Last week, in a way memorable of the events which led to the World War, one European nation abruptly broke diplomatic relations with another, went so far as to shut off inter-nation telephone communication. Foreign correspondents and diplomats gasped. It was an action such as is seldom taken unless war is imminent, and it occurred because a small Czechoslovak factory refused to fill a commercial order for the Government of Portugal. Although Premier Dr. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, who ordered his Minister José da Costa Carneiro to leave Prague is a dictator and therefore unaccountable, the chancelleries of Europe were astonished at his action.
On the surface the squabble seemed childish. The Portuguese Government ordered 600 light machine guns from Czechoslovak Arms Manufacturing Co. at Brno for its rearmament program. The factory first agreed to supply them, then demanded a written declaration that the arms were exclusively for the Portuguese Army, finally welched on the entire order. Portugal, insisting that the factory was actually Government owned and that cancellation of the order had been made "under pressure of those who wish to prevent or impede Portugal's rearmament," broke relations without further warning. Behind this act lay a simple inference:
Portugal has a standing army of less than 30,000 men and 600 light machine-guns on a single order was obviously ridiculous. Dictator Salazar's Portugal is now an unofficial ally of Generalissimo Franco's Rightist Spain. So there was no reasonable doubt whither the 600 machine guns were destined.
But no less than three great nations of Europe might have been "those who wish to prevent Portugal's rearmament."
1) Soviet Russia, the nation most keenly interested in a victory for the Spanish Left, two years ago contracted ties with Czechoslovakia and might logically have taken a hand in the matter.
2) France has, however, a much older military alliance with Czechoslovakia, and Czechoslovak Arms Manufacturing Co., owned 70% by the Czech Government, is 30% owned by the Skoda munitions trust which is according to latest reports in turn controlled by the French Comité des Forges. France, not wishing for another Fascist neighbor in Spain, might therefore have had equally good reason and better opportunity for interfering.
3) Britain, no ally of the Czechs is, however, a customer of the Brno factory which manufactures the type of machine guns in question, the "Bren," light as an automatic rifle with unequaled freedom from jamming. The British Army recently adopted the Bren gun, planning to import the patterns and tools for their production in England. But Britain's haste in armament was such that she felt obliged to place large interim orders with the small Brno factory. As a big customer she might well have demanded that small customer Portugal should not be allowed to place an order that would interfere with her deliveries. Since Britain has the least interest of the three in Leftist Spain, and since Portugal is her oldest international friend (of some 600 years standing), this possibility lacked considerable plausibility, except in one particular. When Dictator Salazar withdrew his minister from Prague he entrusted Portuguese interests in Spain not to the British but to the Italian legation.