To the world this week, Czechoslovakia was a heroic nation. Its President Eduard Benes not only proved himself heroic, but was hailed with even more reason than at any time during the last 20 years as "Europe's Smartest Little Statesman." After Dr. Benes received the British and French demand that he yield to Germany most of the Sudeten territory of Czechoslovakia, it was smart to keep the Great Powers waiting nervously for 30 hours last week while in Prague the President and Premier Milan Hodza labored with legal experts, finally produced not a note of capitulation but a suave reply to Britain and France in which the Czecho-slovak Government offered to "arbitrate the whole Sudeten question under an old treaty with Germany which they had dug out of their files.
"Yield Unconditionally!" It was smart of Dr. Benes then to go to bed in Prague as though he had disposed of the matter and have to be waked up at 2 :00 a. m. by the Ministers of Britain and France who were kept arguing until 3:30 r. m. in their efforts to make a clear cut demand that Czechoslovakia "yield unconditionally." Every hour counts when it is a question of mobilization and counter mobilization —even more when it was a question of how Dr. Benes could gain precious hours in which anti-Nazi public opinion could emerge from groping bewilderment in Britain and France, begin to gather strength against Germany and her demands.
Typical of what was happening in millions of minds was the reaction of M. Leon Blum, Socialist leader of the most influential party in France and the only Jew ever to become its Premier. "War has probably been averted," wrote Editor Blum in Le Populaire, "but I feel myself divided between cowardly relief and my sense of shame." Only 36 hours later Leon Blum blazed up and withdrew his Socialist Party's support from the demands which French Premier Edouard Daladier and British Prime Minister Chamberlain had made upon Prague. Although these demands had just been ''unanimously approved" by the whole French Cabinet, three of its members suddenly changed their minds and wrote out their resignations, were with difficulty persuaded by Premier Edouard Daladier to change their minds again, remain in the Cabinet.
Meanwhile, President Benes and Premier Hodza "yielded unconditionally" to the Anglo-French demands. This may have been smart, too, for the news that Prague had apparently crumpled up in abject surrender caused Adolf Hitler to feel that he need not hurl the German Army at once into Sudetenland. Finally, it was smart for the Hodza Cabinet to resign as soon as it had "yielded unconditionally," thus clearing the way for a fresh Czecho-slovak Government with a clean slate.
Premier-General. How the hard, resolute Czech people would react in a crisis was shrewdly guessed by Psychologist Dr. Benes, and with perfect confidence he left it to them to mill spontaneously through the streets of Prague in monster demonstrations which finally reached 250,000, shouting and screaming hour after hour "Give us arms! We want to fight! Don't yield a centimeter! Give us Syrovy!"