Little has been written about the interwar Czechoslovak army in the general literature, especially in Western sources. The German-speaking reader most often turns to the well-researched article by Oswald Kostrba-Skalický, “Bewaffnete Ohnmacht. Die tschechoslowakische Armee 1918–1938,” in Die Erste Tschechoslowakische Republik als multinationaler Parteienstaat, edited by Karl Bosl (Munich, 1979, 439–527). But this piece had little to say about the relationship between the Czechoslovak army and the multiethnic population.

In his dissertation completed at the University of Freiburg, Martin Zückert has addressed important new questions on the basis of extensive knowledge of both primary and secondary sources in Czech and German. In the context of the recent international and Czech research on nationalism, he analyzes Czechoslovak nationality policy in the army and in military policy generally. Between 60,000 and 70,000 recruits were called up to the army each year—in twenty years between 1.2 and 1.4 million men altogether—and spent terms of duty lasting between fourteen and twenty-four months. Could the Czechoslovak army function as the “school of the nation,” or did the concept of the “Czechoslovak nation-state” exclude recruits and officers of national minorities from the homogenizing national state? This was definitely an important question—one that could shake the foundations of the new state—considering that the loyalties of 3,218,000 citizens of German nationality, 761,000 Magyars, 477,000 Ruthenes (Rusyny), 190,000 Jews (by nationality), and 110,000 Poles were at stake. How did the Czechoslovak army handle the “production of loyalty,” including the “prevention of disobedience,” to secure at least superficial allegiance?

Zückert's clearly arranged study first summarizes the structure of the Czechoslovak army, then examines “the army in practice,” including its contacts with the civil population, and finally discusses “change through external threat” after 1933. President Masaryk, the government, and the revolutionary national assembly rejected a system of militia and decided in 1920—not least on grounds of foreign policy—for a standing army of some 150,000 men with 20,000 professional soldiers. Masaryk announced on 29 March 1919: “We will have Germans [in the army], imagine Czech officers and German ranks; or a German officer in a Czech unit” (51).

The question of personnel with respect to the old Austro-Hungarian army (with about one million mobilized Czechs) and the Czechoslovak Legions (with about 100,000 legionnaires) was decided in favor of the latter for national-political reasons. The legionnaires prevailed in the officer corps, although the presence of former imperial officers was for a long time indispensable to the internal operation of the new formation. At the end of 1927, there were 20 legionnaires among 68 generals, 75 among 240 colonels, and 416 under 746 majors. If one compares nationality statistics of the officer corps of the Czechoslovak army (107) with those of the Imperial and Royal army, astonishing parallels emerge. Among the 10,236 active professional officers in the Czechoslovak army in 1923, 89.2 percent were Czechs and Slovaks and 10.3 percent were Germans. In 1915 the active officer corps of the Austro-Hungarian army was 76.1 percent German, 10.7 percent Magyar, 5.2 percent Czech, 2.7 percent Polish, and 2.7 percent Croat and Serb. In both cases multiethnic armies were essentially led by one dominant nationality—before 1918 by the Germans and after 1918 by the Czechs. The situation among rising generations of officers was even more one-sided. Quite apart from the “purge” of “Austrian officers” undertaken by the circle around President Masaryk, the interest of Slovaks, Germans, and Magyars in an officer's education sank continually thanks to the lack of the necessary language skills and chances for advancement.

Zückert explores intensively the crisis of September 1938, particularly the problem of the loyalty of Sudeten Germans eligible for mobilization. The mobilization of 23 September subjected eighteen cohorts of the First Reserve as well as specialists from the Second Reserve. Altogether, 1,253,000 men of all nationalities received the order to report for duty. Together with the original peacetime force, the Czechoslovak army would officially have been made up of 1,453,000 soldiers. Of these, 315,000 were Germans and 90,000 were Magyars. In this worst-case scenario, the leaders of state and the general staff thus relied on all citizens eligible for military service, although the general staff feared that the arrival of the German reservists might provoke revolts. The reservists of German nationality were not given arms and were assigned overwhelmingly to unarmed working units.

Zückert believes that most contemporaries and historians have had a “distorted” view (287) of the behavior of the active soldiers and reservists of German nationality during the Sudeten crisis. Neither did “most of the Germans liable for service” obey the call up, nor did “the majority of German reservists” refuse to comply with mobilization. Zückert reports that “a total of 126,000 reservists did not comply with the call up. Of these, approximately 100,000 were of German nationality, which constituted a good third of all German reservists called up.” Doubtless many of those concerned were skeptical of the chances of success of a possible war of defense against Germany. The National Socialist propaganda incited the Germans liable for military service to behave disloyally, in other words, to treason. This was least effective among the Social Democratic and Communist workers in northern Bohemia. On the other hand, anticipating an attack by the German army, the Czechoslovak military withdrew to a fortified line that was in some cases twenty kilometers inside the border. It was from this “no man's land” that most of the noncompliant German reservists came, whereas in the inner districts of the country, the Germans complied for the most part. Given these circumstances, Zückert recommends that the simple percentage of noncompliant Germans in September 1938 not be taken “wholesale as the indicator of fundamental attitudes to the Czechoslovak state” (293).

In general, Zückert's book, with its independent interpretations, is an important international contribution to the history of the first Czechoslovak state.