Word: bening
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...function of this book is not that of a guide to good usage or a & dictionary, though it is a necessary complement to both. Despite its peculiar shortcomings, it remains a sterling reference tool and deserves a bravo!, bravissimo!, well done!, ole! (Sp), bene! (Ital), hear, hear!, aha!; hurrah!; good!, fine!, excellent!, whizzo! (Brit), great!, beautiful!, swell!, good for you!, good enough!, not bad!, now you're talking!; way to go, attaboy!, attababy!, attagirl!, attagal!, good boy!, good girl!; that's the idea!, that's the ticket!; encore!, bis!, take a bow!, three cheers!, one cheer more!, congratulations...
...street riots. Berlin sponsored this violence with payments to Konrad Henlein, leader of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German Party. It also gave him his instructions, which Henlein himself once summed up: "We must always demand so much from the Czechs that we can never be satisfied." When Czech President Eduard Bene first asked Henlein what he wanted, the list included political autonomy, payment of damages, separate citizenship for Sudeten Germans and freedom to practice "the ideology of Germans." Bene refused...
Rumors, possibly false, suddenly spread in May 1938 that German troops were concentrating on the Czech frontier. Bene ordered a partial mobilization, the British expressed "grave concern," and the French warned Berlin that they were ready to fight. One of Hitler's top generals thereupon announced that it had all been a mistake, that there had been no German troop movements. By appearing to stand firm for the first time, the Allies seemed to have made Hitler back down. But this apparent victory had two important results: the Allies were appalled at how near to war they had come...
Chamberlain said he would have to consult with his associates, which amounted to seeing whether either the British or the French were ready to fight for Czechoslovakia. They were not. Chamberlain then had to persuade Bene to give Germany every area inhabited more than 50% by Germans. That would mean the surrender of the entire Sudetenland, which represented not only one-fifth of Czechoslovakia's territory but also its industrial heartland and its defensible natural frontier. Bene at first refused, but when the British and French told him that he would have to fight alone, he gave...
Having won everything, Hitler still could not be satisfied. The following spring, deciding that he now wanted more than just the Sudetenland, he held a conference with Czech President Emil Hacha in Berlin (Bene had resigned and gone into exile after Munich). Hacha was 66 and suffering from heart trouble, so it did not help to have the meeting begin at 1:15 a.m. on March 15, 1939. Hitler told his guest that the Czechs were still guilty of "Bene tendencies," and therefore the Wehrmacht would invade Czechoslovakia at 6 that morning. The only question was whether the Czechs would...