Czechoslovak-Soviet Contacts from the End of World War I to Adolf Hitler’s Machtergreifung, 1918-1933

Abstract “You hooligan, you’ll never make it,” burst out Professor Frantisek Hrdlicka at Eduard Benes, his student at the Imperial and Royal Gymnasium in Prague. The professor quickly calmed down, but he remained serious. He advised Benes to resign from the prestigious school and join the Hapsburg army. The year was 1902, and Vienna needed soldiers to deal with the latest crisis in the Balkans. After twelve years in uniform, Benes should be able to secure a position in the Austrian civil service; a post office job would be suitable, Hrdlicka thought. But the eighteen-yearold rebel laughed in his face. Benes knew he would never be a clerk. He was preparing for a more spectacular career, and he was not an idle dreamer. A year ago he had already established contact with Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, professor of philosophy at Charles University and a prominent personality on the Prague political scene. Their friendship grew, and so did their anti-Hapsburg sentiments. When the Great War broke out in 1914, Masaryk and Benes were ready to assume prominent roles in the campaign to create a new state, the Republic of Czechoslovakia. Benes did not excel in Professor Hrdlicka’s subject, Latin, but he had a great talent for politics and diplomacy.