Evening star., 1938-05-25
Nazis' Hand Called.

Prime Minister Chamberlain, since
realism was emblazoned on the Union
Jack as the symbol of Great Britain's
foreign policy, has not escaped whole
sale condemnation in other democratic
countries for his readiness to compro-
mise with the relationships. 1t is there
fore all the more agreeable to discover
him in the role of an interventionist
against Germanys latest pretenslons,
and to commend his success in curbing
the Nazis' lust to strike while the SELF
heated Sudeten iron is hot and subject
CzechoSlovakia to the mailed fist treat
ment which brought Austria to her
knees. Germany has been stopped vir-
tually for the first time since Hitler be-
gan his program of international law
lessness. He has met his Verdun on the
Bohemian plains which Bismarck long
ago called the bastion of Europe.
While it was specifically British dip
lomatic representations at Berlin, which
extorted public pledge that the Reich
would not, at this time at least, seek to
settle its differences with the Prague
government by warlike action, the un-
derlying, indisputable reason why the
gunpowder was suddenly extracted from
the situation is the speed and resolu-
ton with which Czechoslovakia grap-
pied with it. Throughout the Nazis
five years of systematic f1outing of
treaties, pledges and world law it was
always they who acted first and ex-
planned afterward to surprised and
baffed neighbors. They remilitarized
the Rhineland in that defiant fashion.
They rearmed on land and sea and in
the air as if the Treaty of Versailles
had never existed. They invaded and
annexed Austria with corresponding dis
regard alike of that decrepit lands
rights and Germany's plighted word to
respect its independence.
Czechoslovakia was earmarked as the
next conquest, and was set down as an
easy one now that the country is within
the grip of a three-pronged German
nutcracker. 1t seemed ripe fruit, too,
because Britain and France had appar-
emily concluded that realistic discretion
is the better part of valor in dealing
with the totalitarian autocracies. But
the Nazis reckoned without their Benes
and their Hodza. In the President and
premier of the republic Masaryk founded,
Berlin found it was dealing with no
Halifax, for that matter-but with
couple of unterrifed democratic states
men in whose lexicon the word crawl has
no place.
Thus, when German troops in Bavaria
and Saxony began moving toward the
Czechoslovak border, Prague countered
by calling up it's army reserves and
tightening the national defense all along
the Sudeten frontiers. 1t was signal
not only of the readiness of Benes and
Hodza to resist, but of their confidence
that they could fight and win. Unques-
tionably the military action of the
Czechs and the observation-disclosures it
denotes was responsible for Britain's
energetic steps to preserve the peace.
Czechoslovakia has done the only sort
of thing the Nazis respect-she has
shown she is prepared to meet force with
force. Central Europes one surviving
democracy has given fresh proof to
&,1, @oI
brave borders that she deserves perpetu-
alton as an oasis in desert of dictator
ship.
It would be premature to imagine
that the Czechoslovaks' peril is past.
But they have thrown their tormentors
for heavy loss.