From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award

In general, the Sudeten German question stood at the forefront in the CSR of 1938 because of the importance of its consequences to the solution of the minorities problem. Yet, there was also a Slovak, Ruthenian, Polish and Hungarian question, and the conditions of the smaller nationalities were more grave than those of the Sudeten Germans. It was sad for them to realize that only numerical abundance counted in a constitutional state. The rights of the people were never determined by equal standards in the CSR. Nevertheless, internal peace required equality before the law. On February 3, 1938, almost one year after the promised, supposedly new minority policy of the Hodza government, Spina, the Sudeten German minister without portfolio, announced that the Prime Minister shortly would

present new proposals to regulate the minority problem. It was later discovered that it was only a reaction to the submission of the Sudeten German Party's motion for a new nationality policy. The government did not extend the use of the language law to the railways, postal services and state monopolies, which would have meant for the minorities the use of their language in contacts with these institutions. The excuse of the government was that only the Parliament could change the language law through legislation. However, the government had not introduced bills to this end. The support of the government by activist politicians was futile for the Sudeten German population.(30) In 1926 the activists initiated a historic turning point with their entry in the government of Prague, and in 1938 they provided another direction to the historical development of the republic with their exit from the government. The minorities condemned the activists as traitors for their role in the government. Several days after Hitler's march in Austria, the activists started to resign from the government, with the exception of the Social Democrats. The former activists joined the Sudeten German Party and demanded autonomy for the Sudetenland. They suddenly realized that the Czechoslovak-German border had stretched from 800 km to 1200 km. The French-German border was only 300 km in comparison with the delicate situation of the Czechs after 12 March, 1938.

The government of Prague suddenly discovered the existence of the Sudeten German Party, the largest party of the Czechoslovak Parliament and on April 1, three of their deputies were invited by the Prime Minister to discuss political questions.(31 It was a belated move because twenty years after World War I, and after twenty years under Czech rule, the fate of the Sudeten Germans became connected with the German government. Neither the Germans nor the other minorities expected anything positive to emerge from the planned minority statutes because they did not guarantee any progress in the protection of minority rights. They were to be the codification of the existing laws and decrees without any new content. The twenty-year experience had shown that those clauses were insufficient and the relations with the nationalities needed improvement through reform.(32) The Sudeten German Party held its party day on April 24 in Karlsbad. In his speech at that meeting, Henlein, the leader of the party, summarized the known demands of the Sudeten German population: complete equality and autonomy (Appendix 6). The party had 800,000 members together with the 212,000 increase of membership in March. He emphasized, for the record, that until that date his three attempts for rapprochment to the government were ignored first in 1934 at Bohmisch Leipa, then after the 1935 elections, when 70%of the Sudeten Germans manifested the support of his party, and later during the debates of the nationality question. The Sudeten Germans showed three times that they were ready to take part in the building of the state. Their leader was not willing to repeat his declarations for cooperation because he did not want to be rejected again. In 1918 the Sudeten

Germans believed in the Wilsonian principles of self-determination. They never abandoned that belief, but they would never again turn to the League of Nations with their grievances. They submitted more than twenty-two grievances and memoranda but the League did not comply with a single demand. Later they were looking for solutions within the state. The Czechs thought that the Sudeten German Party eventually would disintegrate. In 1938 90% of the Sudeten Germans supported Henlein. The Czechs never wanted to win over the Sudeten Germans for the cause of the state. He had certain conditions for a friendly coexistence with the Czechs: revision of the so-called Czech historic myth; revision of the unfortunate concept that the mission of the Czech people is to create a Slavic fortress against the German pressure in an easterly direction. He announced the demands of the Sudeten German Party in eight points.(33)Henlein's speech accelerated the diplomatic activity of the British government for the settlement of the Czechoslovak problem. The CSR owed its existence to the demand of self-determination for the Czechs; however, the Czechs, twenty years later, were opposed to the application of the same principle for the minorities of the republic. The Cz echs did not want to agree to a plebiscite because the Sudeten Germans and the other minorities were expected to vote for separation from the CSR. Prague did not show any willingness to give up the natural borders of Bohemia and the chain of fortifications in the border zones. The Czechs did not want to respond in the affirmative to the idea that there would be no minorities in the state. The Sudeten German Party handed over the government on June 7 a memorandum containing proposals in 14 points for national pacification.(34) They did this because the government had a meeting scheduled with them on June 15, but the contents of the planned nationality statute were still not disclosed to the negotiating team of the party. No one understood the significance of the great secrecy surrounding the plans of the government. The basis of the negotiations was meant to be the Karlsbad decrees and the nationality statutes of the government. In May, Henlein, after the meeting with the government, went to London for a visit. His travels clearly indicated the great importance of the developments in the CSR for Britain. Meetings took place again in July between the Prague government and the Sudeten Germans, and after them Henlein immediately went to Berlin under the pretext of inspecting a handicraft exhibition. These travels of Henlein reveal that the real decision making centres in the development of the Czechoslovak crisis lay outside the CSR. The foreign governments had no doubt about the nature and extent of the problem. They did not find it sensible on the part of the Prague government to offer the national minorities such a plan of reforms which they did not study together in detail with the representatives of the concerned population. The London newspapers confirmed the news in connection with the mission of Lord Runciman, who would function as a councillor at the Czechoslovak-Sudeten German negotiations.(35) In diplomatic circles a relief was expected in the Czecho

slovak crisis from international intervention. Prime Minister Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that the Czechoslovak government and the Sudeten German Party gave their consent to the mission of Lord Runciman who would act as mediator and investigator. He would take into consideration the opinions of all nationalities under Czechoslovak jurisdiction.(36) As an overture to the mediation of Lord Runciman, the Sudeten German Party on the day preceeding his arrival in Prague, issued a pamphlet containing the rejection of the nationality statute. It was not suitable at all for the solution of problems. According to the pamphlet the new statute must be regarded as an experiment for the codification of the existing status of injustice. The underlying concept was that only the Czech people were the state forming nation; all the others were but second class citizens with curtailed rights. Previously, for these second class nationalities exceptional laws had been passed, and the recently completed statutes were the extension of those exceptional decrees. The pamphlet refused the idea of Czech supremacy in every segment of the national life, and asked for equal rights for all citizens.(37) Its publication was well timed, and intended to influence the views of the British delegation in the nationalities disputes. The publication of the nationalities statutes by the government coincided with the arrival of Lord Runciman and the Central European experts in his entourage in Prague. The British delegation received the statutes before its departure from London. The reaction of the other autonomist groups, Hungarians, Slovaks, Ruthenians and Poles, was the same as that of the Sudeten Germans. They also rejected the Czech domination in the state, and repeated their known demands which had been handed over to the government in forms of memoranda. Similarly to the Sudeten Germans, they claimed equal treatment before the law.

Confrontations between the Slovaks and the Czechs

In Czechoslovakia the Slovaks did not receive the conditions of an independent national life. Officially it was the national state of the Czechs and Slovaks. The Slovaks demanded autonomy for Slovakia, solemnly promised them by Masaryk who even signed an agreement with some Slovak immigrants in the USA during World War I to this end. It was a strange agreement of private persons living in the USA with a Czech exiled political agent. It guaranteed the requirements for a free democratic national existence of the Slovaks, citizens of Hungary for the preceeding thousand years, in a planned state, as members of the "Czechoslovak nation". During their twenty-year cohabitation in the first Czechoslovak republic bitterness built up on both sides of the invented nation. The Czechs and Slovaks became irreconcilable political enemies, with the exception of the Slovak activists, who served Czech imperialistic interests. Articles printed in the two newspapers of the Slovak Populist Party, the Slovak and the Slovenska Pravda, provide enough evidence of

the animosity between the two "sister', nations. The empty censored pages of the second editions of these often confiscated newspapers, and fiery editorials, printed in red in the Slovensks Pravda and entitled "Do Ziveho,, (Touch on the raw), give sufficient grounds for proving the non-enviable situation of the Slovaks in their own state.

The Slovaks realized that they were excluded from power by the Czechs and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was the aim of the majority of them. They were partners in the combined, single "Czechoslovak nation". The Czechs were not willing to grant absolute parity to the Slovaks, as was indicated in the name of the state. However, the Slovaks were not willing to renounce their national characteristics, conscience and language for a fictive Czechoslovak name. In September 1937, one year before the critical phasis of the Czechoslovak internal problems, the Slovak Populist Party introduced a bill in the Parliament for a change in the wording of the language law to permit the use of the Slovak in the public administration, courts, army, gendarmerie the same way in Slovakia as Czech was used in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Ruthenia. The bill aimed to eliminate the term "Czechoslovak language" from the language law. In those territories which formerly belonged to Hungary, Slovak should be the official language, and Czech in areas which in the past belonged to Austria. The "Czechoslovak language" is a non-existent politico-juridical term. The Czech philologists did not confirm that Slovak is a dialect of Czech, on the contrary, Slovak and several other linguists are of the opinion that Slovak is a particular independent language.(38)

In a bitter debate, Hlinka, leader of the Slovak Populist Party, answered the charges of Ivan Derer, the Minister of Justice, a Slovak activist, when the latter called the deputies of Hlinka,s party "lousy, snotty brats,,. Hlinka noted that no one ever heard such words from a Minister of Justice, and added that in an ethnic sense he never had recognized the Czechoslovak nation. His collaborators, members of the Prague Parliament would find the appropriate occasion for personal satisfaction for themselves.(39) They decided to take Derer to court. Like the other nationalities, the Slovaks also presented their demands in 33 points to Hodza. The Prime Minister used his customary tactics, inviting Hlinka for a meeting at the end of February, just as he held discussions with the Sudeten Germans, Hungarians and Poles. With renewed promises, he invited the Slovaks in the government with two cabinet posts: postmaster general and minister without portfolio. After the meeting, Hlinka was interviewed by the Prager Montagsblatt in which he explained that before an eventual entry in the Prague government, the autonomy of Slovakia must be included in the constitution, in the spirit of the Pittsburgh agreement. The recognition of the Slovaks as an independent and sovereign nation would make of them immediately a government-party.(40)

In 1938 Czechoslovakia became the scene of diplomatic activity for internal and external reasons. In March, Hitler occupied Austria,

and he was considering the possibility of offering Slovakia and Ruthenia to Hungary. In May, Tiso, using the chance given by the Eucharistic Congress in Budapest, talked to State Secretary Pataky on the regulation of the minority problem in the CSR and on the conditions of an eventual autonomy for Slovakia within Hungary. The Slovaks were very cautious in these talks, as were the Sudeten Germans, Poles and Hungarians in the CSR, due to their fear of the Czechs and the stipulations of the Defence of the Republic Act. In June another deputy of the Slovak Populist Party, the Polonophile Karol Sidor, conferred with Beck in Warsaw on a Polish-Slovak union. He went to the port of Gdynia in an official capacity to receive the Slovak delegation from the USA bringing the original copy of the Pittsburgh agreement with them in the CSR. Sidor learned from the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs that Poland was not interested in a liaison with Slovakia. Esterhazy, of the United Hungarian Party, also talked with Beck of Slovak autonomy within Hungary, with a Slovak governor, Parliament and the army. Beck desired to become an arbiter between the Slovak deputies and the Hungarian government. According to Italian sources, in Warsaw Sidor received confidential information from the Poles concerning possible autonomy for Slovakia from Hungary under Polish guarantees. Sidor expressed his wish to review this question with Esterhazy rather than with the Hungarian government.(4l) On May 13 the Hungarian charge d'affaires in Prague replied to the Italian ambassador's question that the Slovak Populist Party leaders had been confidentially informed that Slovakia, in case of reannexation to Hungary, would have the largest possible autonomous government.(42) These party leaders were afraid of the Czech counter-intelligence and did not explore deeply this situation. In their indecision and power struggle with the Czechs, after Munich they opted for several months of stay in Czechoslovakia. It is true that the Czechoslovak army kept Slovakia under occupation at that time, but the fate of Slovakia and the Populist Party showed that their choice was not in the best interest of the Slovak people.

The deputies of the Hungarian minority were constantly demanding autonomy for Slovakia and Ruthenia; for this reason the formal creation of an autonomist bloc against the Czechs could not wait for a long time. The Prime Minister, however, wanted to reach an agreement with the Slovaks before the nationalities statute was published. The satisfactory solution of the Slovak question became very urgent for the government for two reasons. Hodza, himself an activist Slovak, belonging to the minority Lutheran group among the Slovaks, tried to offer some credibility to the fiction of the Czechoslovak nation, and avoid embarrassment before the fourmember deputation of the American Slovak League brought to the CSR for the display of the original copy of the Pittsburgh agreement for the twentieth anniversary of its signature.

On March 24, the Hlinka Party announced the formation of an autonomist bloc which included all minorities of Slovakia. Under

the influence of these events, Hodia reported through radio the regulation of the minorities question by a nationality statute. (43) The American Slovak delegation arrived in the CSR and held political negotiations at Hlinka's parish. An immense crowd, and the deputies of the Slovak Populist Party, were waiting for them at the railway station. When the Warsaw Express arrived, the leader of the delegation, Dr. Hletko, was holding in his hand the case in which the original copy of the Pittsburgh agreement was kept. Jozef Husek, an American journalist, who himself signed the treaty twenty years ago, confirmed the authenticity of the document. Hlinka made it known to the crowd that in 1929 he had received a letter from the former president, Masaryk, also a signatory of the treaty, that the Pittsburgh agreement was counterfeit.(44) It is well known that Masaryk, Benes and their associates did not intend to extend autonomy to Slovakia. The American Slovak delegation visited Prague, where they had an audience with Krofta, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and President Benes. In a press release Hletko explained that love for the Slovaks and Czechoslovakia was the reason for their voyage, and that the Pittsburgh agreement was not against the republic but represented its strength.(45) The Slovak delegation from Prague travelled to Pressburg (Bratislava), where on June 4 and 5, the Slovak Populist Party held a congress during which the speakers demanded autonomy for Slovakia. Hlinka declared that it was the most beautiful day of his life. In his feeling, Prague should learn that it did not want to hear previously that Slovakia belonged to the Slovaks.(46) The Hungarian Party was wishing victory for the Slovak nation in its struggle for autonomy.(47) In the capital of Slovakia Hletko had an interview with Hodza who was present at the congress of his own party.(48) He learned from the Prime Minister that it was impossible to include the Pittsburgh agreement in a Czechoslovak constitution. The American Slovak delegation after a month' stay in the republic took back to the USA the original copy they brought with them to the CSR. Before leaving the republic, Hletko sent a farewell article to the Slovak newspapers to be released after his departure. In the press release he included the following: "We knew that we would find opposition from those who do not want to respect the Pittsburgh agreement. We had to see with great dismay the lies and suspicions with which we have been attacked every day. In our life we had not seen as much distortion of truth as we saw here in the newspapers. We take back the original copy of the Pittsburgh agreement and leave here in the archives of the Matica Slouenskd a certified copy of it made by the Czechoslovak consulate in the USA. The day cannot be far away when your demands will be part of the constitution."(49)

The Czech answer to the autonomist Slovak manifestations was an anti-Slovak press campaign in the course of which Benes remarked that the signature of the Pittsburgh agreement was a great mistake

of Masaryk. The Czechs were supposed to share the rule of the republic with their "sister" nation. They responded to the Slovak autonomists by showing their political power, and suppressed the Provincial Office of Slovakia in Pressburg for three months.(50)

Confrontations with the Ruthenian Minority

The Ruthenian politicians felt that the time had arrived for the regulation of the question concerned with the autonomy promised for Ruthenia at the end of World War I. The peace treaty of SaintGermain (51) of 10 September 1919, also paragraph 3, article 2-9 of the Czechoslovak constitution of the year 1920, granted autonomy for Slovaks and Ruthenians.(52) The Czechs always regarded the Ruthenians as backward, uneducated people, and delayed the granting of autonomy to them until the Munich conference in 1938. In that same year there were three organized groups of different political orientation among the Ruthenians: the Ukranian option under Volosin, the Ruthenian national movement under Brody, and the Russian trend under Fencik.(53) These groups also reflected the views of the Ruthenian population concerning their preference in the debate of the language of instruction. There were different fractions of political orientation and for the future status of Ruthenia: in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary or in a state together with all the Ukrainians living north and east of the Carpathian mountains in Poland and in Russia. Volosin wrote in the Podkarpatske Hlasy of April 20, 1938 that Poland and Hungary wanted to divide the territory of Ruthenia.(54) The Ruthenian autonomists joined the other nationalities in the autonomist bloc versus Prague on 27 February 1938, when the first opportunity to do so arose. On March 4 in Prague, the autonomist deputies from Ruthenia demanded the granting of autonomy for the province in accordance with the international treaties and the constitution, to assure the possibilities for free development in agriculture, mining, industry, trade and commerce. They protested against the composition of the appointed council for Ruthenia by Prague. They preferred a democratically elected governing council by the people. On the council, 14 members out of 24 served the interests of the Czechs. The council was set up only to mislead foreign countries to make them believe that the international treaties were obeyed. In reality, the autonomy for Ruthenia was neglected for 19 years. Although the Czechoslovak Parliament voted for Ruthenian autonomy in 1937 (Bill 172/1937),(55) governor Hrabar declared to the press that it did not necessarily signify the enforcement of such autonomy. The deputies from Ruthenia protested against the censorship of the newspapers printed in the province, and made it clear that they would be obliged to take advantage of the use of the American press in the Ruthenian language to underscore their criticism of the Czechoslovak government.(56)They proclaimed that they had

received authorization for initiating discussions with the Prague government for the introduction of immediate total autonomy for Ruthenia.

The Ruthenians in the USA followed with great interest the fate of their brethren, and a delegation from the federation of the American Ruthenian cultural organizations arrived in the CSR to study the living conditions of the Ruthenians. They did not go there to be involved in the solution of the constitutional problems but made notes and promised to give an account of their impressions on their next congress at Pittsburgh. Twenty years before on their part an agreement was signed in the USA with Masaryk for the annexation of Ruthenia to the CSR, therefore, they felt a moral obligation to recognize that province. Many letters had urged the American Ruthenians to embark on a fact-finding trip to the homeland.(57)

The Prague government could not ignore this manifestation of benevolent interest in the political fate of Ruthenia under Czech rule. The Ruthenians had as many grievances as the other oppressed nationalities of the republic. In the Prague Parliament, their deputies protested on behalf of the Ruthenian autonomist union against the practice of the censor at Ungvar (Uzhorod) who, according to them, without any serious cause, confiscated the newspapers of the Ruthenian autonomist union for criticizing the government and for enumerating rightful demands of the population. They also protested against the prohition of the freedom of assembly when it was the duty of the members of Parliament to have contact with their constituents.(58) The delegation of the Ruthenian National Council presented their demands to Hodza on May 30 in which they petitioned repeatedly for granting autonomy to Ruthenia. At the same time, a delegation of the American Ruthenians visiting the CSR went to the Ruthenian regions and participated in a meeting of the National Council of Ruthenia. Dr. Gerovsky, the leader of the delegation, did not comment during his stay in the CSR on the political conditions of Ruthenia.(59) The delegation had had great difficulties obtaining visas from the Czechoslovak consular authorities in the USA. Gerovsky announced that after his return to the USA he would convoke the congress of the American Ruthenians, and they would take a position on the problems of Ruthenia. Further, they would ask President Roosevelt to intervene in the Prague government on behalf of granting autonomy for Ruthenia because the USA had participated in the process of peacemaking, and therefore should see the enforcement of the clauses of the treaty of SaintGermain. In September they planned to send a memorandum to Prague urging autonomy for Ruthenia.(60) The Czechoslovak government was under attack from the Ruthenians who in the opinion of some Czechs were illiterate people and could not sustain self-government.(61) (Ruthenians in the CSR: 549,169; in Ruthenia: 446,916; in Slovakia: 91,079; in Bohemia and Moravia: 11,174.)

The German government also tried to use the Ruthenians for its own goals. A Ukranian Fascist propaganda was initiated from

Berlin. A delegation from the Sudeten German Party was present at the inaugural ceremony of the House of Culture at Raho (Rachov) in Ruthenia on August 26, 1938 with an ostentatious demonstration for the Ukranian camp.(62)

Confrontations with the Polish Minority

The territorial dispute over Silesia is over one thousand years old. It dates back to the beginning of the national history of Poland and Bohemia. In 1918 the Czechs demanded, for their new republic, regions inhabited by Poles. The Czechs were against holding a plebiscite, and a conference of ambassadors incorporated, according to Polish sources, 150,000 Poles of Silesia to the CSR. Before that conference the Poles expressed their wish to belong to the restored Poland after World War I, a country partitioned three times by its neighbours. In the CSR the Polish minority received the same unjust treatment from the Czechs as the other national minorities of the state. The Czechs tried to denationalize the Poles which caused constant tension between the two Slavic nations. There were unprecedented persecutions, investigations, criminal trials of the Polish public figures, confiscations of property under fictitious pretexts, suppression of Polish publications and press, restrictions on public meetings, prevention even of objective criticism of the existing political system, hinderance of the cultural activities of the Polish institutions, closure of libraries and reduction of Polish schools.(63) The Poles defended their constitutional rights and loyally cooperated with the government. Due to the disadvantageous modification of the electoral law, the Poles were able to secure a seat in the Chamber of Deputies only by joining their forces with the Slovak Populist Party in a constituency.(64) The Polish government was against the detachment of Polish inhabited territory to the CSR, and already in 1924 demanded the revision of the border in the Javorina region. The new minority policy of the Prague government, announced on February 18, 1937, did not bring any amelioration for the Polish minority, and therefore they decided to demand autonomy in a radical way. They wanted to restore the ethnic situation of 1920 by instituting self-government.(65) The Foreign Minister of Poland, Beck, in a speech before his Foreign Affairs Council said that any decision made by the CSR in favour of one of her nationalities, if not applied to the Polish minority, would be regarded by Poland as an unfriendly act.(66) The status of the Polish minority was discussed between Beck and Slavik, the ambassador of the CSR in Warsaw on May 7, 1938.(67) The Poles in Czech Teschen (Cesky Tesin) formed the Polish Association of Czechoslovakia at a meeting of historic importance. A united front of the Polish political and social organizations was aimed at securing their demands from the Czechs. They could notimagine a good relationship between the two nations as long as the Czechs were not willing to give up their policy of denationalization

as they did with the Moravians.(68) The Poles demanded reparations for the losses they had suffered since the foundation of the CSR, and a fair share in civil service, schooling, and economic life.(69) This action had clearly been copied from the Henlein Party.(70) The Polish political opposition was directed against the chauvinistic policy of the government of Prague. The answer in Prague was the persecution of the Polish population. The Dziennik Polski in Mahrisch Ostrau (Moravska Ostrava), the official newspaper of the Polish opposition party, was confiscated 14 times between April 1 and 21, 1938 for writing on the Polish school situation in Czech Silesia, and the dismissal of Polish workers from Czech plants.(71) In May, before the community elections, the Czechs intimidated the Polish population, prohibited political and public meetings, beat-up officeholders of the Polish Associations. The Czech police started a criminal procedure against the leaders of the Polish associations, based on the Defence of the Republic Act. The only Polish deputy in the Prague Parliament was placed under house arrest. Later he escaped to safety in Poland. There he became the vice-president of the War Committee of the Trans-Olza Silesia in Katowice. The Committee of the Union of Polish Parties in Czech Teschen asked for the right of self-determination for the Trans-Olza Polish population.(72) All of them had to answer accusations for breaking the law. It was followed by numerous arrests of Poles in Czech Silesia.(73) The Polish Socialist Workers' Party in the CSR demanded complete equality for the Polish population and remedies for their grievances.(74) Their newspaper Robotnik Slazski, was confiscated for publishing an article on autonomy for the Polish minority.(75) The Czechs introduced terror to keep the national feelings of the Poles in check. It did not prevent the population to cast their ballots for the party of their choice at the community elections. In Trans-Olza Silesia in 32 communities in May 1938 the Poles received 299, the Czechs 237 and the Germans 18 seats.(76)

The government of Poland strongly supported the Polish minority in the CSR. It was Beck's view that the Czechoslovak government might try to postpone the settlement. The Polish press expressed fear for the hostile attitude of Prague. Poland was in constant communication not only with Prague, Berlin and Budapest, but also with Paris, London and the two other members of the Little Entente concerning the Czechoslovak problem and the fate of the Polish minority in Czech Teschen and Northern Slovakia. A possible alternative for Poland in case of a crisis was not clear in London. The consensus was, however, that in case of a successful German attack on the CSR, Poland would occupy the Teschen area.(77) Poland under the impact of the events in the CSR terminated the Polish-Czechoslovak treaty of 1925 because of the discrimination against the Polish nationals in the CSR.(78)

The Czechoslovak government promised a new nationality policy and the codification of the minority laws but it did not have sufficient moral strength and political wisdom to break with the old

policy. In Prague it was regarded a crime to defend the rights and culture of the minorities, consequently, under those circumstances a solution had to come from abroad.

Footnotes

I. PMH, Feb. 18, 1938.

2. Slovak, Feb. 27, 1938.

3. PMH, Feb. 27, 1938.

4. Ibid., March 11, 1938.

5. Felvidekunk-Honvedsegunk, Op. cit., 16.

6. PMH, March 31, 1938.

7. Paris Soir, March 28, 1938.

8. Express, April 1, 1938.

9. PMH, April 8, 1938.

10. Narodni Politika, March 29, 1938.

11. Die Zeit am Montag, May 2, 1938.

12. The Times, May 4, 1938.

13. PMH, May 10, 1938.

14. Ibid.

15. A muncheni egyezmeny... No. 143.

16. PMH, May 19, 1938.

17. Affari Esteri, No. 12003/PR/C.

18. L'Ordre, June 1, 1938.

19. Prager Presse, June 11, 1938.

20. PMH, July 1, 1938. 105

21. Ibid., July 21, 1938.

22. The Times, July 23, 1938.

23. PMH, July 24, 1938.

24. The Times, July 25, 1938.

25. Venkov, July 27, 1938.

26. Lidove Noviny, July 26, 1938.

27. Prager Tagblatt, July 27, 1938.

28. PMH, July 24, 1938.

29. Ibid., Aug. 27, 1938.

30. Ibid., Feb. 3, 1938.

31. CTK, April 1, 1938.

32. Neue Morgenpost, April 13, 1938.

33. PMH, April 26, 1938.

34. Die Zeit, July 20, 1938.

35. Daily Telegraph, July 26, 1938.

36. PMH, August 2, 1938.

37. Die Zeit, August 3, 1938.

38. Affari Esteri, No. 239753/1136/C.

39. Slovak, January 10, 1938.

40. Prager Montagsblatt, Feb. 25, 1938.

41. Affari Esteri, No. 3193/R.

42. Ibid., No. 2813/R.

43. Kulpolitikai adatok az 1938. evrol, 50.

44. Slovak, May 29, 1938.

45. PMH, June 2, 1938.

46. Slovak, June 6, 1938.

47. PRO, FO., 371/21578.

48. Slovak, June 8, 1938.

49. Ibid., Aug. 10, 1938.

50. PMH, June 19, 1938.

51. Wierer, R., Das Nationalitatenrecht, 144.

52. Sb. zak. a nar.

53. Kozminski, M., Polska i Wegry, 144.

54. Ibid., 102.

55. Sb. zak. a nar.

56. PMH, March 5, 1938.

57. Ibid., June 2, 1938.

58. Ibid., April 6, 1938.

59. June 2, 1938. 106

60. Slovak, July 11, 1938.

61. PMH, Jan. 22, 1938.

62. Affari Esteri, No. 231099.

63. Wolf L., La minorite polonaise en Tchecoslovaquie, 3.

64. Ibid., 9.

65. PMH, March 31, 1938.

66. Cienciela, Op. cit., 60.

67. Gazeta Polska, May 1D, 1938.

68. Ibid., March 28, 1938.

69. Dziennik Polski, May 10, 1938.

70. PRO, FO., 371/21564/9503.

71.. Gazeta Polska, April 23, 1938.

72. Ibid., Sept. 7, 1938.

73. Ibid., July 15, 1938.

74. Ibid., April 3, 1938.

75. Ibid., July 12, 1938.

76. Ibid., May 31, 1938.

77. PRO, FO., 371/21723.

78. Gazeta Polska, Sept. 22, 1938

From Trianon to the First Vienna Arbitral Award