European Situation.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 4 October 1938.

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Photo of Mr Edward Burgin Mr Edward Burgin , Luton

The evidence in the possession of the Government shows that quite clearly, and it is supported definitely and clearly, in terms, by Lord Runciman. Many hon. Members who have travelled widely and know these countries and their peoples, and have had experience of life and rule in totalitarian districts and know something of conditions in Germany, will realise the truth of what I say. I want the House to admire an act of courage on the Prime Minister's part to which attention has not been called, as far as I am aware, in this Debate. At Godesberg, at his hotel, but a few hundred yards from where the German leader was staying, the Prime Minister was conducting negotiations. He was faced on the morning of 22nd September with an entirely unexpected demand, the demand that the occupation of Sudetenland should take place immediately by German troops. Traffic on the Rhine was held up, ferry boats were sent across, cars came up the hill, the populace were watching for the outward signs of the meeting of the two heads of State, when, to the consternation of the German people, the Prime Minister sent the cars back empty, the ferry boats returned across the Rhine, and a letter was sent, placing on record for the world to see the objections to the occupation by troops in the proposed manner.

This strong line had a marked effect on public opinion in Germany and throughout the world. A breakdown of conversations then and there was clearly a possibility. If a breakdown had occurred it would have been, in the opinion of the German people, due to some reason imposed by Herr Hitler. It would have been for some reason which the Prime Minister, as the embodiment of reasonable discussion, had felt incapable of acceptance. World opinion was not misled in the significance which it attached to these events. It required great personal courage to act in that way. The Prime Minister by that step made a stand for democracy which increased his powers of negotiation as the days went on and showed to the world—a world that had been watching, ever since the tape message of 14th September, the struggle between the demand for reasonable discussion and the insistent demand for the use of force. Hon. Members know the sequence of events. The reply to the Prime Minister's letter maintained the previous point of view. The Prime Minister saw Herr Hitler again that evening and obtained a document which constituted what was called the Hitler ultimatum. That was late on the night of the 23rd September. Still the assurance was given that the order to invade Czechoslovakia would not be given. On Saturday, the 24th September, the Prime Minister returned, and few will forget the week-end or the 48 hours which followed.

Faced with that ultimatum the Prime Minister might well have thought that his efforts at mediation had failed, more especially when the Czechslovak Government intimated their inability to accept the German terms. Everyone who has any experience in negotiations, whether commercial or in an industrial dispute, or more poignantly in an international situation, knows the immensely delicate nature of the attempt to make a last effort when the opposing sides are too far apart for the gulf to be bridged. The unfavourable response had been brought back from Godesberg, further personal contacts with the Führer had been made, opportunities of seeing what was in the Führer's mind had taken place. The German Government took the view that unless there was a plan of occupation time would merely be spent in discussion, and the day of rescue, as they called it, of the German-speaking peoples would be postponed. To the extent that contacts had helped to reveal what was really the source of trouble, time was not wasted, but the Prime Minister in all other respects, as he now recognises, drew a complete blank. Such was the determination of the Prime Minister to resolve this problem that after that week-end there was an emissary sent to Herr Hitler to see whether the possibility existed of bridging that gulf.

Time was running very fast, and it was on Tuesday, a week ago to-day, that negotiations appeared to have reached their most difficult point. The news filtered through of the intention to mobilise the German Army at 2 o'clock on the following day, and no one could foretell whether mobilisation would not immediately be followed by invasion. It was in these circumstances that we met less than a week ago.

Perhaps when we think of the ravages that a bombing aeroplane can bring about we might have a word of appreciation for the inventor of the civil aeroplane, without which the events of the Thursday and Friday of last week-end would never have occurred. [Interruption.] It is easier to put an argument in a continuous way if one may be allowed to do so. I was about to point out that a number of us who were at Heston on the morning of the 27th and saw the Prime Minister enter his aeroplane, were notified on the tape before we reached our Ministries that the 'plane had already crossed the North Sea and was over German territory. [HON. MEMBERS: "Wonderful."] Hon. Members do not still see the pace at which these situations are developing, and the tremendous demands that are thus made on those who are negotiating. No wonder it is not easy to retain one's sense of proportion. No wonder that, in looking back, there are those who do not see events in the same light as others. To those of us who have watched the situation develop month by month, who have ploughed hourly through sheaves of telegrams, who have moved the knobs of their wireless sets in the small hours of the morning and heard the whole of Europe talking about the situation, it is no wonder we believe that the ultimate conclusion whereby, through the tenacity of one man peace was rescued, is something of a miracle.

There are those who say that had greater firmness been shown there would have been no war. What is meant by that assertion? To prove a negative is notoriously difficult. If those who make that assertion are wrong they only discover their error too late for it to be put right. Yet he is a bold man who says that, once hostilities had begun in any part of the world, their area could have been circumscribed. All the evidence in our possession points to the fact that on 14th September the decision to invade Czechoslovakia had already been taken. There is no scrap of evidence anywhere that Herr Hitler would have refrained from ordering his troops to invade Czechoslovakia. The whole of the evidence overwhelmingly shows that, come what may, risking if need be a world war, he had intended to use his armies for the purpose of incorporating the Sudeten population and territory in the Reich, and I entirely fail to subscribe to the view that any concession made at any time would have prevented that result unless the Prime Minister himself had acted as he did.

The Prime Minister has described himself as a realist. I would remind hon. Members that the definition of a realist in my dictionary is "One who has a keen sense of things as they are, a freedom from illusion and a freedom from convention." I would like the House in looking at this matter to do so from two alternative points of view. First, that the real problem with which we were confronted was the problem relating to Czechoslovakia, a problem that could be adjusted either by autonomy within the State or, if that failed, by some rectification of boundaries, the taking of plebiscites and similar measures, and, secondly, that the real problem was not one of Czechoslovakia at all but was rather the problem of a threat to the Democracies by the totalitarian States, Czechoslovakia merely being used as a pawn in a game on the world chessboard.

Let us examine both points of view. In either event you come back to one common feature, the inability to regulate the extent of the trouble if open warfare once breaks out. If this dispute were one about Czechoslovakia, you find on examination of the documents—and the more they are examined the more certainly will the country's verdict be the one that I predict—that the Czechoslovak State, so far as its Sudeten population was concerned, was already breaking up. At one time it looked as if local autonomy on Swiss lines, a cantonal federal system, might work, but immediately by the pressure of events that system had become inadequate, and Lord Runciman's view was that nothing short of a cession of territory would meet the situation. Once a cession of territory is the solution, geographical, economic and political consequences immediately flow. The carrying out of the cession becomes not a matter of principle but of procedure, not of whether but of how. It will be found that the view that this problem was in essence a problem of method was very widely realised. The method of diplomacy, of an International Commission had arisen and was insisted upon by the Democracies. It was ultimately accepted by the totalitarian States, and immediately that acceptance became possible agreement ensued and is now in process of being carried out.

If, on the other hand, you take the view that the whole matter is Machiavellian, that it is a step in a deep-laid scheme to assume world dominion that the grievances of the Sudeten people were inflamed, you are still face to face with the same problem that you are considering, on your own showing, not a defence of Democracy but an attack on the totalitarian system. Admittedly, on geographical considerations the defence in these circumstances of Czechoslovakia becomes impossible. No allied army could reach Czechoslovakia, no war, however successful, by the Democracies and their Allies, against the totalitarian States and their friends could ever restore the Czechoslovakian State.