Pushing Czechoslovakia to commit suicide
At the same time, France and Britain ordered the Czech government not to mobilize its troops for fear of provoking Germany, and pressured them to accept the Anglo-French solution to the crisis. But the Anglo-French proposal would further weaken Czechoslovakia’s security in exchange for vague promises of international guarantees. The government of President Edvard Beneš protested vigorously and rejected the solution. In their turn, London and Paris rejected the Czech refusal and mounted further pressure on the Czechs. Chamberlain explained the imperative to force Czechoslovakia’s government to yield: “The idea of territorial cession would be likely to have a more favorable reception from the British public if it could be represented as the choice of the Czechoslovak Government themselves and it could be made clear that they had been offered the choice of a plebiscite or of territorial cession and had preferred the latter. This would dispose of any idea that we were ourselves carving up Czechoslovak territory.” To turn up the pressure, France threatened to revoke their alliance and abandon the Czechs to Germany. Finally, on 21 September 1938 the Czech government relented and accepted the Anglo-French dictate.



Back in London, on 23rd September the British Cabinet overtly rejected Hitler’s Godesberg ultimatum and agreed to support France if it chose to go to war against Germany. The French government also rejected Hitler’s ultimatum as did the Czechs. The Soviets responded by explicitly reiterating their security commitment to Czechoslovakia. However, this last-moment appearance of a united front against an aggressive Germany finally shaping up was yet another deception.

Chamberlain’s perfidious double game
On 27 September 1938, Chamberlain delivered a radio address to the nation feigning his dismay at the incomprehensible events on the continent: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing…” The very same day, Chamberlain sent a telegram to Czechoslovakia’s President Beneš, warning him that if he failed to accept Hitler’s ultimatum by 2 PM on the following day (28 September), Czechoslovakia would be overrun by the German Army and nothing could save her. After that he sent a message to Hitler to propose holding a four-power conference and reassuring him that Britain and France would force Czechoslovakia to accept any agreement, on condition that Germany abstained from going to war.



Then German troops overran Czechoslovakia, they captured 469 tanks which were much superior to German tanks, along with 1,500 planes, 43,000 machine guns, and over 1 million rifles. The unused arsenal was a posthumous testament to the power that failed to defend itself against Hitler’s aggression. It was sedated and paralyzed through the devious activities by Neville Chamberlain and his cabal.

...

In May 1939, Bank of England’s Montagu Norman turned over to Germany the £6,000,000 in Czech gold reserves held in London. When the news of this transfer leaked out, the cabinet hid behind the preposterous excuse that the British government could not give orders to the Bank of England.

The sacrifice of Czechoslovakia
The treacherous sacrifice of Czechoslovakia to Germany is one of the least well understood episodes leading to the tragedy of World War lI. Conventional history associates the Czech crisis with Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement at Munich. The story we were taught in school was that the British government agreed to partition Czechoslovakia only as a desperate measure to avoid a greater European war. This view is based on the idea that Germany was already an overwhelming military power that could easily crush Czechoslovakia’s weak defenses. However, this idea is patently false. In late 1938 Czechoslovakia did in fact capitulate without resistance, but this was not because her defenses were weak. Rather, Czechoslovakia’s government was paralyzed and sedated as a result of the treacherous scheming of Britain’s secret diplomacy.

The beginnings of the Czech crisis
Created in 1919, Czechoslovakia was the most prosperous, most democratic, most powerful and best administered of the states that emerged from the Habsburg Empire. Situated along its northwest frontier with Germany, the Sudeten region was the most industrialized part of the country and had a majority German population. Although Czechoslovakia instituted equitable treatment for all of its minorities, in the 1930s, Sudeten Germans began to press for greater political power and autonomy within Czechoslovakia. They established their own Nazi party and with funding from Berlin their relentless agitation and propaganda became a destabilizing factor for the nation.


In 1934 the Czech government finally banned the party, but under Konrad Henlein’s leadership, they merely changed the party’s name to Sudeten German Party and continued to consolidate influence and power. Henlein coordinated his party’s agenda with Hitler and their strategy was to keep pressing the Czech government for ever greater concessions which escalated the crisis to a boiling point in1938.

The school curriculum vs. the truth

Conventional history holds that Britain only became involved in this crisis in order to prevent a greater war from erupting. The Wikipedia entry says that, “Germany had started a low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, the United Kingdom and France on 20 September formally asked Czechoslovakia to cede its territory to Germany…” That pretty much sums up history as it is still being taught in schools everywhere. The truth is very different: as early as March 1938 and until the very end, British representatives took a very active role in the negotiations between the Germans and the Czech government.

Behind the false cloak of impartiality, the British representatives consistently bolstered German demands and pressured the Czechs to yield. The Czech government responded by offering substantial concessions and formulating a plan for the minorities that included economic benefits, cultural and administrative autonomy and even political federalism. This was however brushed aside by the German and British counterparts as inadequate. Then, on 24 April 1938, Henlein formulated the extreme “Karlsbad Demands.” After months of torturous negotiations, and under severe pressure from Britain, in September 1938 the Czech government yielded on most of these demands. But at that point, rather than declaring victory and accepting a settlement, Henlein abruptly broke off the negotiations and fled to Germany.

The balance of military power
History regards Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement of Hitler as an ill-advised and cowardly policy, but ultimately a justifiable, or at least well-intentioned bid to prevent a greater European war. The Czech situation was invariably presented as a lost cause since the overwhelming power of the German Wehrmacht could easily crush Czechoslovakia’s weak defenses. But the ideas that the Germans had a military advantage and that Czech’s security was weak were both fabrications of a sustained propaganda campaign, which was orchestrated by the British media and government representatives to mislead the British and European public.

To be sure, Germany had been building up its military power since the early 1930s, but in 1938 it was still no match for Czech defenses: the Germans had 35 infantry divisions and only 4 motorized divisions, none of them fully manned or equipped. Of these, only 22 partially trained divisions were stationed near the Czech frontier. At the same time, Czechoslovakia had 34 well equipped divisions and was able to mobilize and arm fully 1,000,000 troops. While all of Germany’s tanks were below 10 tons (except for a handful of Mark III 18-ton tanks) and armed with 37-mm guns, the Czech army had hundreds of 38-ton tanks armed with 75-mm cannons.


Moreover Czech army was better trained, had very high morale and had built powerful fortifications along its borders. In terms of quality, armaments and fortifications, the Czech army was known to be the best in Europe and was superior to German army in every way except for air support. On September 3rd 1938 the British military attaché in Prague wrote a cable to London, stating: “There are no shortcomings in the Czech army, as far as I have been able to observe…” In addition, Czech security was supported by strategic alliances with France and the Soviet Union both of whom were at that time very keen on holding Germany in check and both of whom were significantly superior to Germany in terms of military strength



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Turning TechCamp Kyiv Into a Sustainable Movement

9.(U) TechCamp Kyiv was not just a two-day event. It was also an opportunity to bring together civil society
leaders from Ukraine and Belarus connecting them with each other while building bridges to U.S. technology
experts. Our follow-up mission will be to transform TechCamp into a sustainable movement that brings civil
society together with the technology that they need. Embassy Kyiv has already reached beyond the technology

and civil society sectors by inviting private corporations and philanthropic foundations to interact with
participants at TechCamp and share information about the resources that they have available for
NG0s. Representatives from Microsoft Ukraine, Intel Ukraine Microelectronics, Coca Cola, the Pinchuk
Foundation, Hot Source LLC, Softjourn Inc, Soft-Rating Consult, WorldAPP Inc, and MediaNext attended
parts of TechCamp Kyiv. Microsoft, in particular, was very generous in their support of civil society
organizations offering free software and interacting with TechCamp participants via social media platforms.

10. (U) Embassy Kyiv also conducted follow-on events in order to put the expertise of visiting U.S. technology
experts to use in order to expand our audience beyond the 100 civil society leaders that we were able to invite
to Kyiv. Thanks to IREX' Bibliomist program which offered free use of their technology training centers in the
cities of Donetsk and Kharkiv, TechCamp trainers were able to provide hands-on training for 40 additional
NGO activists and librarians the following weekend. Three TechCamp trainers joined us "on the road" to

share their ideas on using online games for social causes; made presentations on FrontlineSMS as a way to
conduct two-way communication without the use of an intemet connection; and discussed new advocacy
techniques for expanding the impact and reach of each participant's program and message.

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12. (U) Embassy Kyiv plans to use these new technologies and social media to further the development of
NGOs and promote sustainability. We also plan to host an event in Kyiv in three to six months where civil
society organizers can come together to share their best practices, success stories and progress working on the
proposals that they developed at TechCamp. We are also in contact with Microsoft Ukraine about this

proposed event and hope to involve other private sector partners. We also plan to bring in U.S. technology
experts in order to share their expertise, specifically pertaining to the funding and implementation of new
projects.