[ Le Livre jaune français (Paris, 1939), p. 72.]
And the Russians continued to suspect the Finns, who only a year before had celebrated the twentieth anniversary of their liberation from "the Bolshevik yoke" with the help of the Kaiser's army towards the end of the First World War.
Such was the trend of Soviet policy on the eve of the Nazi march into Prague. It was still a wait-and-see attitude; the menace of war was already acute, but it was still not entirely clear what Hitler's next move would be.
The Nazi entry into Prague on March 15 not only put a full stop to Chamberlain's Munich illusions, but put the Soviet Union in a position where a clear choice would have to be made before long. It was already evident from Stalin's speech of March 10 that he was anxious to keep out of it all— unless there was a possibility of stopping the aggressors through at least a partial restoration of "collective security"—which could only mean the conclusion of an anti-Hitler alliance by the "non-aggressive" powers.
*
The German invasion of Czechoslovakia came to Russia as a shock—though not perhaps
as a great surprise. When, on March 15, the blow fell, the Soviet reaction was fairly sharp. In reply to the official German notification that Bohemia and Moravia had been incorporated in the Reich as a "protectorate" and that the statute of Slovakia had been
"modified" (it had been turned into a German satellite under Mgr Tiso), Litvinov sent the German Government a strongly-worded note. In it he recalled the Czechs' right to self-determination and denied the validity of President Hacha's surrender to Berlin. And
Litvinov concluded: "The action of the German Government not only fails to lessen the dangers threatening world peace, but can, on the contrary, only intensify them, shake the political stability of Central Europe... and strike another severe blow at the peoples' sense of security."
The alarm in Moscow was even greater than appeared on the surface. True, the papers
were already full of stories from Prague about "German vandalism in Czechoslovakia"
and about the "Gestapo terror" there—for instance, about a Karl Benes, secretary of the Nieburg Communist Party organisation, having been beaten and tortured to death by the Gestapo (Pravda, April 1, 1939). But there was clearly nothing that the Soviet Union could have done about it at this stage. So attention suddenly shifted to London, Warsaw
—and Lithuania, which had just had Memel "shamelessly extorted" from her by the Germans, as the Soviet press put it.
The Germans in Memel, the Hungarians in Ruthenia, the growing threats against Poland
—all this was getting very near home.
Although the invasion of Czechoslovakia deeply shocked British public opinion,
Chamberlain's own first reaction was mild, judging by his statement in the House of
Commons on March 15. However, the outcry in the country compelled him to strike a
different note in his Birmingham speech on March 17. This time he spoke of his
"disappointment and indignation", and less than a fortnight later, on March 31, he announced the British Government's guarantee to Poland.
This extraordinary decision is perhaps best explained by a particularly well-qualified observer, Robert Coulondre, who was French Ambassador in Berlin at the time: "Without any kind of transition, and with a rashness pointing to his genuine anger, Chamberlain turned a complete somersault. He went from one extreme to the other, and diplomacy,
which is the daughter of wisdom and caution, does not like such extravagant behaviour.
Having been bamboozled by Hitler, Chamberlain was now going to be bamboozled by
Colonel Beck, and was going to ruin a game the outcome of which was of the most vital importance to the cause of peace."
[ R. Coulondre, op. cit., p. 263. (Emphasis added.)]
Immediately after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia the British Government had
turned to the Soviet Union. On March 18 Halifax asked Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador, to call on him, and inquired what the Soviet attitude would be if Rumania became the object of an unprovoked aggression. The Soviet Government promptly replied by
proposing a meeting at Bucharest of the six Powers most directly involved. The British Government rejected this and proposed, instead, on March 21, the publication of a joint Anglo-Franco-Soviet-Polish declaration saying that they would enter into immediate
consultations about any joint action to be taken should the political independence of any European state be threatened. The Soviet Government, though disappointed by the
rejection of its own proposal, agreed to such a declaration, provided Poland was one of the signatories. But on April 1 Chamberlain informed Maisky that he had dropped the
idea.
On March 23, 1939, the Germans had occupied Memel. On that same day, Colonel Beck
replied to the British proposal for a Four-Power Declaration, and argued against it. These multilateral negotiations would be very complicated and take time, and there was no time to lose; he therefore suggested the conclusion of a bilateral Polish-British agreement, without prejudice, of course, to any wider subsequent negotiations. What game was Beck playing? Certainly he was becoming distrustful of Hitler, and wished to strengthen his position by securing a British guarantee. At the same time he had no desire to enter into any sort of "defensive front" with the Russians, as this, he argued, might incense the Germans.
In discussing the matter with Gafencu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister, he put forward the view that Hitler would not attack Poland, so long as the latter had not become
involved with Russia; only a Polish-Russian alliance would produce a German invasion of Poland. "Despite the terrible threat hanging over his country, and despite the lesson of Czechoslovakia, Beck persisted in his more than dubious game of backing both horses."
[G. Gafencu, The Last Days of Europe (London, 1945), pp. 203-4.]
In the House of Commons on March 31 Chamberlain made his famous statement on
Poland. A fortnight later he announced that the guarantee to Poland had been extended to Rumania and Greece. As Coulondre says: "The British Government was now crashing ahead so fast that it even rushed past the station at which it should have stopped. It was enough to look at the map of Europe to see what a serious diplomatic situation it had created. Rumania and Poland practically form a continuous front from the Black Sea to the Baltic, a front separating Germany from the USSR. Germany cannot attack Russia
without going through Poland or Rumania, i.e. without bringing into play the Western guarantee, and without going to war against Britain and France. Thus, without having to commit himself, Stalin secured a Western guarantee in the East which he had sought in vain for ten years... It must now have been clear to Hitler that only by coming to an agreement with the USSR could he dodge that double front the day he decided to attack Poland."
[R. Coulondre, op. cit., pp. 263-4.]
"Would it not have been much wiser"—Coulondre asks—"to stick to the Four-Power Declaration, as proposed on March 21, and, if Beck still refused to sign, to go right ahead with that Anglo-French-Soviet alliance which Churchill was demanding with prophetic
foresight, and which the Russians were then prepared to sign? "
On April 1 the Soviet press prominently displayed Chamberlain's guarantee to Poland, but accompanied the story with an account of the House of Commons debate, in which