"There Benes, Here !!"

"God is not only with the stronger battalions. He is also with those of better nerves. We have had better nerves and will keep them! . . ."

So last week editorialized Das Schwarze Korps, the newsorgan of Adolf Hitler's special "Elite Guard."

It was nerve against nerve this week. The stakes, piled mountains high, amounted to nearly everything Europe values in this world. The grimly staking chiefs of the Great Powers passed from words of War and Peace to final drastic acts involving the lives of millions. With men saying good-by at railroad stations all over Europe, joining the colors with the strange, excited high good humor of people consciously risking death in great numbers, President Roosevelt suddenly drew attention to the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. Under that agreement, nearly every nation in the world, including Japan, Italy and Germany, has renounced "war as an instrument of national policy'' (see p. 16).

The initiative of the President, addressed evenhandedly in duplicate to President Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia and to German Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, contained a solemn injunction "not to break off negotiations looking to a peaceful, fair and constructive settlement of the questions at issue." These negotiations were begun fortnight ago at Berchtesgaden, after months of private exchanges between the four European chiefs, Neville Chamberlain, Adolf Hitler, Edouard Daladier and Benito Mussolini. They were continued last week at Godesberg, the picturesque Rhineland spa. There the Berchtesgaden Plan, already "accepted unconditionally" by Czechoslovakia, was evaporated last week from cold Peace water into the hissing War steam of Godesberg Demands unexpectedly made by Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain Map v. Hitler Map. The Berchtesgaden Plan of last fortnight went far beyond the demands which the Sudeten German Party repeatedly in August told British Mediator Viscount Runci-man would satisfy not only their "Little Fuehrer" Konrad Henlein but also the Fuehrer. Henlein asked "states rights" or "dominion status" for the Sudetens, and the Czechoslovak Government reluctantly consented. In the traditional British role of "broker" in major quarrels on the Continent, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, after ascertaining fortnight ago that France was ready to yield and join in causing Czechoslovakia to yield still more than anyone would have believed possible, struck at Berchtesgaden a bargain frankly advantageous to Germany, but also a bargain which avoided war in Europe for a full week at least, with prospects of lengthening this Peace.

Mr. Chamberlain arrived in Godesberg last week to find Herr Hitler evidently 14 convinced that there might be no limit to the concessions, threatening, via his controlled German press, to hurl his army against Czechoslovakia "within 48 hours," unless Prague immediately went beyond the concessions already made. At this the Prime Minister promptly balked. With the River Rhine running between the Petersberg, hotel of the Britons, and the Dreesen, a favorite hostel at which the German Dictator was stopping for the 68th time, Neville Chamberlain began exchanging stiff, formal diplomatic notes with the Fuehrer--the kind of thing that gets published after war begins in a British Blue Book, a German White Book. Each note was carried ceremoniously in diplomatic cars, and each time the Rhine was traversed on a perky little ferry smelling of fresh paint. Journalists in the two hotels could not telephone directly to each other, as all lines were reserved for officials, so they called London for news from the correspondent at the other hotel. Cracked owlish German wits: "It is the Watch on the Rhine." Rhinelanders gathered on both banks to watch, kept scores of Zeiss binoculars trained on the ferry.

When the Prime Minister, still secluded, signified that he would fly back to London Saturday morning but would first make a final contact with the German Chancellor, tense correspondents chorused, "Is it to negotiate, or will Chamberlain only see Hitler to say good-by?"

Drawled imperturbable Sir Horace Wilson, Chief Industrial Adviser to His Majesty's Government: "Well, he isn't just going for the ferryboat trip."*

Actually Neville Chamberlain had spent three hours with Adolf Hitler, still trying to act as broker for Peace, studying newly drafted documents and a map freshly traced in red ink (see cut). This was the Hitler Map, the fatal red-inking of his Godesberg Demands. But there was also a Chamberlain Map, showing what Czechoslovakia, Britain and France remained ready this week to give Germany. A German communique announced that the Godesberg Negotiations had been "friendly," and Neville Chamberlain on arriving in London said: "I trust that all concerned will continue their efforts to solve the Czechoslovak problem peacefully, because on that turns the peace of Europe in our time."

October 1st. The reported Chamberlain Map and the Hitler Map, superimposed upon each other (see cut, p. 14), show at a glance the geographical difference between the Berchtesgaden Plan and the Godesberg Demands. Either would give Germany all the most important fortifications of "the Czech Maginot Line," which encircles the West end of Czechoslovakia. To sanction either would mean that Britain and France had scrapped League and other post-War treaty obligations which have been supposed to safeguard the "territorial integrity" of Czechoslovakia.

The Plan was to cede about 8,000 square miles to Germany, and at most the Demands would bring in another 1,000 square miles. However, according to official London sources this week, the Plan was to have been carried out over a period of "about six months." The Demands insisted that by October 1--precisely eight days after the last meeting at Godesberg --all Czechoslovak armed forces, gendarmerie, police, customs officials and frontier guards be withdrawn from the areas which Dictator Hitler red-inked. While neither German nor Czechoslovak armed forces would be permitted in plebiscite areas while the voting took place on or before November 25, according to the Demands, the ballot would be restricted to people who lived in these areas on October 28, 1918 or were born there before that date.

Finally the Demands summoned the Czechoslovak Government to discharge from its army and police forces all persons of German race and to let political prisoners of this race out of its jails. Although many Czechoslovaks have counted on being able to dynamite their $250,000,000 fortifications in the Sudeten area and industrial plants worth much more before handing the area over to Germany under the Berchtesgaden Plan, the Godesberg Demands harshly required that evacuated territory be handed over in its present condition.

Second Sunday. As they did the Sunday before, French Premier Edouard Daladier and Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet came over to London last Sunday, this time cheered with much greater enthusiasm by English crowds in Whitehall, which rang loudly with La Marseillaise.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chamberlain had sent the Godesberg Demands, complete with map, to the Czechoslovak Government "without comment." Louder than words spoke the simultaneous mobilization in France of some 1,000,000 men. And the British Home Fleet, in the North Sea, fully provisioned for battle. In London the first few anti-air raid trenches were dug in the parks (see p. 17). Everyone was being "measured for gas masks," and hospitals in the London area were warned to expect, during the first three weeks of war, 30,000 casualties per day.

The Czechoslovak Government, after studying the Godesberg Demands, rejected them to the extent of saying it would refuse to cede the Sudetenland under Hitler's new terms, but not to the extent of refusing further negotiation. It did not take back the Czechoslovak acceptance of the Berchtesgaden Plan. According to the Polish and Hungarian Governments, the Czechoslovak Government informed them this week that it was also ready to negotiate their claims to parts of Czechoslovakia.

After the British and French Ministers had conferred for another full day, the British Foreign Office announced this week, "It is still possible [to find a peaceful solution] by negotiation. Germany's claim to transfer of the Sudeten areas has already been conceded by the French, British and Czechoslovak Governments. But if, in spite of all efforts made by the British Prime Minister, a German attack is made upon Czechoslovakia, the immediate result must be that France will be bound to come to her assistance, and Great Britain and Russia will certainly stand by France." The Comintern station at Moscow, official propagator of "The World Revolution of the World Proletariat," helped out by hurling in the German language high-powered appeals to the German lower classes to revolt at once against Hitler.

"Wir Folgen!" From Godesberg this week the Fuehrer returned unobtrusively to Berlin, got to work on a speech which he presently delivered to 15,000 Nazis jam-packing the Sport-Palast.

Cried the No. 3 Nazi, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, introducing No. 1: "Fuehrer be-fiehl! Wir folgen!" ("Leader, command! We follow!")

With 1,500,000 German troops mobilized at that moment in various parts of the Reich, Orator Hitler began by recalling his offer to reduce the German Army to 200,000 men if each of the other Great Powers would accept this same limitation, and he reminded Europe that his offer had been without takers. He recalled that Germany made a peace pact with Poland, a naval limitations treaty with Britain and renounced any claim to Alsace-Lorraine, shouted: "It is not one Fuehrer or one man who is speaking--it is the entire German nation!"

The Fuehrer continued: "Our aims are not unlimited. . . . The Sudetenland is the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe, but it is one on which I shall not yield. . . . This Herr Benes was at Versailles and assured European statesmen that there was such a thing as a 'Czechoslovak nation.' Those geographically ignorant statesmen omitted to check up on his statements-- instead of realizing that there is no such thing as a Czechoslovak nation! . . ."

"While I sympathize with all the nationalities of Czechoslovakia, I am speaking here only for the oppressed Germans ..." Herr Hitler went on, thus putting a damper on rumors that he had faced Mr. Chamberlain with Polish and Hungarian claims as well as Germany's. "Upon the threats of Great Britain and France, Herr Benes finally admitted that the Sudetenland must be ceded to Germany," continued Hitler. "The play is now ended. . . . THE FINAL GERMAN DEMANDS CONTAIN ONLY WHAT BENES HAS ALREADY PROMISED."

"After German territory has gone to Germany, and each of the other terrorized peoples has decided where it wants to belong, Germany is even ready to guarantee the frontiers of the remaining Czech State. . . . When Mr. Chamberlain asked me to agree to have plebiscites not in all parts of Czechoslovakia but only in the German districts I GAVE IN ! I also agreed to a German-Czech commission to supervise the plebiscite. ... I would also have accepted international police control! It was all only the practical realization of what Benes had already promised."

"I will tell you why the new memorandum [Godesberg Demands] is unacceptable to Benes--it is because THIS TIME I ASK THAT HE KEEP HIS PROMISE!" was the next Hitler smash-point. "The German districts must be handed over to Germany by October 1.

. . . Benes suggests that the Sudeten districts be credited to Germany in the books, and meanwhile that Czechs continue to rape the Sudetenland. . . . He still hopes that Chamberlain and Daladier can be moved so that he can be released from his promise. But here stands man against man. There is Benes--here am I. Only one of us can win. We are entirely different. During the war he wandered about the world outside the danger zone, while I did my duty as a soldier -- and again today I AM THE FIRST SOLDIER OF MY PEOPLE! ... I COULD NEVER BE REPROACHED WITH BEING A COWARD. . . . THE GERMAN NATION IS WITH ME, AND ITS WILL IS MY COMMAND. . . . ONE COMMON WILL IS STRONGER THAN PRIVATION AND DANGER AND WILL CONQUER BOTH!"

In London at midnight Prime Minister Chamberlain, who saw as the crux of the matter the issue of whether Germany would get Sudetenland at once or after the formality of international negotiation, declared:

"It is evident that the Chancellor has no faith that the promises made will be carried out. These promises were made not to the German Government direct, but to the British and French Governments in the first instance. Speaking for the British Government, we regard ourselves as morally responsible for seeing that the promises are carried out fairly and fully and we are prepared to undertake that they shall be so carried out with all reasonable promptitude, provided that the German Government will agree to settlement of terms and conditions to the transfer by discussions and not by force."

In these circumstances the British Parliament was convened for this week and democratic public opinion poised itself to dictate to Chamberlain and Daladier, as well as to Dr. Benes, a decision which had now been left up to it.

Always provocative, Benito Mussolini observed: "I cannot believe that Europe will set fire to itself to cook Prague's putrid egg."

"There are some things we cannot surrender!" cried British Labor Party Leader Clement Attlee. "Life without liberty is not life. If war should come -- God forbid -- we must all meet it with courage!"

*Sir Horace has hitherto declined invitations to visit Continental statesmen with the dry comment: "Thank you, but I am not one of those Englishmen who travel abroad," never dreaming he would have to fly to Berchtesgaden fortnight ago, to Godesberg last week.

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