The Abyssinian envoy Martin came to see me. A tragic figure. He still shows up everywhere – at official receptions, in society, among diplomats – wearing his tunic covered in gold and a green-red-yellow sash over his shoulder. Outwardly, everyone still shows him respect and sympathy (some do so emphatically), but behind his back they ask: ‘How long will this last?’… Martin walks about as a living ghost, and at the same time as a bleeding wound on the conscience of ‘Western democracies’. His dark-skinned, full figure is a daily reminder of the triumphant insolence of the fascist aggressors, the myopic weakness of Western democracies, and the flagrant injustice committed right before our eyes with the connivance of England and France…

[An Anglo-French summit meeting in London on 28–29 April revealed the hegemony of the hosts. Daladier’s

Edouard Daladier, French minister of defence, 1932–34, 1936–38 and September 1939–March 1940; prime minister, January–October 1933, January 1934 and April 1938–March 1940.

passionate advocacy of stiff resistance to Hitler in Czechoslovakia, with Soviet help if necessary, did not carry the day. It was, Cadogan commented, ‘Very beautiful, but awful rubbish’.

This episode is covered by Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark, pp. 564–7, who argues that the oratory was double-edged, aimed also at relieving France of its obligations, which the chiefs of staff did not believe she could assume. This should be borne in mind when considering the accusations in the same vein levelled against the Russians, who, as the diary and related material show, were extremely well informed about the state of the Anglo-French negotiations and their aftermath.

Masaryk disclosed to Maisky that the British had been ‘highly defeatist’, arguing that ‘neither France, nor the USSR was in a position to render any effective help to Czechoslovakia’. He further revealed that on the eve of the talks, Hore-Belisha, the secretary of state for war, who was just back from Rome, had intimated that ‘the expansion of Germany in the direction of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans was inevitable, that England was not prepared for war, that as long as Hitler’s actions were confined to Europe there would be no war’.

DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 153, 30 April 1938. Confirmed by Aleksandrovsky from Prague, see L. Bezymenskii, Gitler i Stalin pered skhvatkoi (Moscow, 2009), p. 141.

Briefed by Halifax, Maisky was left in no doubt that Britain, determined not to get involved directly in the conflict, was at best prepared to act as a go-between, though only once Beneš had made further substantial concessions.

TNA FO 371 21591 C3995/13/17, 5 May 1938, and Maisky’s version in DVP, 1938, XXI, doc. 163.

]