THE CZECHOSLOVAKIA OF TOMORROW
By DR. HILDA ORMSBY*
A. READJUSTMENT of the Czechoslovakian frontier to exclude those areas having a majority of German- speaking people will entail consequences to the Czechoslovak Republic so grave that it is difficult to see how compensation and guarantees could be made on a scale adequate for the safeguarding of her political and economic existence.
It may be useful, seeing that many people are ignorant of the nature of the country and particularly of its frontier lands, to make a rapid survey of those areas concerned in the present tragic international dispute, where a majority of Bohemians of German speech and anciently of German origin, appear to claim through the mouthpiece of Germany the right of secession.
The crisis concerns mainly Bohemia, and to a less extent the more easterly provinces of Moravia and Slovakia, where minorities of Poles and Himgarians are now voicing claims to autonomy.
Everyone must now be familiar with the compact, lozenge- shaped outline of the Bohemian highland block—that natural fortress in the interior of which the Czech-Slays have main- tained. their position for centuries while the tide of colonising Germans swept round them along the Danube and Oder valleys. The descendants of early German settlers, foresters and miners, have occupied for hundreds of years the valleys and intermontane basins of the mountain rims of Bohemia. Their distribution has been made familiar by maps appearing in the Press, but the nature of the land they live in and the part they play in the economy of the country is less well known. The density of distribution, the quality of the people and of the land they live by, from the economic point of view, varies very greatly, and we may consider the so-called " Sudetic " areas conveniently in three major sections : the north-western rim, the north-eastern rim (the Sudetic area proper) and the south-western rim.
The north-western frontier towards Saxony is geographically aligned along the summits of the Erzgebirge. The Ohre- Biela plain is divided naturally into two sections. That of the west is almost enclosed by highlands to south and
* Dr. Ormsby is Reader in Geography in the University of London.
east. By the cession of this region, with a population of which over 70 per cent. are German-speaking, Czecho- slovakia would lose not only the important mineral spas of Karlsbad, Marienbad and Franzensbad and the manufacturing and commercial centre of Eger, but also the lignite mines of Falknov-Loket, producing one-sixth of the whole lignite output for the country, and, in addition, the Sedlec china-clay deposits together with the large porcelain industry of the Karlsbad district. The famous Jachymov radium mines would also pass to Germany.
The eastern section of the plain at the foot of the Erzgebirge presents a contrast to the Eger-Carlsbad basin. Whereas the latter is enclosed by hills to the south, which present a possible line of defence, the Chomutov-Most (Briix) plain lies open to the south, and offers no possibility of a defensible frontier in that direction. The whole belt of lowland along the Biela has a population of over 145 persons to the square kilometre. Industrial valleys run up into the Erzgebirge. The people are mainly German-speaking, but the industrial areas have large Czech minorities, up to 5o per cent. This region is of even greater importance to the Czechoslovak State than the Carlsbad basin, for it contains the two large lignite fields (producing three-quarters of the total output) of Chomutov and Most, where the average density of popula- tion reaches 45o to the square kilometer, and where a thriving industry of iron and steel as well as mining, the manufacture of briquettes and the production of thermal electricity has developed. Glass-making and sugar-refining are other activities. To the south lies a rick agricultural land of orchards and hop-gardens. This Ohre-Biela basin, then, is one of the richest parts of the Republic, and has the further advantage of cheap water transport on the Elbe for lignite, sugar, paper and chemicals, &c., from the port of Aussig.
If a 70 per cent. German basis were to be agreed upon for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, this valuable district, with the exception of the more thinly peopled mountain districts, would remain to the Republic. Its loss would certainly be disastrous, and the transference of so large an industrial population of Czechs away from the coalfield would be a difficult problem. We now turn to the north-east mountain frontier of Bohemia. It is of an entirely different character from that west of the Elbe. The mountain ridges here have no regular alignment, and they are sometimes arranged in parallel lines enclosing deep depressions. The frontier meanders from one ridge to another and in three instances advances northwards beyond the mountain barrier to include portions of the German foothills. This is particularly well marked in upper Lusatia, where, as readers may have noted, frontier disturbances have been reperted at Wamsdorf, Rumburg and Schluckenau. In Prussian Silesia the boundary cuts across areas of continuous dense population engaged in cottage industries. Here rectification would seem, in the absence of more detailed information, to be advantageous to both sides, but the loss of the textiles area of the upper Neisse valley would be less so. The Riesengebirge form a good natural boundary at over I,5oo metres, presenting an almost unpopu- lated zone with no cross routes. To sacrifice this for the sake of a number of scattered settlements of textile workers who as a result would be cut off from their organising centres and markets would probably be regrettable. It would be very hard for Bohemia to lose the famous glass industry in the Leipa district. It is to be hoped that the strong admixture of Czechs in the Jablonec glass-bead and ornament manu- facturing district may save her at least a portion of that successful export industry.
Altogether, apart from language difficulties, the ancient frontier is an ideal one from the point of view of definition and protection. It follows the water-parting for 200 kilo- metres at an altitude of from r,000 to 1,40o metres. Where the altitude sinks to 400 metres in the Furth Pass district, the density increases to 8o per square kilometre and the Czech population comes right up to the frontier. Between the Furth Pass which leads down to the Danube at Regens- burg, and the Carlsbad basin, the Czesky Les or Upper Palatinate Forest, as the Germans call it, drops below roc metres. Here the German population is continuous in sporadic settlements, but the area has little economic value. A sectification of the frontier in favour of the Germans would, however, have the serious result of bringing the great industrial centre of Pilzen with the Skoda arsenal practically on to the frontier, which would also be uncomfortably near to Prague.
Space will not allow a detailed analysis of the practical results of an adjustment of the Polish and Hungarian frontiers. The main effect would be that in addition to her loss of valuable lignite fields, Czechoslovakia would lose nearly half her annual coal putput—and good coking coal at that. She would also lose control of the railway which links Moravian Silesia with Slovakia.
Cession of the territory settled by Hungarians to the north of the Danube would mean giving up the port of Komamo, which the Republic has recently developed at great cost to further traffic with the Lower Danubian States. With German control heavy on her Elbe traffic, the present outlet via the Danube assumes a greater significance.
In the sub--montane area of Northern Bohemia, of which I have tried to give a brief description, lies the insuperable problem. Cut off by Nature from Germany, the German Bohemians have never forgotten their animosity and contempt for the Czechs—the former hewers of wood and drawers of water. The Czechs have not forgotten their traditional hatred of the invader. But both parties have an age-long claim to the land of Bohemia to which they are proud to belong. The Czech. areas and the Sudeten areas are com- plementary to one another ; both must suffer economically from the partition. But Czechoslovakia is not dead as long as it can be saved from further aggression. The Czechs are a remarkably virile race. They alone of the Slav peoples have developed a sturdy middle class. They alone of the Slav people have not only stemmed the waves of colonising Germans, but have gradually thrust them back to the borders of the land.
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