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1

EDVARD BENES AND THE POLISH QUESTION WITH THE CONTEXT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK-SOVIET CONVENTION OF 1943

100%
Seges D.
Dzieje Najnowsze
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2006
|
issue 3
17-53
EN
Due to its importance and consequences the Czechoslovak–Soviet convention transcended the rank of a bilateral agreement. The act of its signing and the steps taken by the Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes exerted an adverse impact on the situation of the Polish government-in-exile from the viewpoint of Polish-Soviet relations. The article focuses on the reaction of Polish government circles to E. Benes' activity on the international arena on the eve of his journey to Moscow, and assesses the Czechoslovak-Soviet convention prior to and after its signature from the perspective of Polish interests. The decisions made by the Czechoslovak President during this period demonstrate that he was not a convenient partner for Poland. E. Benes treated the question of a confederation with Poland as a mere political manoeuvre during a period which he regarded as unfavourable, and intended to adapt the provisional Czechoslovak government-in-exile to the line represented by plans for supranational unions. He also depicted J. V. Stalin as a trustworthy partner, a likeness at odds with reality. At the time of the talks held with Soviet dignitaries in Moscow (December 1943) Benes acted to the detriment of the Polish government, and readily joined Stalin's game involving 'good' and 'bad' Poles; such conduct produced the impression that he acted as a Soviet Intelligence agent. In his appraisal of the political decisions made by Stalin, the latter's steps towards Central-Eastern Europe, and the actual nature of the Soviet regime, Benes, similarly to other representatives of the Czechoslovak authorities abroad, demonstrated considerable naivete. The President of Czechoslovakia was wrong in his evaluation of the policy pursed by the Soviet Union, as he was to find out already in 1944 while observing the Kremlin policy towards the Subcarpathian Rus' region, a clear violation of the agreements of the Czechoslovak-Soviet convention of December 1943. The loss of this territory became the reason why E. Benes was unable to achieve the prime purpose of Czechoslovak foreign policy - the revival of Czechoslovakia within pre-Munich frontiers. His next mistake was an incorrect estimation of the situation of the Czechoslovak communists, expressed directly after his visit to Moscow in 1943, and testified by the events which transpired in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, when they assumed power for more than forty years.
2
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Dva nové dokumenty o návštěvě prezidenta Edvarda Beneše ve Spojených státech amerických a Kanadě v květnu–červnu 1943

80%
Dejmek J.
Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)
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2008
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vol. 16
291-320
EN
Two new documents are published here providing important information about the visit of President Edvard Benes to the USA and Canada in May-June 1943. The author of the first, quite detailed report describing the President's visit to the United States and the first comments was one of Benes' closest collaborators during the first phase of resistance movement Jan Papanek, a long-time Czechoslovak consul in Pittsburg and later a leading worker of the Czechoslovak Information Service in New York. The document describes also the course of the visit, records the President's important speeches and thus completes the materials published before, which mostly concerned his talks with American statesmen. The other report included here was written by the first Czechoslovak Ambassador to Canada Frantisek Pavlasek, and describes the course of and responses to Benes' visit to the Maple Leaf Country. Both documents extend our current knowledge of the responses to Benes' visits to a number of Czech and Slovak communities as well as to other refugee and exile groups, such as Polish, Ruthenian and Hungarian.
3

ÉMIGRÉ CZECHOSLOVAK AUTHORITIES AND THE PERSPECTIVE OF A VISIT BY EDVARD BENES TO MOSCOW (JUNE-OCTOBER 1943)

80%
Kaminski M. K.
Dzieje Najnowsze
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2007
|
issue 3
57-87
EN
In June 1943 the pro-Soviet foreign policy pursued by Edvard Benes encountered serious obstacles created by the British side. The latter had recognised that an alliance involving the Benes team and the Soviet government would further isolate the Polish government-in-exile and make it difficult to induce the Soviet side to re-establish diplomatic relations. Anthony Eden, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, was not so much against the visit paid by the Czechoslovak leader in Moscow as a friendship, mutual assistance and post-war cooperation treaty, to be signed upon that occasion. At the some time, he referred to the oral ascertainment of June and July 1942, binding both for the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, and relating to the avoidance of alliance treaties with lesser Allied state. The Soviet side refused to acknowledge that it had accepted any sort of limitations and rejected the possibility of Benes's arrival to Moscow without attaining a subsequent political treaty. The President represented a stand claiming that the British and the Soviet Union should resolve such divergences before his planned trip to the USSR. The Czechoslovak authorities started to disclose certain differences in their approach to the whole issue. Jan Masaryk, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, appeared not to advocate a hurried alliance with the Soviet Union. Hubert Ripka, a Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was inclined to accuse Benes of being insufficiently pro-Soviet. The Czechoslovak government, headed by Prime Minister Jan Sramek, fearing the Council of State, in which particular activity was displayed by the communists and their advocates, opted for an anti-British course, thus generating a diplomatic note, the government resolution of 24 September 1943. The British riposte assumed the form of a memorandum of 16 October 1943 in which the British rejected the Czechoslovak thesis maintaining that initially, in April 1943, they had been kindly disposed towards the conception of the Czechoslovak-Soviet alliance and then in June 1943 they had changed their opinion. Benes was greatly displeased with the clash with the British side, and put the blame on Ripka. Ultimately, in the course of the Moscow conference of the ministers of foreign affairs of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, Eden ceded to Molotov, 24 October 1943, and consented to Benes coming to Moscow for the purpose of signing an alliance treaty. The Czechoslovak President could, therefore, briefly enjoy an illusory satisfaction, unable to understand that the political line accepted by him would render Czechoslovakia a vassal of the Soviet Union.
4

GENERAL WLADYSLAW SIKORSKI'S GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND IN LONDON (JULY-SEPTEMBER 1940) AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PROVISIONAL CZECHOSLOVAK GOVERNMENT

80%
Kaminski M. K.
Dzieje Najnowsze
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2004
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issue 1
88-99
EN
Edvard Benes' attemts to gain in 1940 British recognition of the Czechoslovak National Committee, evacuated from France, as the Provisional Czechoslovak Government met with reservation and he was not granted the official status of the head of the Czechoslovak state abroad. In contrast to the French and British government, initially the Polish government did not recognise the Czechoslovak National Committee because of Benes' earlier rejection of the proposed Polish conditions. However, on 29 July 1940 the Polish Council of Ministers decided to recognise the Provisional Government and informed the Czechoslovak side that it did so in the firm conviction that the new government would acknowledge Polish-Czechoslovak borders from October 1938 and strive towards to an arrangement of friendly relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks. The Polish Prime Minister, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, also allowed Benes to impose the grounds for a discussion about the future social structure of Poland, in this way irresponsibly permitting outside intervention in the domestic issues of the Polish state and society. Furthermore, Sikorski convinced the Polish government to withdraw financial subventions for the 'Polish-Czechoslovak Cultural Co-Operation Circle', thus putting a halt to further effective co-operation with Milan Hodza, a rival of Benes, who attempted to assume the role of a representative of the Slovak population in the future Czechoslovakia. The Polish authorities ineffectively tried to persuade the British authorities to discharge Hodza's co-workers, interned at Benes' request, thus opting for co-operation with him despite the mistrust of the particular members of the Polish cabinet.
5

GREAT BRITTAIN IN THE DIPLOMACY OF EDVARD BENES (OCTOBER 1938 - AUGUST 1942)

80%
Zulawski v. G. R.
Dzieje Najnowsze
|
2006
|
issue 2
31-53
EN
Dr. Edvard Benes the last president of the First Czechoslovak Republic decided to went on exile just after the Munich agreement ( IX 1938) hoping to act for the restoration of Czechoslovakia. Still some room for his political activity was opened after , the Germans entranced Prague on March 15th 1939, thus crushing the Munich agreement. From the very beginning he aimed to create a kind of Czechoslovak Government in exile and if possible to reconstruct the entire political structure of the Czechoslovak state temporary abroad, claiming that the First Czechoslovak Republic according to it's constitution and it's law had never ceased to exist. However, Stefan Osuský and Milan Hodza - both Slovak politicians supported by the French government - were developing a strong opposition against Benes leadership. Due to that opposition combined with the unfavourable attitude of the British and the French authorities Benes failed in his attempt to create the Czechoslovak government in exile just after the outbreak of the war in September 1939. Still Czechoslovak exiles managed to obtain the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Committee by two allied governments. Benes had to wait till July 1940 when the military catastrophe of France destroyed the political position of his opponents. Still even then, although the British announced the recognition of the so called Czechoslovak Provisional Government, they refused to admit the uninterrupted existence of the Czechoslovak state. Whole next year Benes took up the attempts to eliminate the adjective Provisional and obtain the full recognition for the Czechoslovak Government. It was the German attack on the USSR on June 1941 and the Soviet support for the Czechoslovak demands that eventually made British Government to grant on July 1941 full recognition for the Czechoslovak Government and Benes as the President of the Czechoslovak Republic in exile. Still all the reservation that were made in July 1940 were sustained in July 1941. Even after long diplomatic negotiations which finally ended in August 1942 when British Government proclaimed to be not influenced in his further policy by Munich agreement any more, it still refused to guarantee any Czechoslovak frontiers and to recognise the uninterrupted existence of the First Czechoslovak Republic.
6

THE VISIT PAID BY EDVARD BENES IN MOSCOW IN DECEMBER 1943

80%
Kaminski M. K.
Dzieje Najnowsze
|
2008
|
issue 2
61-84
EN
The titular visit was the outcome of six months of efforts made by Czechoslovak diplomacy. The prime item on the agenda was the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of friendship, mutual assistance and post-war cooperation signed on 12 December 1943. Benes was under the impression that in this way he would guarantee the independence and sovereignty of Czechoslovakia and non-ntervention in her domestic affairs. Just as essential were the talks held by the President with Stalin and Molotov. Benes presented postulates that both Soviet leaders appeared to approve, e. g. the transfer of the German and Hungarian minorities from the Czechoslovak state. The President could, therefore, consider that he had succeeded by achieving understanding on the part of the Soviet dictator and his commissar for foreign affairs. Meanwhile, at Molotov's suggestion, Stalin rejected the possibility of signing any sort of obligations in the protocol prepared by Benes on assorted questions discussed in the bilateral talks. Naturally, both Soviet leaders stressed that they could not interfere in the internal issues of the Czechoslovak state, which did not prevent Stalin from expressing the opinion that Czechoslovakia should get rid of 'old democracy', conceived as 'incapable of further existence' and doomed to fall. Communists inspired by the dictator, and headed by Gottwald, began to put pressure on Benes, a tactic that was to destabilise the Czechoslovak émigré authorities as the war was nearing its end. The President not only succumbed, but also proposed to create within the post-war Czechoslovak government a bloc of left-wing parties in which the leading role would be played by the communists. For all practical purposes, Benes had severely impaired the cause of the independent Czechoslovak state. His policy could also have adverse consequences on the future fate of Central-Eastern Europe. This threat became increasingly vivid when, queried by Stalin, Benes spoke about Polish affairs and seemed to suggest to the Soviet dictator a further course of conduct vis a vis the legal Polish government-in-exile. At the same time, he declared support for Soviet efforts to disintegrate the Polish authorities in London. An assessment of Benes' visit must lead to the conclusion that his appeasement policy regarding Soviet strivings towards territorial and systemic expansion was doomed to fail, a course of events that the President of Czechoslovakia appeared not to appreciate.
7
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Československo-italská politická smlouva z roku 1924

70%
Houska O.
Český časopis historický (The Czech Historical Review)
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2009
|
vol. 107
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issue 1
95-118
EN
This study is devoted to the Czechoslovak-Italian Treaty on Collaboration of 1924. It analyses the motivation of both parties, which led them to sign the Treaty, and the circumstances leading to its conclusion. It then, shows that Czechoslovakia and Italy never, in fact, observed the Treaty in their relations and it was, thus, of no real importance. Czechoslovakia was, nevertheless, interested in extending the force of this Treaty, but this was rejected by Italy. The Treaty consequently expired in 1929.
8

CESTA PREZIDENTA BENEŠE NA SLOVENSKO V ROCE 1936 A JEJÍ OHLAS V ČESKÉM A SLOVENSKÉM TISKU

61%
Vašek R.
Historický časopis (Historical Journal)
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2011
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vol. 59
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issue 4
705 – 733
EN
The study describes the visit of President Beneš to Slovakia in 1936 and the re-actions to it on the pages of the Czech and Slovak press. It considers not only the immediate reactions and editorials, but also attempts to capture the often different perceptions of the importance of the Slovak problem among the Czech and Slovak public. The analysis of the responses to the President’s visit help to elucidate Beneš’s views on the Slovak question, especially in relation to the wide spectrum of his supporters and opponents.
9
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Hledání Benešova nástupce. Zákulisí jmenování československého ministra zahraničí

51%
Septak M.
Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)
|
2011
|
vol. 19
|
issue 1
105-122
EN
The worsening health of Tomas G. Masaryk made the question of his successor closely linked with the appointment of a new head of the country's diplomacy, since the President in case of his abdication designated Benes as his successor. Based on unpublished sources of Czech and Austrian origin, memoirs and professional literature the author analyzes in his study the background of the appointment of a successor to Benes between 1934 and 1936. Much attention is paid to the implementation of foreign policy by Milan Hodza, as it was at that time that the key negotiations concerning the appointment of a new head of the Foreign Office were taking place. The strongest 'Czechoslovak' Agrarian Party, seeking redress for its failure at the recent Presidential election, wished to have in that position its own candidate and refused to accept Kamil Krofta, suggested by Benes. Hodza's poor success and some of his wrongdoings soon caused his recall and helped Benes to put through Krofta's candidacy. Thus, the President could continue significantly influencing the formulation of Czechoslovak foreign policy.
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