The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/The Controversy About Teschen

The Controversy About Teschen

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 arisen from different causes in Teschen after the Polish occupation. Delegations of the miners from the Ostrava district came here almost daily, even here into the Assembly, to declare that disorder in administration and civic life prevailing in territory held by the Poles was overflowing into districts administered by us and that our public administration may succumb to those disorders. Czechs, Poles and Germans called upon our republic to help them against a disorganization in which it was impossible to live. The government is in a position to furnish official evidence of the truth of the danger that the Moravian-Ostrava district would have fallen prey to disorder.

When the government became convinced that the territory which is of vital importance to the state was in truth lacking all public authority, that it was the headquarters of Bolshevik agitators and bands that invaded territory administered by us and incited people living under our rule to disturbances, when the government saw that the production of coal in the Ostrava-Karvin coal district fell off from 6,768,912 quintals (220.46 lbs. each) a month to 3,069,120, it decided to send troops to introduce administrative order through the entire Teschen area and secure for the people all the benefits of an orderly government. This step would not have been necessary, if Teschen had not been occupied by the Poles against the agreements which we had concluded in Russia, Moscow and Kiev, in Washington and Prague, all to the effect that questions relating to Silesia would be settled by the Czechoslovak government in agreement with the Poles, or in case an agreement could not be reached by them, then by the peace conference and until then status quo should prevail.

That the entire Silesia in its historical boundaries belongs to us is confirmed by the Allied Note of January 19, 1919 to the Budapest Government and by an English Note replying to an appeal of the German-Austrian Government. The Poles cannot claim that a majority of the people are of the Polish nationality or that the right of self-determination is violated. As far as language is concerned, it is well-known that experts disagree, whether the inhabitants of Teschen speak the Czech or the Polish language.

The question of Teschen has for us the utmost economic importance and this importance is not merely local, but affects a large part of Europe. Karvin and Ostrava cannot be separated from each other, as the Poles have done by their occupation. The evil effects of the Polish occupation may be best seen from this: in two or three weeks great steel mills of Vítkovice would have to close down, and that would mean loss of employment for 17,000 mill hands and as a result of that 70,000 more workers in factories which must have steel would also be thrown out of work. We could not supply coal to Italy, Slovakia, to our own beet sugar mills and railroads. Even today we adhere to our original proposal that the dispute about Teschen should be settled by Prague and Warsaw governments with friendly offices of the peace conference. We proposed to the Government of Warsaw to create a Czech-Polish commission of experts to take up this problem. In taking the above important steps we are only doing our duty, and no one, not even the Poles can justly complain, if in our own state and on our own territory we enforce, order and peace and secure law and civic liberty.

This declaration of the acting Czechoslovak premier is supplemented by the following bulletin issued by the Czechoslovak Press Bureau: The government of the Czechoslovak Republic has followed for a long time with serious fears the developments of events in Teschen, but it refrained from every action of a political character. But when recently an English mission returning from Breslau and passing through Teschen declared the conditions prevailing there to be unsupportable and called at tention to the danger of Bolshevism which disseminates from this region into all Central Europe, representatives of the military forces of the entente stationed in Prague determined that they would immediately undertake the reforms necessary to secure the lives of the peaceful inhabitants who are in danger of being murdered and also to secure production of coal from the Karvin mines which during the present coal crisis is of immense importance.

The character of the entire action is best seen from a manifesto by which it was opened: To the inhabitants of the duchy of Siliesia. Deplorable conditions of public safety and danger of economic catastrophe in Silesia compelled the government of the Czechoslovak Republic to send a part of Allied armies coming from France to in troduce order in the land. The people may be of easy minds. As Frenchmen, English men, Italians and Americans we have warm sympathies for both nations forming a majority of the people. As soldiers we do our duty. We have nothing to do with political questions. We ask of all elements of the people assistance in our administrative work. The republic is a government of order. Signed by Lt.-Colonel of the French Army Gilain, Major of the British Army Grossfield, Major of the Italian Army Naseda, and First-Lt. of the United States Army Voska.

On January 23rd, the commission of the entente forces requested the command er of the Polish troops in Teschen, Brig. Latinik to order his garrisons to evacuate the district of Teschen. After some hesitation he promised. But against all expectations in certain places Polish garrisons put up opposition and employed their arms against the forces of occupation, it is said at the orders of the Polish National Council. In spite of that the action went on rapidly; at 4 o’clock in the afternoon Oderberg was occupied, and all the Czechoslovak losses amounted to six killed and twenty-three wounded.

The entire question is now being looked into by a commission appointed by the executive council of the peace conference. Until their decision is given and approved by the main body, the Czech forces are ordered to occupy the entire coal district, while the Polish forces are in possession of the eastern part of the district of Teschen. The Czechoslovaks have full confidence in the justice oi their claims and in the fairness of the Allied representatives who have became arbitrators of the quarrel. Whatever the decision at Paris may be, the Czechoslovak government and the Czechoslovak people will accept it with a good grace. As to their present relations with the Poles, the Czechoslovaks hope that the present discord will blow over and that the two kindred nations, both menaced by Germans, will work together and support each other.