CZECHO-SLOVAKIA: New Ally

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Last November France formally recognized as a Government-in-exile the Czechoslovak National Committee which set up shop in the same old house on the Rue Bonaparte, Paris, where Czechs also worked for their freedom during World War I. Last week British Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax notified ex-President Eduard Benes of Czecho-Slovakia, leading committeeman, that His Majesty’s Government was also prepared to “afford all requisite support to the Committee in its activities.” Thus the Allies acquired a new ally, and a future Czecho-Slovakia, freed from German “protection,” had a new Government ready to move in and take over in case of Allied victory.

First committee business was to pronounce “null & void” the agreement signed last March by Czech President Emil Hacha. which made Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. The Committee can now conscript Czechs and Slovaks living in France and Great Britain into a Czechoslovak Legion headed by 45-year-old General Sergej Ingr, named Commander in Chief. Meanwhile, one of the Committee’s problems will be to dissuade Czechs under German rule from futile revolts. Onetime Minister to the Court of St. James’s Jan Masaryk warned his countrymen over the BBC that the present was not a propitious time for anti-Nazi agitation.