Evening star., 1938-10-04
Magyars, Poles and Czechs.

Magyars, Poles and Czechs.
Rapidly, as was inevitable, additional
Czechoslovak minority problems have
arisen as result of the Munich agree
ment, which returned the Sudetenland
TO the German Reich. Like Germany,
Poland and Hungary have reclaimed the
Czechoslovak provinces peopled by men
and women of their own blood and ap-
portioned to the Czech republic set up by
the respective treaties Of Versailles, st.
German and Trianon.
On Sunday, the Poles occupied the
hitherto Czech-owned district of Tes-
chen, an area of two counties containing
some 300 square miles and 100000 in
habitants. Yesterday while Hitler was
making a triumphal military entry into
Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia agreed to
negotiate the territorial demands of
Hungary. These include Cd uncondi-
tional, immediate return of all regions
known to be purely Hungarian, along
the southern boarder Of Czechoslovakia;
(2) an immediate plebiscite in all DO
Itical districts of Slovakia and Ruthenia,
to determine whether their populations
wish to remain in CZechoslovakia or 20
to Hungary; and 90 the general right
OF plebiscite for all other minorities.
Until there is exact determination of
the new frontiers of Czechoslovakia 1t
will not be known just how much
there is going to be left to the Prague
government of the 54,244 square miles
which hitherto was its area. From
Bohemia, wherein are most of the Su-
deten lands ceded to Germany, around
10000 or 10000 square miles will pass to
NaN control, total which may be ex-
tended by subsequent plebiscites in dis
tricts mot preponderantly German"
Counting these, the 300 square miles Just
taken over by Poland, and the pure
Hungarian territories" given to Czecho-
slovakia in 1919, comprising about 1000
square miles northwest of Budapest,
gross tract of roundly $4,000 square miles
seems likely finally to be severed from
the pre-Munich Czechoslovak state. If
this approximates the total cessions to
Germany, Poland and Hungary, the
Czechoslovak flag will henceforth fly over
between twenty-five and thirty per cent
less territory than it did a week ago.
Relatively, Czechoslovakia will have lost
a domain equal to that which the United
States would forfeit if there should be
Topped from our 100000 continental
square miles the combined areas of Cali
fornia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Mon
tana, Nevada and Utah, whose aggregate
square mileage represents roundly
quarter of the United States. 1t is a
much shrunken Czech state whose fu-
ture integrity the chief European powers
have undertaken to guarantee.
1t is, of course, not alone the ex-
tensive amputation of territory which
deals Czechoslovakia a heavy blow.
With Sudetenland she hands over to the
Germans her most important iron and
coal deposits, along with important glass,
textile and other industries. The Czechs'
most grievous loss is the defensive line
constituted by the Bohemian mountain
ranges, as we'll as their little Maginot"
fortif1cation system laboriously and ex-
pensively constructed in recent years.
The Poles secure valuable anthracite
coal mines with an annual output of
100000 tons and an important rail-
road junction near Teschen. If the
"purely Hungarian" provinces, as we'll
as numerous so-called Hungarian is
lands on the southern borders of
Czechoslovakia are eventually trans
ferred to Budapests contro1, it is esti-
mated that Hungarys population will be
raised by about 100000. Extreme Hun
garian revisionists, claiming 100000 ad-
herents, demand all the territory that
went to Czechoslovakia under the treaty
OF Trianon, and embracing 5000 or TO-
600 square miles anG diverse population
OF reputed 3,5OOoOO, or about the num-
ber of Sudeten Germans who will be
Nazified by October 10.
Prague appears to have dealt with
Warsaw and Budapest independently,
but there can be little doubt that the
Poles and Hungarians had the moral
support of Hitler in submitting their
claims and that Nazi backing of more
persuasive nature would have been
Forthcoming if the Czechs had not
yielded. Thus the Gordian knot of
Central Europe's most pressing minority
problem has been cut with promptness
and completeness that only yesterday
would have seemed chimerical.