Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

CONQUEST BY PEACE 605merits, but that Italy and particularly France should have less. One thingwas certain: only a Germany left at peace to work out her economicrecovery could be a bulwark against Bolshevism — the French MaginotLine could be no such bulwark.Now, however, an equalization of the military strength of France andGermany, to which France herself had formally consented in Geneva,would inevitably deprive the ring of French alliances surroundingGermany of much, if not all, of its force; for none of France's smallallies — Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania — couldplace absolute reliance in a France which was barely as strong asGermany. What made the danger to them all the more menacing wasthat these 'succession states' of the old Habsburg monarchy inherited itsmain evils. They had formerly been the oppressed nations of Austria-Hungary, and now they themselves contained foreign minorities, hostileor indifferent to the new states (Germans, Slovaks, and Hungarians inCzechoslovakia, Croats in Yugoslavia, Hungarians and Germans in Rumania).The Czechoslovaks were led by men of democratic, liberal, 'western'character (Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, President, Eduard Benes, ForeignMinister); the country was proud of its parliamentary form ofgovernment. Under these leaders, Czechoslovakia, despite thedisquieting turn of events, held fast in letter and spirit to the Frenchalliance. Poland, however, had been distrustful since Locarno. Underthe leadership of her armed intellectuals embodied in Joseph Pilsudski,she began from 1932 on to renounce the French alliance inwardly,though not formally, and for practical purposes to emasculate it.Pilsudski was one of the most remarkable historical figures to emergeafter 1918; first a Socialist, then founder of a military dictatorship — acombination which, from Napoleon III to Leon Trotzky and JosephStalin, has influenced European history again and again. A strange,somber figure, somewhat recalling Nietzsche with his immensemustache and deep-set eyes; in the last years of his life, troubled inspirit, living in mysterious solitude, almost unapproachable,nevertheless dominating a powerful political machine with uncontestedauthority. He violendy combated the parliament