1919 Парис буюу дэлхийг өөрчилсан 6 сар 1-р хэсэг

traditions and their aversion to militarism, oligarchy, high finance, indeed all that the old Germany and Austria-Hungary had stood for.511 This being said, neither the British nor the Americans were particularly interested in the new little country, which looked like a tadpole with its head in the west and its tail tapering off in the east, sandwiched between Poland to the north and Austria and Hungary to the south. The French were interested, not for sentimental reasons but for security. France wanted a country strong enough to join with Poland and the new South Slav state to block both Bolshevism and Germany. That meant endowing Czechoslovakia with control of crucial railways, a position on the great central European waterway, the Danube, and adequate coal.512 Beneš presented Czechoslovakia’s claims to the Supreme Council on February 5, the day after Venizelos presented Greek claims and the day before Feisal came to speak for Arab independence. He had an easier task than either, because Czechoslovakia had already been recognized by the powers, and most of the territory it wanted—the Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and the Hungarian province of Slovakia— was already in its possession. Much of this was due to Beneš himself and the help he got from France.

When he arrived in Paris in 1915, Beneš was an obscure sociology professor from Prague representing something called the Czechoslovak National Council. Four years later he was foreign minister of a new state. Not a romantic figure like Venizelos or Feisal or a great soldier like Pilsudski, Beneš was short, ordinarylooking and pedantic, a dull writer and an uninspiring speaker.

(The French thought this should appeal to the Anglo-Saxons.) He had no apparent hobbies or vices, and few close friends. His relations with Masaryk, to whom he was devoted, were always curiously formal. But Beneš was enormously energetic and efficient.

In Paris during the war he cultivated everyone, from Foreign Ministry officials to leading intellectuals, who might help the Czech cause. Where Beneš gained French attention, his charming, handsome colleague the Slovak Milan Štefánik won hearts.