Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/74



It is very unfortunate that the conflicting claims of the Czechs and the Poles to a part of the former Austrian duchy of Silesia should have resulted in a clash of arms and a temporary bitterness between the two peoples who are so nearly related in blood and whose interests are so closely interwoven.

Fortunately good sense prevailed on both sides, and Prague and Warsaw agreed to abide by the decision of their big Allies, a decision which may be announced at any time now. During the heat of the controversy, at the end of January and early in February, the Polish side was fully presented to the American people. There is an Associated Press representative in Warsaw who cables several dispatches a day to America, and there are in addition a number of correspondents in the Polish capital, representing American newspaper syndicates. In Prague there is no Associated Press man, and as far as is known, just one American and one English newspaper correspondent. And so the Czechoslovak side of the quarrel did not get a fair hearing in the American press. We give herewith the story of the Czech-Polish conflict about Teschen, as set forth in the Prague papers and Czech official documents.

Teschen—which by the way is the German name of the district, the Czech name being Tesin and the Polish name Cieszyn—is a part of Austria Silesia which again is but a small part of the old Duchy of Silesia. The greatest part of this rich province was taken from Maria Theresa by Frederick of Prussia in 1742. The duchy of Teschen has an area of only 2282 square kilometers, or approximately 900 square miles, with a population which in 1910 numbered 434,821. Historically Teschen has been connected with the kingdom of Bohemia since 1291; it as not a part of Poland, when that unhappy kingdom was three times divided among its neighbors, but its eastern boundary marches with Galicia or that part of Poland which fell to the share of Austria. Racially the district is mixed, being inhabited by Czechs, Poles and Germans; the language boundary is particularly difficult to draw as between the Poles and Czechs, since the people speak their own dialects marking a gradual transition from Czech to Polish, as one goes east. There are no statistical figures available as to the percentage of the three races in Teschen, because Teschen was not recognized in Austria as a distinct political unit or subdivision of the state. But in all Austrian Silesia with its 756,949 people there lived according to statistical figures of 1910, grossly favoring the Germans, 180,348 Czechs, 235,224 Poles and 325,523 Germans.

During the war, when co-operation among the Czechs and Poles of Austria was effected for purposes of a common revolution, an understanding was reached by their respective leaders as to Teschen. During thePrague celebrations of May 16 and 17, 1918, Polish leaders agreed that in the event of a revolution each people would occupy its historical territory and hold it until the final decision of the peace conference on the boundaries with due regard to the self-determination of the people. A similar understanding was reached by Masaryk and Dmowski, when they were both in Washington in the fall oi 1918. But all these agreements went into the discard, when Austria fell to pieces. Two days after the successful revolution in Prague on Oct. 30, Polish guards from Cracow took forcible possession of the greater part of Teschen, and a note of protest by the Prague government remained unanswered. The chief apple of discord were the important coal mines of Ostrava-Karvin; the Czechs were in the possesion of part of the coal district close to the Moravian boundary, while the Poles had their headquarters in Bohumin (Oderberg) on the frontier of Prussian Silesia. The way this divided control of the important district worked out is best described in a speech delivered in the Prague National Assembly on January 24 by Anton Švehla, minister of the interior and acting Czech premier.

Minister Švehla stated expressly that the occupation of the Karvin mines was undertaken after notice had been sent to the Warsaw government. He declared further that the Czechoslovaks were employing force to obtain aims to which they were fully entitled or which they were compelled by circumstances to do. Circumstances similar to those which developed in Slovakia in the first days of the revolution have