontiers, with her right to the historical crownlands, with her function of balancing a resurgent Germany in the East. There were a few who remained unconvinced. One of these was the American scholar-diplomat Archibald C. Coolidge. He warned the Allies as well as the Czechs that they were merely re-creating the problems of old Austria, that Czechoslovakia would be better off in the long run without so many Germans and Hungarians. His was a voice crying in the wilderness.
Who will decide whether Beneš or Coolidge was right? At the moment many would say that Coolidge was. But might not Beneš reply, ‘Wait. Even Coolidge would never claim that we could create an independent Bohemia without a goodly number of Germans and Hungarians. The nationality problem would be with us whatever we did. Is it not well that Czechoslovakia is powerful enough to stand up against Germany, that she has frontiers which can be fortified and defended?’
In actuality Czechoslovakia became a country compounded of many nationalities. The figures have become well known by this time: eight million Czechs, over three million Germans, two and a half million Slovaks, around a million Hungarians, half a million Ruthenes, several hundred thousand Poles. One could almost say that the checkered nationality picture of the old Hapsburg Empire had been reproduced here on a smaller scale. But it is infinitely more difficult to manage such a motley crowd when the country is a democracy. For whose will shall decide?
Masaryk, democratic idealist that he was, wanted his people to be generous. But Czechoslovakia was a democracy, and the Czech masses did not love their former lords. The constant efforts of men like Masaryk to restrain the nationalist vindictiveness of the public were only gradually and partially successful. Masaryk and Boneš believed in democracy, in government by law. This conviction of theirs prompted them to steer the course of moderation which contrasted so markedly with what some of the Czech politicians, notably Kramarsh, would have liked to do (and what Pilsudski did do across the border): to force as many Germans as possible to leave the country by insisting that they become Poles if they remained. The leaders of Czechoslovakia recognized the Germans as an integral part of their democracy.
Beneš did not devote much of his time to these internal conflicts. Throughout the post-war years he guided the foreign policy of Czechoslovakia according to the concept which his war experiences had taught him. Even before the war he had abandoned his materialist philosophy for a view which resembled that of the French Radical Socialists and American Progressives. With a progressive point of view regarding social questions he combined a vigorous national outlook. Rationalist and democrat to the core, he did not become a utopian. He believed in the value of the League of Nations for the future of Czechoslovakia. Yet he was one of the first to voice the need for a balance of power in Europe, if Czechoslovakia was to keep her independence: —
‘In the long run, world politics are only a continual and consistent maintenance and leveling of the relations between the powers, i.e. the policy of an equilibrium of power. Before the war, this policy was pursued by the aid of coalitions between the powers. At the conclusion of the Peace Treaty of Versailles the League of Nations was adopted as a compromise and perhaps the only future instrument for the maintenance of equilibrium. . . . If there is no League of Nations there will once more be a policy of coalitions or blocs. . . . Czechoslovakia had no choice after the war but to pay attention to the problem of the future equilibrium in Europe and how she herself could contribute towards it. . . . She was not, and did not wish to be, an instrument in the hands of German policy for use against the other Great Powers, but neither did she wish to be used by the other Great Powers against Germany.’
These principles were laid down by Beneš in his first speech before the Czechoslovak Parliament on September 30, 1919. One cannot deny that he has followed his plan. This, one might say, was the first and basic principle of his foreign policy.
The third mainstay of his diplomacy was close collaboration with France, and with that country he concluded a defensive alliance. Many suspected that this alliance was backed by a secret military agreement. Thus Czechoslovakia and Poland were two props of French predominance in Europe. Many people in Germany believed that Beneš’s policy was distinctly anti-German, and this was true in the years immediately following the war. But, as Germany recovered some measure of economic strength, close commercial and industrial ties developed between the two countries. Under the peace treaties Czechoslovakia had been provided with shipping and harbor rights in Germany which diverted her large trade from the Adriatic port of Trieste to Hamburg. Hence Beneš can rightly claim to have brought about a gradual improvement in the relations with Germany in the years following Locarno. Indeed, Gustav Stresemann, the German Foreign Minister who concluded the Locarno treaties and negotiated Germany’s entry into the League of Nations, paid a handsome tribute to Benes when he specially requested that Benes continue as president of the League council at the time of Germany’s entry. The other powers had offered Stresemann the presidency then and there. Although the relations of Germany with Czechoslovakia were greatly strained at the time of Chancellor Brüning’s initiative for a Customs Union between Austria and Germany, they continued on a fairly friendly basis until the advent of Hitler to power. One wonders whether Beneš to-day would be inclined to consider his opposition to the projected Customs Union a mistake. Certainly he bears as much responsibility for its failure as anyone.
For further and final support of Czechoslovakia’s foreign policy Beneš looked to the Little Entente. The underlying purpose of the entente between Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Rumania was to check the Hungarian efforts for a revision of the peace treaties. Since all three states had greatly gained at the end of the World War at the expense of Hungary, this would appear to be a very natural combination. Natural, that is, if we accept the word in a cool, pragmatic sense. Sans phrase, say the French. The Little Entente has so far held together. Neither Mussolini’s military and diplomatic pressure nor the ideological dynamite which Hitler has put under it recently has been enough to blow it apart. This is undoubtedly in no small measure due to Beneš’s resourcefulness as a diplomat and to his tenacity as a politician. It ail shows Beneš as a man with a carefully worked out conception of foreign policy. Indeed, as contrasted with the opportunistic muddling of some of the Great Powers, his policy seems singularly well knit and coherent.
IV
The advent of Hitler has forced Beneš into a considerable revision. Hitler is by descent a Sudeten German, and closely resembles the Sudeten Germans in type and behavior. That’s why Beneš knows him so well, why he probably understands him better than any other statesman in Europe to-day. He is not likely to drift toward the Scylla of weak-kneed surrender, nor toward the Charybdis of pigheaded opposition against all reasonable concessions. Most important of all, Beneš knows how to show his teeth when Hitler starts his bullying; he did so very effectively on May 21 of this year. At any rate, President Beneš was not intimidated. He mobilized some troops and admonished the people to remain calm. In spite of a few minor incidents, the local elections took place. They revealed a hardening of the two sides. Of the German parties, practically only the Henlein party remained. The Czech votes tended to consolidate in Beneš’s party. If one compares the election with the population figures, it also appears that many German-speaking people must have voted for Beneš’s party. They probably felt that this would be more efficacious than to maintain small German democratic groups. Hence one is obliged to say that the Czechs’ local vote gave a victory to both sides; Henlein triumphed, but so did Beneš. As far as the democratic majority is concerned, there can be no question that Beneš has it. But the misfortune is that such a majority does not convince an alien and presumably hostile minority of its right to rule. It is the same tragedy as the Irish home rule. But the Irish live by themselves, on an island, and there is no greater Ireland next door claiming their allegiance.
The difficulty of finding a solution for Czechoslovakia’s troubles with its German and Hungarian minorities lies in the fact that many believe, inside and outside the country, that the German minority is merely the spearhead for aggressive designs which threaten the existence of the state. Hitler has his own following to blame for this impression. I was told as early as the summer of 1933, by high Nazi officials, that Czechoslovakia in the Führer’s opinion was a miscreance and could not endure. Its destruction was only a question of time. The German-speaking districts would be included within a Greater Germany. Poland would receive Ruthenia and the Polish-speaking parts in exchange for the Corridor. The Hungarians would go back to Hungary. As for the Czechs and Slovaks, almost entirely surrounded by Germany as they would be, they might become a German dependency, like Ireland within Great Britain. Perhaps such plans are not official, but the world has a right to worry when responsible officials and newspapers in Germany constantly voice them.
The outward expression of this danger is the Nazification of the Germans in Czechoslovakia. While some opposition persists among them, the majority of these Germans stand to-day behind the Nazi banner. At first the government tried to cope with the danger by outlawing the Nazi Party and its emblems. The followers of Hitler built up the Sudeten German Party, the old wine in a new bottle. Until the annexation of Austria, the aim of this party under its leader, Konrad Henlein, was to secure what was termed ‘equality’ within the Czechoslovak State. Since that time the idea of joining Germany has been openly admitted as an alternative. Indeed, the demands have become so extreme as to suggest that they are merely meant as a pretext for such troubles as might ‘justify’ Hitler to intervene by force of arms. A first attempt at such tactics is believed to have occurred on May 21. It is impossible to know whether Hitler actually planned to invade Czechoslovakia or whether he merely wished to intimidate the Czechs and ‘encourage’ the Germans to vote for Henlein. The British Government evidently considered the situation sufficiently dangerous to intervene with the German Government. At the same time, it advised English women and children to leave Germany. Goebbels’s press has since that time displayed great moral indignation at the suggestion that the German Government wished to start a war.
What possible solutions may be considered? Can Czechoslovakia continue as an independent state? Beneš evidently thinks he can work out a modus vivendi. Much depends upon whether the Sudeten German Party really wants to collaborate in finding such a solution, or whether it prefers to let itself be used by Hitler as a tool in pursuit of his ambitions. It has been said that all trouble would cease if Beneš would give up his defensive alliance with the Soviet Union. But this alliance is a corollary of his close collaboration with Prance. Still, Beneš might be willing to exchange it for an alliance with Great Britain. For his relations with Poland too have been embittered by this Russian alliance. Beneš would like to work with Poland. He has always been an advocate of an alliance with this Slavic sister republic. But all this and many other such projects have really nothing to do with the position of the German nationality in Czechoslovakia. Or have they? Henlein claims that they have, because his Weltanschauung writhes at the thought of his country’s being in league with the Bolsheviks. What he forgets is that such disagreements are bound to exist in any democracy. Plenty of people dislike the idea of American recognition of the Soviet Union. Yet they continue to be Americans.
The task of Beneš and his collaborators lies in this: to find a method by which to enable the German nationality to feel itself an equal partner in the republic, without surrendering the country’s control to Hitler. At present they propose to accomplish this miracle by giving the German districts the right to administer their own school systems and taking Germans into the government services at the rate corresponding to their percentage in the population. In Switzerland this sort of thing is done. But all people in Switzerland, whether they speak German, French, Italian, or Romansch, are ardently attached to the Republic, hence the problems are merely of adjustment and compromise in detail.
In spite of the strong democratic sentiment amongst the Czechs, Czechoslovakia is rent to-day by the conflict between the democratic outlook and the totalitarian. A large percentage of the Germans have become partisans of Hitlerism. Most of the Hungarians are likewise Fascists. There are within the Czech ranks people who would like to repeat the folly of Schuschnigg: making agreements with Hitler-Henlein and trusting them. But Beneš does not look like Schuschnigg — a man of big words and little deeds. No, if any man is able to get along with Fascist and Nazi noncoöperators, Beneš is such a man. He is disinclined to believe in ready-made solutions a priori. He will attempt to meet the difficulties as they arise.
Skillful tactician that he is, Beneš will seek adjustments which are temporary, and which he knows are temporary. Not ruthless, but firm, he will show much moderation. But when he strikes, he will strike hard. As the son of a peasant, he knows that you cannot compromise in essentials. His well-known sang-froid will save him where others might fumble. Perhaps in time he will be able to convince even the British Conservatives that a smashing of Czechoslovakia will be no solution, but merely the start of further troubles. In the meantime he will leave no question in anyone’s mind that the Czechs are going to fight any attacks upon them, even against overwhelming odds. That, no doubt, is the best guarantee of peace. It forestalls bluffing. With his robust optimism and his iron will, Beneš is the man to carry through.
It is small wonder that Masaryk himself insisted upon having Beneš as his successor. Maybe Beneš will stumble in the struggles that are going to develop. But when he gets up, his first question will undoubtedly be, ‘Have we won ? ’