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Interwar Destiny of Hapsburg Empire’s Successors
(Proved on the Case of Czechoslovakia)
MILAN ZEMKO
Institute of Historical Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava
The modern nationalism of the last two centuries was one of important sources of dramatic
development in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. At the first time, this development
culminated in the First World War and, in spite of peace treaties and peaceful illusions, it
continued up to the end of the 30s of the last century and, at the second time, it reached its
climax in much greater dimensions in the Second World War. In connection with the modern
nationalism, we in Eastern Europe, have used to hear about “defensive“ nationalism of small
nations or ethnic minorities and about “aggressive“ one of great, mostly ruling nations.1 Of
course, it is not always simple to distinguish, in the course of the historical time, one kind of
nationalism from another. Besides, the ruling élites of great and powerful nations and their
ideologists have used to speak about nationalist or separatist positions and deeds of small,
dependent (or oppressed) ethnics or nations whereas their own positions and deeds have been
considered by them as patriotic. The notion “nationalist“ has, of course, in this sense, a
negative meaning and the notion “patriotic“ a positive one, although, behind the declared
patriotism there might be hidden a very aggressive oppression and assimilation politics
towards smaller, weaker ethnics or nations. That was the situation, for exemple, of ethnic
minorities in historical Hungary or in Czarist Russia before October 1918 or March 1917
when a patriotic attitude of members of non-Magyar (non-Russian) minorities towards their
Hungarian (Russian) homeland has been assessed by dominating Hungaro-Magyar (Russian)
political and social élites by their preparedness for language and ethnic assimilation.2
Since the beginning of the 20th century the international conflicts were connected with
imperial politics of European great powers and, on the western part of the globe, of the United
States, but the notion “imperialism“ had at that time not only general negative meaning in the
sense of Lenin’s anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist philippics3 but also positive one. For
example, Joseph Chamberlain or Cecil Rhodes, and surely not only these two English
gentlemen, were proud British imperialists persuaded of their beneficial spread of the most
1
For example, Great-Russian, Great-German or Magyar nationalism on the one hand, and nationalism of Baltic
nations, Finns, Poles and oppressed nations of Hapsburg Empire, on the other.
2
This kind of “patriotism“ was applied powerfully and systematically, for example, in Hungary up to October
1918, by Hungaro-Magyar political and social élites to non-Magyar inhabitants of the country.
3
In the most systematic form, in Lenin‘s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916).
advanced civilization.4
--- --- --The nations or ethnic minorities of Hapsburg Empire got into the great turmoil of the world
and especially European events, first of all, in consequence of the outbreak of the World War
I, which had caused by then unprecedented victims on human life and health but, at the same
time, it became a chance for the Hapsburg Empire’s ethnics or nations5 to change radically
their actual situation and their future. This time, not in the frame of the old Empire but in
totally new states built on the ruins of it.
I would like to stress some causes of the Hapsburg Empire’s decline, namely, the following
ones: its domestic politics inertia before the World War I,6 the inability of the last Hapsburg
ruler, Charles I, to emancipate himself from the dependence on the German Reich during the
war,7 the defeat in the Great War as well as a political and military struggle of exile political
representations of smaller nations in the Hapsburg Empire for their national independence,
with the support of their fellow-countrymen on the domestic political scene in the last months
of the war.8
The way la Grande Guerre was finished, namely, by defeat of the Central Powers, and
backing by the victorious Allied Powers of political aspirations of some Hapsburg Empire’s
nations (independent states for ethnic Czechs, Slovaks and Poles or unification with
neighbour states in case of ethnic Rumanians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Italians) created
principally new situation in Central and South East Europe, or in the wide European region
between the defeated German Reich and the weakened Soviet Russia. The new after-war
situation brought new, till then still unknown possibilities and perspectives for the small
nations, e. g., for us – the Slovaks or Czechs, Poles, etc., but, new dangers and dependences
for all the new countries, too.
4
HARENBERG, Bodo (ed.). Kronika ľudstva, the 2. Slovak ed. Bratislava: Fortuna Print 1993, pp. 770, 796,
835.
5
In Austrian part of Hapsburg Empire, there were following nations and ethnics of sociological and partly also
political importance: the Germans, Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Italians; in Hungarian part – the
Magyars, Slovaks, Rumanians, Croats, Germans, Serbs, Ruthenians and, in both parts of the Empire as an
important religious and cultural entity – the Jews. In the annexed Bosna-Herzegovina, in addition to the Serbs
and Croats there was also religious and cultural entity – Moslems.
6
See SKED, Alan. Úpadek a pád Habsburské říše (The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815 -1918).
Prague: Panevropa 1995, Chapter 5 and 6.
7
See GALANDAUER, Jan – HONZÍK, Miroslav. Osud trůnu habsburského (The Fate of the Hapsburg Throne).
Prague: Panorama 1982, pp. 227-232, HRONSKÝ, Marián. Boj o Slovensko a Trianon 1918 – 1920 (in English
translation The Struggle for Slovakia and the Treaty of Trianon 1918 - 1920. Bratislava: VEDA-Vydavateľstvo
SAV 2001) Bratislava: Národné literárne centrum 1998, pp. 29-31.
8
As for the struggle of the Czech and Slovak political representation abroad, see the memories of its two most
important personalities: MASARYK, Tomáš G.: Světová revoluce. Za války a ve válce 1914 – 1918 . (The
World Revolution. During the War and in the War 1914 – 1918). Prague: Orbis and Čin 1925, BENEŠ, Edvard.
Světová válka a naše revoluce (World War and our Revolution), Vol. I-III, Prague: Čin and Orbis 1927.
American president Woodrow Wilson had the ambition to finish la Grande Guerre by a fair
peace, guaranteed by fair peace treaties and by a new international or world institution – the
League of Nations.9 However, Europe, disintegrated already before the war, was divided into
victorious powers (inclusive new Central- and East-European countries – Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Yugoslavia or enlarged Rumania) and defeated ones (Germany, Austria, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Turkey), with , up to some time, isolated Soviet Russia in the “background”. The
Versailles peace system was considered by the defeated countries (but also by the Soviet
Russia) as unjust, which generated among them territorial revisionism, especially in Germany
and Hungary.10
Leading Czechoslovak politicians relied on the Versailles peace system and on some
guaranties of democratic Western Powers, first of all, of France, given to the new
Czechoslovak Republic. But, already since the second part of the 20s, the tendency to revise
the Versailles peace system has been more and more obvious. Since that time, one could
recognize the origin of some kind of vicious circle, in which Czechoslovak foreign policy and
its most visible representative, the long-standing foreign minister and the second
Czechoslovak president, Edvard Beneš volens nolens began to move.
As early as the emergence of the Versailles peace system, there were certain differences
manifested in opinions of the victorious Allied Powers concerning the post-war development
in the world and in Europe and, especially, in their attitude towards defeated Germany.11
These political disagreements generating from different power and economic interests and
visions of the Great War victors, continued to exist and to enlarge in the following years, and
stood at origin of future enormous substantial problems at first of some smaller Central
European countries and, at the end of the 30s, also of victorious war powers themselves.
One of the impulses to the vicious circle of the interwar European policy was given by the
USA, when the Congress as well as American public opinion preferred to return (against the
will of president W. Wilson) back to the isolation from the European policy and refused the
membership of the USA in the League of Nations.12 Mussolini’s Italy was the first victorious
war power which began to support the idea of territorial revisionism in Central Europe,
9
Report of an active British participant on the conference see in: NICOLSON, Harold. Peacemaking 1919. New
Edition, re-set and New Introduction. London: Constable and Co. Ltd. 1945, pp. 31-33 and passim. Also
MACMILLAN, Margaret. Mírotvorci. Pařížská konference 1919 (Peacemakers. Paris Conference 1919). Prague:
Akademie 2004, Second Part, passim.
10
German revisionism concerned, especially under foreign minister Gustav Stresemann in the 20s, first of all to
the territories annexed by Poland, but without any radicalism. Hungarian (Magyar) revisionism was, from the
very begin, that is, since Trianon Peace Treaty, oriented against all neighbours, which had won former territories
of Hungarian Kingdom.
11
MACMILLAN, Margaret, the quoted work, the Fourth Part, passim.
12
More about American isolationism after World War I, see KISSINGER, Henry. Umění diplomacie.
(Diplomacy). Prague: Prostor 1999.
mainly, Hungarian revisionism.13 Great Britain has gradually accepted the idea of a
“reasonable“ revision of peace treaties in Central Europe with the following strengthening of
Germany’s position in this region.14 France, the capital guarantor of the Versailles peace
system was, step by step and especially in the second half of the 30s, loosing its political
ground in Central and South East Europe.15 Thus, Czechoslovakia slowly got into insolvable
international situation between old allies (and protectors) loosing their interest in Central
Europe and in Czechoslovakia and revisionist neighbours expecting to destroy the country.
The so-called Little Entente, alliance of Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia, was not
powerful enough to be able to efficiently help Czechoslovakia in great international crisis and,
in the second half of the 30s, leading Yugoslav politicians were loosing their interest in
common cooperation, to great dissatisfaction of the second Czechoslovak president, Edward
Beneš.16
The leading Czechoslovak politicians of mid-30s were looking for new security guaranties of
Czechoslovakia in the so-called collective security with an engagement of the Soviet Union
but, ally treaties between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia and
France were not effective. That was obvious in September 1938 international crisis
concerning German population in Czechoslovak Sudetenland with its unraveling in the
Munich Agreement between two democratic and two totalitarian European powers but
without Czechoslovak participation.
--- --- --However, we cannot forget conflicting domestic development in Czechoslovakia, in the era of
continuing European nationalism. Czechoslovakia, just like Yugoslavia or Poland, was
established as a “mini-empire“ to use the label of British historian Raymond Pearson.17 The
dominating Czechs had only very narrow majority, and with the Slovaks, with whom they
13
Mussolini was never content with the results of World War I for Italy. The treaty with Hungary of April 1927
was oriented against the Little Entente and at the same time, it should strengthen Italy’s position in Central
Europe. See TARABA, Luboš. DUCE. Anatomie jedné kariéry (DUCE. Anathomy of one Career) Prague:
Horizont 1992, p. 137, 140.
14
British premier in the time of peace conferences, David Lloyd George as well as some other British politicians,
among them Labourist ones, were very critical to the Versailles peace system and with prime minister Arthur N.
Chamberlain in spring 1937, the era of the “appeasement“ helped to the expansion of Nazi Germany in Central
Europe up to the destruction of Austria, then Czechoslovakia and the begin of the World War II in Europe.
15
About the changing French positions in the 30s, see KVAČEK, Robert. Nad Evropou zataženo (About Europe
it is Cloudy), Prague: Svoboda 1966, about decline of French power positions also KISSINGER, Henry.Umění
diplomacie. (Diplomacy). Prague: Prostor 1999.
16
BENEŠ, Edvard. Paměti (Memories). Prague: Orbis 1947, pp. 35-36, 49-54.
17
PEARSON, Raymond. Národ a formovanie národnej štátnosti vo východnej Európe 1914 – 1945 (Nation and
a Forming of National Statehood in the Eastern Europe 1914 – 1945). In: KOVÁČ, Dušan (Ed.) História a
politika. Tretie bratislavské sympózium 1992. (History and Politics. The III. Bratislava Symposium 1992).
Bratislava: Česko-slovenský výbor Európskej kultúrnej nadácie 193, p. 61.
were formally united into one “Czechoslovak nation“, they had only less than two thirds of
Czechoslovak population.18 Ethnic minorities, first of all, the major ones – the Germans and
Magyars – could use wide minority rights,19 nevertheless, they were not able or prepared to
accept Czechoslovakia as their new homeland, despite the participation of some “activist“
German political parties in Czechoslovak governments in the period 1926 – 1938. One of the
substantial causes of that situation was centralist administration by Prague governments and
relatively limited competences of local and regional bodies. Another serious problem was
complicated economic situation of regions inhabited by ethnic minorities, particularly, since
the beginning of the great economic crisis of the thirties. The great ethnic minorities could
also very hardly accept “the Czech domination” after many centuries of their own domination,
up to 1918, over the Czechs and Slovaks on the territories of which the new Czechoslovak
State emerged.
This situation, with continuing nationalism on both or all sides, was also a consequence of the
continuing revisionist pressure, first of all, from Hungary, already since the conclusion of
Trianon peace treaty in 1920. In the second half of the 30s, the Nazi Germany also escalated
its pressure on Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovak authorities came too late, practically as late as
spring 1938, with an intention to introduce wider set of self-government elements for ethnic
minorities. The governmental proposals prepared in summer of that year were opposed by
radical demands of German national minority led by the Sudetendeutsche Partei, supported
and incited by the Nazi Germany with its principal aim – to separate the Czechoslovak
territory inhabited by the German majority population from the Czechoslovak Republic, to
annex it to Germany and, in this way, to weaken the Republic before its definitive
annihilating.20 The first objective was attained at the Munich conference in September 1938
and, in March 1939, thus reduced and weakened Czecho-Slovakia (the so- called Second
Republic) was divided by Nazi duress and force and its Western part was occupied by
Germany as the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The eastern part of the
former Republic constituted the Slovak State, some months later according to its Constitution,
the Slovak Republic, formally independent but in reality a satellite state of Nazi Germany.
Thus, inter-war Czechoslovakia was obliged to pay a very high price at the end of 30s, by its
temporary decline for its multiethnic character and inability to reconstruct in due time the
country with centralist government into some form of a federal republic, but also, or first of
18
According to the 1921 census, “Czechoslovak“ ethnicity made up 64.78 % of total population (13 613 172
citizens and foreigners), German – 23.64 %, Magyar – 5.60 %, Ruthenians or Russian – 3.51 %, Jewish – 1.40
%, Polish – 0.81 %, and other ethnics – 0.26 %. But if we take separately the Czechs and Slovaks, then number
of the Czechs was narrow over 50 % and the Slovaks narrow over 14 %.
19
The ethnic minority rights were very wide in the sphere of using minority languages in public and especially
cultural life, in education in minority languages and partly in local government.
20
Hitler’s military plan “Fall Grün“ for annihilating Czechoslovakia was not “thanks“ to Western powers
employed, the Nazi power was successful without any struggle.
all, for territorial ambitions of revisionist powers (Germany and Hungary, but also Poland)
and, on the other hand, for growing lack of interest of Western democratic powers in the
future of Central Europe and, especially, of Czechoslovakia.
Important but less urgent in the interwar Czechoslovakia was the Slovak question, that is, the
question whether the Slovaks represented a separate cultural nation or only a part of
Czechoslovak cultural nation for some politicians and a part of the public a part of the cultural
Czech nation living in the Slovak territory of the Republic.21 This question was resolved only
after Munich conference, when the Czech political representation accepted distinctiveness of
Slovak nation as well as establishment of the Slovak political autonomy. Since March 14,
1939, Slovakia was officially an independent state, but in reality a vassal state of Nazi
Germany. In the Slovak National Uprising in autumn 1944, the Slovaks rejected the vassal
regime of Slovak collaborators and supported the restoration of common democratic
Czechoslovak state together with the Czechs.
--- --- --The Second World War brought about – after the second defeat of Germany – restoration of
Czechoslovakia in 1945 with very hard consequences first of all for German minority and
partly for Magyar minority, too.22 Since that time Czechoslovakia became a country of two
cultural nations ─ the Czechs and Slovaks, with reduced number of ethnic minorities. For
over forty years, it has been also a country with totalitarian Communist regime and, at the
same time, the satellite of the Soviet Union. After almost half a century since the restoration
of Czechoslovak Republic in 1945, and only three years after the fall of the Communist
regime, on January 1st, 1993 this country was divided once more. But this time, in different
way and with different consequences for the future of the Czechs and Slovaks and their
countries than it was in 1939.
The causes of this second division were once more international and domestic. The
international causes rested in absence of direct great power influence after the collapse of the
Soviet Union as a superpower. The domestic causes rested in disability of Czech and Slovak
21
The two Czechoslovak presidents during the “First Republic“, that is, up to Munich, as well as a great part of
political and academic élites were partisans of one ethnic and cultural “Czechoslovak nation“. In Slovakia, the
attitude to this idea was more complicated but in the 30s the idea of two separate, state-forming nations – Czech
and Slovak ones – was already dominating.
22
About three millions of Germans were “evacuated“ (or drived out), according to Potsdam decision of the three
victorious powers, from Czechoslovakia into Germany and Austria. As for the Magyars in Slovakia, up to one
hundred thousand were “changed“ for Slovaks living in Hungary and, for three years, there was an intensive but
unsuccessful attempt to change the ethnic identity of the rest of Magyars. Up to this time, about half a million of
Magyars are living in Slovakia, once more with wide ethnic minority rights.
political élites to find in the restored parliamentary democracy for federative Czecho-Slovak
state such state-forming principles, which would be acceptable for both the Czechs and the
Slovaks. The peoples in both parts of the Czecho-Slovak Federation were not enthusiastic
about the division of the common state but they did not want any “Belgian circumstances“
in inter-ethnic relations, in the time of the great economic and social transformation of the two
parts of the country after the fall of the Communist regime. The two nations could afford such
destabilizing circumstances neither for a short time.
The peaceful split of the Czecho-Slovak Federation into two independent states has helped
establish much better relations between the Czechs and Slovaks since that time, the opinion
about these relations accepted by the majority of politicians and inhabitants in the two
countries – the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic, now actively cooperating in the
European Union, the Atlantic Alliance and other international associations.
Cituj:
ZEMKO, Milan. Interwar Destiny of Hapsburg Empire’s Successors (Proved on the Case of Czechoslovakia)
http://www.forumhistoriae.sk/e_kniznica/historiography-zemko.pdf
HU
UH
Remark: The paper has been written in the frame of the research project VEGA No. 2/0122/09: Občianska
spoločnosť na Slovensku počas prvej Československej republiky (Civic society in Slovakia during the first
Czechoslovak Republic).