It's widely known that Hitler and Stalin dismembered Poland in 1939. Little known is that, a year earlier, Poland had joined Hitler in dismembering Czechoslovakia.
This ironic bit of historical trivia appears in Volume One of The Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia. Hardly a work of conspiracist revisionism [see its credits at the bottom of this article], its recounting of Hitler's dismemberment of Czechoslovakia is well known, apart from the details concerning Hungary and Poland’s roles.
According to the Encyclopedia, in May 1938 Hitler mobilized his military to annex Czechoslovakia's German-speaking Sudetenland. When Britain, France, and the USSR threatened war, Hitler backed down, but continued pressing the issue. On September 15, Britain's Neville Chamberlain visited Hitler to discuss a peaceful solution. On September 22, Chamberlain agreed to allow Hitler to annex the Sudetenland but refused to permit immediate entry for German troops, thus Hitler remained dissatisfied. On September 23, Czechoslovakia mobilized its military and war looked imminent.
Then Poland made its move. On September 27, seeing Czechoslovakia in crisis as Germany prepared to invade, Poland issued an ultimatum demanding that Czechoslovakia cede its Tesin (Teschen) district.
On September 29, France, Britain, Germany, and Italy signed the Munich Agreement. This allowed Hitler to take the Sudetenland in exchange for him agreeing to “guarantee” Czechoslovakia's borders — but only after Poland and Hungary (which by now had joined in) had taken their shares.
The Encyclopedia reports: “As Article 1 of the [Munich] agreement put it, ‘when the question of the Polish and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia has been settled, Germany and Italy will each give a similar guarantee to Czechoslovakia’. Poland had been first to share in the spoils. After an ultimatum from Warsaw on September 27, 1938, Czechoslovakia had ceded to Poland the district of Tesin (Teschen) — an area of some 625 square miles with a population of 230,000 people.”
Article comments
1 - Paul
I think Poland learned it's lesson well enough after it was dismembered by Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary in the 19th Century. In fact, that was the episode where the Russians made their famous reply to the Poles, who asked them by what right they had to do what they were doing: "A country that cannot defend itself has no right to exist."
It doesn't make what Poland did right, but I think they wanted to revisit upon their enemies what was done to them and apply the lessons they had learned so well from their former occupiers.
2 - Kevin Hannan
I disagree with the author's interpretation. Poland certainly was not acting in league with Hitler. To understand what happened in Zaolzie in 1938, one must look at the Czech invasion of Poland after the First World War. That act of Czechoslovak military aggresion is not generally remembered today. It resulted in deaths and many injuries. (One doesn't generally think of Masaryk's Czechoslovakia as an aggressive state and the whole story puts a black mark on Masaryk's fabled reputation).
The border in Zaolzie was established in 1920, but the Czechoslovakia government did something else to antagonize the Poles. When Poland's war with Soviet Russia broke out, the Czechs refused to aid Poland and refused to let supplies cross Czechoslovak territory to Poland. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, in Polish eyes.
As the political events of the 1930s unfolded, Poles could not forget Czechoslovakia's actions. Thus, the seizure of part of Zaolzie in 1938 was, in Polish eyes, a righting of a wrong committed a generation earlier. Most Poles today agree that it was a mistake on Poland's part. Yet 1938 cannot be isolated from the earlier conflict with Czechoslovakia.
3 - Chris Arabia
Great stuff. Central Europe was certainly a crummy neighborhood in the 1930s. I mean, Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other, with Il Douchebag around the corner? Couldn't have done much for the property values.
4 - Alex
I`m wondering why everyone who talk about "Polish invasion on Czechoslovakia in 1938" do not say anything about Czech invasion on Poland in January 1919??? Polish invasion on western part of Teschen`s Silesia in 1938 was just an act of revange! In 1919 Czechoslovakian army has invaded almost all Teschen`s Silesia, there was a war with thousand victims - why You didn`t say about it???
5 - mino
Well, Poles behaved exceptionally stupidly that week, period. Unfortunately they overpaid dearly for it the next year.
. . . It is a pity, Czechoslovaks had a real chance to hold their own. At least much, much longer than Poland or France did.
Only three European countries were in this position in WW2: CSR(terrain,solid defences + still relatively weak Germany), UK(island) and USSR(wast 'buffer' zone)].
As side-effect, Polish stance made any possible soviet (sadly, the only country to offer help) reinforcements for CSR impossible in near term.
Suddenly, CSR saw all major powers on their borders against them, 2500+ km of border to defend and no prospect of real foreign help in first 3-6 months.
This essentially changed their hard-to-not-lose but still bearable situation into hopeless one.
Not least, it also gave Stalin plenty propaganda justification for treating Poles as he liked.
6 - jur
An appendix to the Munich Agreement from 29.09.1938 says that if Polish and Hungarian governments will not fix their territorial claims to Czechoslovakia during three months, than France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy will meet again and will resolve those claims without interested parts - like they decided in Munich without Czechoslovakia in September 1938. Polish Foreign Ministry was affraid, that Germans will seize Zaolzie together with Sudetenland, and then - at some "Munich II Conference" - they will make an offer : "Give us Corridor and Danzig for Zaolzie." I think that France and Great Britain would accept such a deal, because they wanted to direct German expansion to the East, and they didn't care for countries like Czechoslovakia or Poland. That's why Poland had to gain Zaolzie "one step before" Hitler.
Polish ultimatum was writen in Warsaw in the afternoon September the 30th, 1938, when Poles had already known the text of Munich Agreement and also - that Czechoslovakia will not fight. The Polish ultimatum was delivered to the Czechoslovak Government few minutes before midnight September the 30th, 1938.
7 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
The bottom line here is that appeasement by the big countries encouraged instability in the smaller ones, and that Hitler swallowed them all into his empire of death. This lesson has not yet been learned by the United States. So it kisses the asses of the ibn Sauds and other Arabs, and does what it can to undermine Jewish sovereignty in Israel.
Payback is on the way, guys.
The part I have trouble understanding is why the Poles and Czechs do not bear a lingering resentment against the Brits and the Americans, who deserted them to Soviet domination for over four decades. The Brits and Americans deserve the resentment of the Poles and Czechs for the lousy lives they lived under the Soviet thumb....
8 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, maybe Poles and Czechs prefer to focus on the future and don't spend so much time bleating on in that distasteful mixture of egocentricity and persistent raking over of the ashes of the past that you take so much pleasure in?
That might explain why up to a million Poles, most of them under 34, have moved to Britain in the last few years...
9 - jur
Ruvy, You are right - many of us feel resentment against Americans and British for what they did in Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. If Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill said NO, Stalin couldn't dominate Eastern Europe.
But Western Allies said YES whatever Stalin wanted.
What to do - the show must go on, the life must go on ...
10 - Jay
"If Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill said NO, Stalin couldn't dominate Eastern Europe."
Of course, Stalin was a pushover! All they had to do was say no and he would have backed off. It's amazing that people believe this stuff!
It is this sort of attitude that requires us to look again at this era and remind people of the amazingly short-sided and frankly stupid actions of some of the countries that wish to be looked upon as innocent victims. It is horrible what the Nazis did to them, but placing the blame on the Western countries for this is petty and ignores the realities of the times.
11 - jur
Stalin was able to achieve his goals only with support of Westren countries - especially USA. Red Army would lose if it didn't get supplies accordnig to the Lend & Lease Act.
Teschen problem :
january 1919 - Czechoslovak aggression against Poland, Czechs occupy most of Teschen Silesia, preponderantly Polish (70% of Poles, 20% of Germans, 5% of Czechs plus some others)
22nd of September 1938 and 27th of September 1938 - Czechoslovak President E. Benes and Foreign Minister K. Krofta in diplomatic letters make an offer for Poland, they want to give back the disputed area of Teschen Silesia to improve relationships with Poland. Krofta proposes to pass the area in November 1938. Polish Foreign Ministry insists on transfering the territory immediately, because Germans could capture it earlier. That's why Poland sent an ultimatum to Prague.
What had Poland to do? Just watch how Germans occupy the area, inhabited mainly by Poles?
I agree with You, Jay, it is necessary to know realities of the times.
Czechoslovakia was sold in 1938 by France and Great Britain for a piece of paper - famous Chamberlains "Peace in our time." Poland wanted to evoid the same fate, prepared by Western fans of appeasement who in fact wanted to buy themselves peace at our expenses.
12 - miranda
ok people get over the fucking past!
who cares if chezoslovakia had some aggression or whatever. who cares about in the past wut happened between the contries in europe.
all that matters is that it's over duh!
13 - beowulf
It seems like someone needs to do his homework in history here. The conflict over the "Teschen" area was NOT started by Czechoslovakia. It was a disputed area between these two countries which was preliminarily divided and administered by the two ad-hoc created bodies ("Národní výbor pro Slezsko" on the Czech and "Rada Narodowa Księstwa Cieszyńskiego" on the Polish side). The final delimitation of the frontier was to be agreed between the two governments later. However, in a direct violation of the agreement, Polish government militarily sized the then-Polish-administered side of the area and started the preparation of the parliamentary elections there. The Czech government demanded to stop these actions and only when this was openly refused by the Polish side, the Czech military was sent to stop it. This "seven-days war" ended when the advancing Czech troops were stopped under the pressure of the Entente, the new preliminary borders were drafted and after a lengthy negotiations the final borders were agreed more than a year later in Paris. So, it was NOT a Czech military action but previous Polish violation of the agreement that started this conflict.
14 - Roman
At the same time of the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938-39 US president Franklin Roosevelt was secretly advising the Polish government not to negotiate with Germany and go to war instead. He showed his true colors by selling out Poland at the Yalta conference in 1945.