This belated truthfulness, coupled with a clever joke, is not enough to salvage his reputation. Saint-John Perse acted like a big shit. Or, as he would have said—with the ridiculous affectation of a stuffy diplomat—an “excrement.”
Chamberlain, on a balcony in London: “My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.”
Krofta, the Czech foreign minister: “They have put us in this situation. Now it’s our turn; tomorrow it will be their turn.”
Out of some kind of childish pedantry, I have scrupulously avoided using the most famous French quotation to come out of this whole sad affair. But I can’t not cite Daladier, who after getting off his airplane, cheered by the crowd, said: “Oh, the fools! Those fools, if they knew what was coming…”
Some people doubt whether he actually spoke these words, whether he had enough clarity of mind, or enough wit. In fact, this apocryphal quotation became widely known because of Sartre, who used it in his novel
Churchill’s words, spoken in the House of Commons, are distinguished by their greater perceptiveness and, as always, their grandeur:
“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat.”
(Churchill has to stop speaking for some time while he waits for the whistles and shouts of protest to die down.)
“We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude. The road down the Danube Valley to the Black Sea has been opened. All those Danubian countries will, one after another, be drawn into this vast system of power politics radiating from Berlin. And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning…”
Not long afterward, Churchill sums it all up with his immortal phrase:
“You had to choose between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor. You will have war.”
(FRANTIŠEK HALAS)
On the half-corpse of a nation betrayed, France went back to belote and Tino Rossi.
*
(MONTHERLANT)
Faced with Germany’s arrogant pretensions, the two great Western democracies keep their mouths shut—and Hitler can gloat. Instead of which, he goes back to Berlin in a really bad mood, cursing Chamberlain: “This person deprived me of my triumphant entry into Prague!” By forcing the Czech government to make all their concessions, France and Britain—these two cowardly countries—briefly prevented the German dictator from realizing his true goal: not only taking a slice of Czechoslovakia, but “wiping it off the map.” In other words: turning it into a province of the Reich. Seven million Czechs, seventy-five million Germans … to be continued …
In 1946, at Nuremberg, the representative for Czechoslovakia will ask Keitel, the German chief of staff: “Would the Reich have attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 if the Western powers had supported Prague?” To which Keitel will reply: “Definitely not. Militarily, we weren’t strong enough.”
Hitler can curse all he likes. The truth is that France and Britain opened a door to which he did not have the key. And, obviously, by displaying such servility, encouraged him to start again.