Foreign News

Four Chiefs, One Peace

At one of the most dangerous moments of the Czechoslovak crisis last week, when Britain and France were mobilizing for war and Adolf Hitler was adamant in repeating that the German Army would "march" unless Prague yielded to all his demands, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain adr dressed the Empire and the U. S. by radio, declared Fuehrer Hitler's demands "unreasonable." The next day, at a time of even greater tension he appealed to the Italian Premier Benito Mussolini to use his good offices with the Fuehrer.

At five minutes before noon on the fatal day, with German troops actually in motion toward the Czech border which they were to cross at 2 p.m., Il Duce in Rome rang up Chancellor Hitler at Berlin and they talked for 45 minutes. The Fuehrer had received that morning a second appeal for peace from President Roosevelt.

In the House of Commons, Neville Chamberlain seemed to be trending toward a declaration of war, when suddenly the Prime Minister began to tell how he had sent a letter to Il Duce urging him to contact the Fuehrer.

Precisely at this moment, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon handed the Prime Minister a message just received from the Fuehrer, and Neville Chamberlain, after reading it, went on with emotion in his voice:

"I have now been informed by Herr Hitler that he invites me to meet him in Munich tomorrow morning. The House will not need to ask me what my answer will be!"

Perhaps never before have statesmen of great powers negotiated so expeditiously. As fast as the Big Four agreed upon a basic point, their secretaries took this to an adjoining room, where it was dealt with by staff officers and legal experts, ironing out all details. "I am not going to quibble about a village!" was one of Hitler's cracks.

The Big Four decided that Germany is to get about 10,000 square miles of Czechoslovakia without plebiscite. The triumph of Germany was enormous, but not without limits, which were set as firmly as limits can be set in the Europe of 1938. If the crisis proved anything with finality, it proved that modern communication and enlightenment of the peoples reduce the chances of an outbreak of war. For the first time in history, a major conflict had been settled by talking instead of shooting first. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.