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In the Way, Benes has only to thumb through a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to learn that the future of Germany, according to the dramatic Führer, lies in Eastern Europe—in the fertile, wheat-producing Russian Ukraine. And Benes knows that one German road to the Ukraine leads over his fence, up the Elbe, through Prague, across the rest of Czechoslovakia and a narrow 125-mile strip of Rumania. Benes is fully aware of Czechoslovakia's road-blocking position. Not impervious to drama himself, he told New York Timeswoman Anne O'Hare McCormick four months ago: "The destiny of Europe will be decided here. This country is a natural and necessary point for European equilibrium. If this position is given up all of Central Europe is gone." Bismarck put the same thing more succinctly years before. "Whoever is master of Bohemia is master of Europe," said the Iron Chancellor.
President Benes believes that the "Fascintern" will collapse of its own armor-plated weight. He thinks the job of the democracies is to avoid war at almost any cost until time comes to their side. Eduard Benes is thus an optimist. He refuses to believe that Germany will attack his little State. His optimism he bases on three considerations:
1) His defenses. With a standing army of 180,000, which may be upped by 1,500,000 reserves, many of them Sokol-trained, a force of 1,350 first and second-line planes and an extensive "Maginot Line" of concrete fortifications and emplacements rooted in the Sudetens, President Benes believes he could hold off a German attack for three weeks. By falling back to a second defense line in the cross-country high Moravian plateau east of Prague, his general staff is convinced the nation could hang on for three months more.
2) His foreign alliances would, during this time, come well into play. As Foreign Minister, Statesman Benes tied Czechoslovakia to a Little Entente alliance with Yugoslavia and Rumania against Hungary, a defensive alliance with France against Germany and an alliance with Russia that is predicated on France carrying out her obligations to Czechoslovakia in case Germany attacks. Czechoslovakians do not let visitors forget that they are blood cousins of the great Slav state of Russia. Eduard Benes naturally hopes for fulfillment of the pacts he drew up. But Yugoslavia and Rumania are gravitating closer to the Rome-Berlin axis, French Rightists openly predict that France will never come to the little nation's aid and even French Socialists and Radical Socialists are lukewarm to the pledge. The effectiveness of Russian assistance, weakened by purges in the Red Army and by internal conditions, is a large unknown. However, what Bismarck said about Bohemia still holds, and if Czechoslovakia's allies might not come to the aid of Czechoslovakia, they might come to the aid of democracy and Europe.