the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

Chapter III
of the two treaties between France and
the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia
and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile the
Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty was bound
by French commitments to both states.
It also helped put the finishing touches
to Czechoslovakia’s relations with the
Soviet Union. In the 1920s,
Czechoslovakia had been expecting the
fall of the Bolshevik regime or at least
its attenuation in the sense of greater
democracy. It did not recognise it
diplomatically until 1934. Even then it
looked forward to the democratisation
of the Soviet state, which it associated
with Russia’s closer ties with France, its
entry into the League of Nations and its
support for collective security. It
considered its own treaty with the
Soviet Union to be means of putting
political pressure on Germany. It made
its practical implementation dependent
on the policy of France. That was
Czechoslovakia’s main ally. However, its
confidence in that alliance received a
body blow with Germany’s re-
Czechs and Germans in a Democratic
Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938
100
occupation of the demilitarised
Rhineland on March 7, 1936.
The Versailles and Locarno treaties
had defined a 50-km.-long zone along
the left bank of the Rhine within
which Germany was not allowed to
build any military installations or
maintain troops. Among the motives
behind it was France’s post-war plan
to make it easier to intervene on behalf
of its eastern allies in the event of their
After signing a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union,
Edvard Bene‰ paid a friendly visit to Moscow in 1935.
being invaded by Germany. The reoccupation
of the Rhineland was a
very risky venture on the part of
Hitler. Therefore, in the event of a
military intervention by France or any
other signatories to the Locarno pact,
the German troops were to quickly
leave the area. France did not decide to
counter-attack, however, and simply
tabled a complaint at the League of
Nations. The French High Command
was very much behind that
indecisiveness. It maintained that an
invasion of the Rhineland by French
troops would mean war and it would