Pregledni rad
https://doi.org/10.20901/an.18.16
The Slavic Corridor in Czech Plans of Creating a Bulwark Against the German Drang nach Osten
Janko Bekić
orcid.org/0000-0003-1492-8363
; Ministarstvo obrane Republike Hrvatske, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
After the outbreak of World War I, the exiled Czech leadership began its diplomatic quest for the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state that was to become a close ally of Western Entente powers. Fully aware of the adverse geostrategic position of their future state, Czech leaders Masaryk and Beneš coupled the project of establishing an independent Czechoslovakia with the creation of an independent Poland and South Slavic state. In this context, they were considering the idea of a Slavic Corridor that would connect Czechoslovakia with Yugoslavia through a passageway in Western Hungary – an area populated by Germans, Magyars and Croats. The erection of the Corridor would neutralize the threat of an Austro-Hungarian restoration and hinder Germany’s advance towards the East (Drang nach Osten). Based on structural realism theory, the paper explores the idea of the Corridor during the war phase, when the initiative is in the hands of Czech political émigrés, and in the phase of the Paris Peace Conference, when the initiative is seized by the "Big Four". The paper attempts to resolve the question whether the Slavic Corridor was a central demand of Czechoslovak representatives or if it was used as a negotiation tool for the attainment of more important geopolitical goals.
Ključne riječi
World War I; Paris Peace Conference; geopolitics; Czeschoslovak Republic; Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; Slavic Corridor
Hrčak ID:
266898
URI
Datum izdavanja:
13.12.2021.
Posjeta: 1.206 *