Fear, not unmanly fear, but none the less wearing, broods over Europe in these fateful days. The anxiety should not be so much about what Hitler has said, but about what he may do. His speech of menace must be judged in relation to what is actually in movement. It closes no door on evil. It marks time while preparations are being completed. The dominant facts are military.
Germany is very largely mobilised. The Fleet is mobilised; the Air Force is ready, and two-thirds of the army are on a war footing. The economic and industrial organisation of the country and its general life approximate to conditions of war. The chiefs of the Nazi regime have made these enormous demands upon their country, and nothing like it has happened before in time of peace. It seems impossible that these extreme conditions could remain in their present tension for very long. The armies must act, or they must disperse. Winter is approaching, and after the middle of October the weather may become severe. Therefore, it seems that the limit of time when these great forces are either launched in war, or sent to their homes, is very short. If they are dispersed without some clear triumph, the Nazi regime, already the object of much criticism in Germany, will have sustained a rebuff which may affect its future life.
Many credible witnesses declare that a programme is being executed step by step. Certainly the troop movements which carried great forces from Central Germany to the Rhine frontier, and have produced very heavy concentrations all round Czechoslovakia, and particularly in the newly-conquered Austrian Province, seem to be all part of a plan which will reach its climax before the end of the present month. The time that is passing has been well spent by the mobilised troops in welding the reservists into the formations, and shaking them together into fighting efficiency. We must suppose that everything is ready, or will be ready in the next ten days, for a converging attack upon Czechoslovakia with troops and weapons which the Nazi Party believe to be overwhelming. All that remains is for some bloody incident, or actual revolt, to be created at the moment prescribed by Hitler, and for the signal to advance to be given. It is not probable there would be any ultimatum. 'When I strike,' said Hitler a year ago in a little-remembered speech, 'I shall not waste time like Mussolini in discussion. I shall strike like lightning in the night.'
Inside the Czechoslovakian Republic there is an absolute determination to fight for life and freedom. All their frontiers, even that opposite Austria, are well fortified and guarded by a strong and devoted army. I am told that the Nazi conception of the onslaught upon this small neighbour is to pour in from all sides in great numbers, to plunge their German armoured divisions through some gap in the defences, and to blast Prague and other ancient cities and towns with such a deluge of bombs from the air, that all resistance will collapse in a few days. If this be their dream, it is likely to have an unpleasant awakening. Air bombardment may efface the monuments of Prague, may inflict hideous slaughter upon the women and children, but it will not prevent the defending troops from reaching their stations, nor will it turn brave men out of carefully fortified positions. We see how stubbornly the Spanish Republicans are enduring an air bombardment to which they have no means of reply. But the Czechoslovakian army is one of the best equipped in the world. It has admirable tanks, anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft artillery. This resolute people have long prepared themselves for the ordeal. Systems of concrete pill-boxes and solid entrenchments, if defended, cannot be taken at a run.
It is always imprudent to attempt to forecast the unknown, but if the spirit of the Czechs has not been daunted by all the worry and pressure to which they have been subjected, three or four weeks and three or four hundred thousand casualties should be the least price in time and blood exacted from the invader. I do not believe that such a spectacle could be witnessed impassively by the civilised world. Very few people outside Germany are now misled by Nazi propaganda. No doubt the disorders which would precede the outrage have been prepared with the same meticulous care as the military movements. It may be that, as was plotted in the case of Austria, some attempt upon the life of one of the Sudeten German leaders will be staged. But from the moment that the first shot is fired and the German troops attempt to cross the Czechoslovakian frontier, the whole scene will be transformed, and a roar of fury will arise from the free peoples of the world, which will proclaim nothing less than a crusade against the aggressor. To the wage-earning masses of every land, the word 'Czechoslovakia,' lately so unfamiliar to their ears, spells nothing less than 'self-preservation.' Thus I believe that should these dark designs, now so remorselessly unfolding hour by hour, reach their appointed climax, Nazi Germany will find herself engaged in a world war, inexpiable in its character.
Some people still profess to believe that Herr Hitler and his confederates would never dream of using violence against the Czechs; that these vast preparations are only after all small local manœuvres entirely normal in their character, though perhaps a little extensive in their scale; and that soon the armies will disperse. If that be true, then we may all rejoice. But on the assumption that it is not true, and that the crime is planned and imminent, the question before us is whether we can stop it, and how? The British Government sustained by a united nation have made it clear that should a major war explode, they would be almost inevitably involved. But it is not enough to say that we shall probably be in the war if it happens. What above all is important is to prevent it happening. The ordinary smooth and balanced phrases of diplomacy, with all their refinements and reserves, are of little use in dealing with the fierce chiefs of German Nazidom. Only the most blunt, plain, even brutal language will make its effect. Moreover, whatever words are used must carry with them the conviction that they are spoken in deadly earnest. This is no time to bluff.
Everyone will sympathise with the high-minded statesmen who have laboured so patiently for peace. But one must ask whether they would add appreciably to our danger by declaring themselves unmistakably, while time remains. If, for instance, Great Britain, France and Russia were even now to present a joint or simultaneous note to Herr Hitler personally, setting forth that an attack on Czechoslovakia would immediately be followed by common action; and if at the same time President Roosevelt would proclaim that this note carried with it the moral sympathy of the United States, with all that would follow therefrom-there would be good hopes, if not indeed almost a certainty, of warding off the catastrophe which may so easily engulf our civilisation.
Why should we wait till the worst has happened before being ready to run risks? May not risks be run for peace, as great as those which, if the worst happens, will assuredly be run for victory? If this moment is lost through hesitancy, however well-meaning, and war should come, as come it may, perhaps quite soon, how vain will be reproaches and regrets, how vast the tragedy of mankind![16]
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