Surprise? Surprise?

Last week Adolf Hitler, the greatest Aggrandizer of the Reich since Frederick the Great, seized and occupied all but the Eastern Carpatho-Ukrainian tip of the 20-year-old Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. To the worldwide man in the street, and even the supposedly more knowing man in the stock exchange, it was Adolf Hitler's most sudden, most shocking surprise.

The world knew that Germany now economically and politically dominated emasculated Czecho-Slovakia. But the fact that Germany had recently gone through the diplomatic motions of requesting (and getting) currency adjustments, railroad, road and canal rights-of-way across Czecho-Slovakia seemed to indicate that the Reich was content with de facto subjugation. Had Herr Hitler not said that all he wanted was to get all the Germans back together again? Had he not signed a declaration with Britain not to do anything that might disturb the peace of Europe without consulting her?

It took less than 48 hours last week to send all these facts and factors over the dam. The people who own most in the world are supposed to know a good deal about what goes on in it. Obviously Herr Hitler caught them napping, for in Berne, Amsterdam, London, New York, markets fell last week and kept falling as big investors hastily unloaded in something very like a panic. If they had not known what Chancellor Hitler was going to do last week until he actually did it, how could they tell what he was going to do next?

Questions. Once the first shock of the grab had passed, all kinds of questions began to rear their puzzling heads. The first was: How surprised were the Governments of the world at the second Czecho-Slovak coup?

For weeks private correspondents from Czecho-Slovakia had spoken of the intense activity in Prague of German Gestapo agents. For a year young men like those who had circulated around Vienna in 1937-38, dropping a word here and a word there for Naziism, had been active in Prague. The swift, smooth pace of the occupation (see p. 17) showed that the Germans had made organized preparations for it well in advance.

If the British and French secret services did not know all this they were not worth their pay. That they did know it and did report it was made fairly evident at week's end when French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet, badgered by Parliament for being taken by surprise by Herr Hitler's coup, blurted out that he had known something was in the wind as early as the Saturday before the Wednesday of the grab. He also said he had reported it to the British.

Next question the world wanted answered was: If Neville Chamberlain knew what was going to happen, why did he act as though he didn't?

On the day that Germany delivered a virtual ultimatum to Czecho-Slovakia and summoned the Czech President to Berlin, Mr. Chamberlain blandly told the Parliament that there had as yet been no acts of unprovoked aggression in Czecho-Slovakia. Next day, when the German troops marched into Prague, the Prime Minister was still cucumber-cool. He admitted the invasion was an act of aggression, a violation of the Munich Pact. The whole thing was to be "bitterly regretted." But he could still passively note that the clause guaranteeing Czecho-Slovakia's new borders after Munich had never been ratified by any of the Munich powers, ergo Britain had no obligations to prevent the grab.

Not until three nights later, when not only the press and people of Britain but his own party reacted so violently to the seizure, did Mr. Chamberlain get up steam. At Birmingham he let off a blast, said he was tired of trusting a liar, horrified at Germany's treatment of Jews, willing to show that the democracies still have a muscle.

If Mr. Chamberlain and French Premier Daladier did not blind themselves to events which they of all men should have known were developing, the best explanation of their original "surprise" and complacency in the face of last week's coup was that they 1) had a pretty good idea it was going to happen, 2) knew they could do nothing about it, 3) thought their voters were bored with the whole matter. When the voters turned out not to be bored but indignant, the British and French statesmen realized the enormity of Herr Hitler's act and grew indignant, too.

More Questions. In marching into Bohemia at the moment he did, Herr Hitler, explained one of his devoted spokesmen last week, "merely grasped the mantle of God as He strides through the history of nations, and with the genius of a great man used the moment which, once lost, no eternity would bring back."

That mystic answer seemed as good as any other to the world's third question:

Why did mystic Fuhrer Hitler pick on last fortnight's particular quarrel between the Czechs and the Slovaks to step in and take over the whole works? To the further question--In taking over the Czechs and Slovaks did not Adolf Hitler finally soar away from his Mein Kampf program?--the answer was a simple no. It is all in the book.

Act I of the drama of German destiny, according to the Nazi Bible, ends with Pan-Germanism triumphant. Pan-Germanism triumphed at Munich last September 30 when the last big solid bloc of Germans in Europe were hauled under the Nazi banner.

Act II is the drive to the east, of which last week's 225-mile advance was Scene I.

Act III calls for a mighty German Empire of 250,000,000 people--obviously not all Germans--dominating Europe and perhaps furnishing the highest master race which . . . might need the resources of the entire globe."

There were other, less mystical, reasons why Herr Hitler grabbed the Almighty's mantle so precipitately last week. In one fundamental sense it was a simple bank-robbing act. Germany, which must buy important raw materials outside her borders, needs real money. Germany reports about $29,000,000 in gold left (some esti mates: as high as $200,000,000). Czecho slovakia, an exporting country, had $80,000,000 in gold in its national bank, enough to offset Germany's adverse trade balance for a few months, and about two and a half times that much in foreign assets and ex change, which Germany may not get (see p. 18). This loot was small but enough to make any pinched-bellied dictator's fingers itch.

It is also true that the Czech Government had shown signs of disobedience to the Nazis. A crackdown, figured the Fuehrer, would do much to admonish Poland and Hungary which have--in the former by rioting, in the latter by upsetting a cabinet--recently shown themselves unsympathetic to Nazidom.

What Next? Where Germany would next plant her military boots was the next question. The Nazi majority in Lithuanian Memel were agitating last week for a "home in the Reich," but that was small change. More significant was the Nazis' tolerance in letting Hungary grab Carpatho-Ukraine. A smart stealing-casino player does not mind an opponent's getting a trick if he has the card that will steal his whole pile.

That Hitler had the card was hinted last week when the Hungarian Foreign Minister was one of the small and distinguished party--including the Japanese and Italian Ambassadors--which shared Herr Hitler's triumphant arrival in Berlin (see col.3). Nicholas Horthy, Hungary's Regent, was scheduled to meet Fuhrer Hitler soon to discuss "common problems," and speculators wondered whether His Serene Highness might not find it expedient to deliver his country into the trust of Adolf Hitler, just as President Emil Hacha of Czechoslovakia did last week.

That Hitler's eastern march had already impressed the Balkans was apparent from the quick answer he got from Rumania on his proposal to trade goods for foodstuffs.

Stop Hitler! When the Germans successively won back the Saar, remilitarized the Rhine, took Austria and the Sudetenland, they always took pains to make out some sort of a case for themselves which an ever diminishing group of friends in the outside world was more or less willing to accept. Last week the treaty-breaking, lie-telling German Dictator had few friends left anywhere outside his and Italy's borders and along with the last shreds of his nation's honor he threw away all pretense of being anything but a Conqueror. Instead of trying to think up further fancy excuses for aggression, in Berlin it was simply stated that "the eternal yesterdayers who always limp behind events [are] therefore . . . constantly surprised by them."

That attitude was the signal for a belated international Stop Hitler drive.

The French, British, Soviet and U. S. press vied with each other in denunciations of Fuhrer Hitler. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain officially and publicly buried his appease-the-dictators policy and announced that henceforth what happened in southeastern Europe was decidedly Britain's business. The British Cabinet met in two special sessions, and King George hurried to London from a week-end in the country. A faction led by Sir John Simon, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was said to feel that Dictator Hitler could not be stopped this side of Turkey, that Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece must inevitably be his if he wanted them. But Lord Halifax stood up to declare that neither Poland, Rumania, Turkey nor Greece should be allowed to fall in German hands. Meantime, the Cabinet considered plans for a Stop Hitler conference of anti-dictator countries.

In France Premier Edouard Daladier, discarding protests as mere "words, words, words," went before Parliament and obtained dictatorial powers to permit him to act secretly and promptly to forestall any further Nazi or Fascist moves. He was expected to put France on a virtual wartime footing, to call up extra men to the colors, to speed arms production. The French toyed with the idea of building up a strong Eastern European entente of Poland, Rumania and Yugoslavia.

In Warsaw, anti-Nazi students held demonstrations and the Polish Government, having long and magnificently sat on the fence between warring dictatorships and democracies, was represented as having finally concluded that it must now make a choice--which way it still did not know.

What the British could do to harry Hitler at once they did. Like the French they recalled their Ambassador "for a report." Like the U. S., they refused to recognize the seizure and thus locked up an estimated $60,000,000 worth of Czech funds in London. The U. S., in addition, set up a 25% higher tariff wall against the products of Greater Germany (see p.11).

Napoleon, the last man to go conquering through Europe, lasted 15 years. Adolf Hitler has already lasted six. Historians wondered, now that he has taken to outright conquest, how many more good years he had coming to him. For the history books say he who begins swallowing minorities begins swallowing poison.

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