Evening star., 1938-10-06

Poland and Hungary are nibbling boldl
Eduard Benes, who resigned yesterday
fighting today to strengthen what rel
dismemberment.
There is a new government here
tanning discipline within and searching
abroad for understanding with neigh
bol states who may yet remove CZecho-
slovakia from the map.
France and Great Britain have
wrecked the whole political basis on
which this little democracy lived dur
ing the first 20 years of its life and
the new government, which remains
under Premier Gen. Jan Syrovy's mill
tary domination must search for new
ordinations.
Denied the possibility of continuing
mer former policy, Czechoslovakia
must play the role of Balkan states,
search for Emergencies among her
friends and her foes, and press steadily
for any and every advantage.
Must Exploit Her Foes.
Thus, while she faces the threat that
Poland and Hungary may despoil her
utterly of the eastern stretches Of her
country, which reach from Bratislava
through the Carpathians to the juno
ton of Poland and Rumania, Czecho-
slovakia must exploit the differences
of her foes.
Italy would, like to have all this
eastern area taken over by the Poles
and Hungarians, because, if those two
peoples had a common frontier. War
saw and Rome could achieve their
dream Of a neutral Gordon sanitaire
dividing Nazi Germany from Commu-
mist Russia.
Germany opposes this, however, it
is learned on good authority, both be-
cause she dislikes neutral belt and
because she hopes that if Prague ORR
ents its policy increasingly towards
Berlin, Germany will control the long
Czech lane giving her access almost
to the Russian Ukraine, the ultimate
Nazi ambition foretold in "Mein
Kampf"
Consequently, the Czechs are hope
full that though she engineered this
country's dreadful plight, Germany
herself will save the Czechs the loss Of
the eastern third of their country.
loss which seems the more important
since certain Slovaks are intriguing
with the Poles.
Indeed, it is the failure of the Slovaks
to rally entirely to Prague in this hour
of peril which makes the new govern
ment, announced today. less national
than it must become, 1t is hoped, after
the meeting tomorrow of the Slovak
Peoples party of the late Father
Andreas Hlinka.
While the Czechs and Slovaks are
of the same race, they have utterly
different cultures, with the formers
bustling bourgeois ways not under
standable to the music-loying Slovaks,
who are still oriental, and it is only
natural that the Slovaks should eX-
plot the moment to gain increased
locay autonomy.
Except for this problem and the
troublesome demands by leaders of
sub -Carpathian Russia (Ruthenia), the
new government is really government
of nation concentration and strength
ems Gen. Syrovy's hand as he at
tempts to protect the country against
its rapacious neighbors and even
tually to ease the modified nation
back into peace-time occupations.
Dr.. Kamil Krofta, Benes' friend.
yields the foreign office after three
years to DR.. Francis Chvalkovsky,
Czech Minister to Rome. A member
of the Agrarian party who had always
pleaded for better relations with Ger
many, DR.. Chvalkovsky has been Min
lister both to Washington and Berlin.
AS the new government thus starts
with a foreign minister who can treat
with the Germans and Italians, Propa-
ganda Minister Hugo Vavrecka has
been sent to Berlin to improve rela-
tions. Though the German radio has
been blaring out against Prague and
raising the specter of further Ger
man attacks, DR.. Ernst Kundt, a
Sudeten leader, speaking in occupied
areas, has taken occasion to praise
Czech courage and to predict that
soon the Czechs would free them
selves from the rule of the Jews"
Capital Is Reinforced.
These signs are the more hopeful
as Prague has feared rumors spread
in both German and British quarters
that Czech Communists would create
disorder in an attempt at a COUP
These reports are absurd in country
which is bourgeois to the core and
where, as these correspondents of the
Chicago Daily News have discovered,
all the gendarmes have been brought
in from the provinces to make doubly
sure that Prague is secure against any
such efforts.
Those signs are doubly hopeful,
moreover. since the CZechs were con-
fronted Tuesday night with Hun
garlan ultimatu.n which, for all its
effort at friendly language, remains
peremptory. The Hungarians give the
CZechs until clock this afternoon
to hand over Komarom and another
frontier town as token cessions look
ing toward far-reaching Hungarian
"conquests."
The Czechs, consequently, can only
hope that the Germans and British
will demand from the Hungarians
more restraint than the Germans
themselves were willing to show. This
is a strange hope, but recent weeks
have produced some of the strangest
diplomacy since the partition of
Poland.
The press advocates coming to terms
with Germany. The Lidove Noviny's
military expert writes that if God pun
ished Czechoslovakia for trusting the
French alliance, now he expects her to
do the natural thing and make friends