from entering their own ministries. The army was
confined to barracks and did not interfere. The
show of force proved sufficient. Some dissidents
in the democratic parties agreed, unfortunately,
to work with the communists, giving Gottwald’s
list of new ministers a spurious National Front
appearance. Benesˇ was old and weak; he held out
no longer. He believed that the country might be
plunged into civil war and he thought that even
Soviet intervention was possible if he did not give
in to Gottwald’s demands. He therefore agreed
to a new communist-dominated Cabinet without
holding immediate elections. On 27 February
1948, the new government was sworn in.
Democracy was finished.
A party that in the last free elections had
secured just over a third of the electorate’s votes,
and probably did not command even that support
in 1948, could not have gained control of the
government and of the country without threat-
ening violence and undermining the democratic
institutions and the loyalty of the police before-
hand. It is true that the non-communists had
chosen the time for the inevitable showdown, but
it was bound to happen anyway. They may have
been ill advised in their tactics, but it made no
real difference. The communists were determined
to gain control and they knew they could not do
so in free elections only a few months away. A
minority usurped the wishes of the majority.
Gottwald had covered his coup with no more
than a thin façade of constitutionality which did
not fool the Czechoslovak people or the West at
the time, though it fooled a few historians later.
The impact on Western governments and public
opinion was enormous, strengthening their
resolve. The majority of the US Congress was
persuaded that America’s own security required
close cooperation with Western Europe against
Soviet-led communism. The Prague coup finally
discredited Soviet moves to prevent the formation
of a West German state and accelerated the con-
clusion of a West European alliance, the Brussels
Treaty, in March 1948. It was self-evident in the
West that it had been fear of Soviet intervention
that had enabled the Czech communists to black-
mail the whole nation. The Soviet threat would
have to be met by measures of mutual security.
The formation of the Western alliance and the
plans for ending the occupation of Germany were
intimately linked. The French continued to fear a
resurgence of Germany and fought a rearguard
action to retain Allied control over the Ruhr.
Bevin tried to calm their fears, stressing that
France could rely on the Anglo-French Treaty of
Dunkirk, concluded in March 1947, which
promised immediate British military assistance if
Germany attacked. By January 1948, Bevin had
become more alarmed about Soviet intentions
than about what the Germans might do at some
future date. He called for a West European
Union. What he was aiming for, however, was not
a united Europe; the West European states were
to preserve their sovereignty but should conclude
treaties between them for their mutual defence.
On 17 March 1948, Bevin, Bidault and their
Belgian counterpart, Paul Henri Spaak, con-
cluded the Brussels Treaty. This bound Britain,
France and the Benelux countries (Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxembourg) to take whatever
steps were necessary ‘in the event of a renewal by
Germany of a policy of aggression’; the signator-
ies also promised to come to each others’ defence
if attacked by any aggressor in Europe. This
article (IV) applied to the Soviet Union without
specifically naming it. There was provision for
other states to join. Although the Brussels Treaty
was an essential preliminary to strengthening the
link between Western Europe and the US, and
was intended by Bevin as such, another year
was to pass before the North Atlantic alliance
(NATO) was concluded. The Brussels Treaty was
in no way supranational. Neither Britain nor
France intended to relinquish its sovereignty to
any European council or parliament.
With the conclusion of the Brussels Treaty
more rapid progress was made on the question of
the future of West Germany. The Soviet response
to all this was to protest and to withdraw from
the Allied Control Council on 20 March 1948.
As it turned out, that ended all formal four-power
control of Germany. The Russians also put pres-
sure on the Western Allies in the hope of deter-
ring them from creating a separate West German
state; they increasingly interfered with Allied land
communications to Berlin, which ran, of course,
through the Soviet zone.
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1948: CRISIS IN EUROPE – PRAGUE AND BERLIN 371
