Reincarnated: Vive La France

Inside Hradčany Castle, the Cabinet sat in near silence.

They had gathered hours before dawn, called by Beneš himself after yet another Sudeten town erupted in shouts the night before.

"Two more Czech post offices vandalized. One set aflame," Kamil Krofta said quietly, sliding the report across the polished oak table.

President Edvard Beneš didn't reach for it.

His eyes were locked on a black-and-white film reel projecting against the far wall.

Henlein's rally in Karlsbad.

The voice was off, but the gesture spoke clearly Henlein's hand raised, his face sharp with the confidence of a man who knew he was backed by someone larger than himself.

"He's not pleading anymore," Beneš murmured. "He's issuing ultimatums with polite grammar."

Krejčí broke the stillness. "We're watching a performance, Mr. President. Berlin is writing the script. He's just the actor."

"And we," Beneš said bitterly, "are the audience. Silent. Ticket holders to our own humiliation."

No one responded.

Outside the castle.

Street sweepers cleared snow half-heartedly.

Tramcars ran, but the conductors barely spoke.

On Narodní Avenue, a bookseller folded Czech-language newspapers inward before placing them in the window not out of fear, just exhaustion.

In a village near Karlovy Vary, Father Marek gave a sermon in an empty church, his voice low but clear.

"They will tell you the land does not belong to you. That your names are foreign. That your faith is an obstruction. But I remind you this soil knew your footsteps long before theirs."

Afterward, only two women came to shake his hand.

One cried.

The other handed him a letter. It was unsigned.

It simply read.

"Speak slower. They are listening."

Meanwhile, in the Prague war ministry, General Syrový reviewed border reports with narrowed eyes.

"They've increased patrols across the hills. Armed men, many not in uniform."

"Volunteers?" asked an aide.

"Or mercenaries," Syrový muttered. "But their weapons are German-issue."

Back in the cabinet chamber, Beneš turned to his ministers. "We need France. We need Britain. We need one of them to say something beyond concern."

Krofta sighed. "We've sent three memos. No reply from Daladier. London urges restraint."

"Restraint," Beneš repeated. "We show restraint and lose. We act and get blamed. Either way, we bleed."

"Not yet," Krejčí said. "We haven't bled yet."

Beneš looked away. "Then perhaps we're just not listening hard enough."

In Berlin, the same morning, Konrad Henlein met with an envoy from the Abwehr.

The man was young, suited, and careful.

"You're playing it well," the envoy said, eyes darting around the room as if someone might overhear. "But you mustn't overstep. The Führer doesn't want you solving the problem. He wants you presenting the problem."

Henlein raised an eyebrow. "So I continue to demand what Beneš can't give."

"Exactly. Push just shy of the edge. Let the world see him say no."

Henlein tapped his cigarette against a porcelain ashtray. "And if he says yes?"

The envoy gave a thin smile. "He won't."

Outside, snow dusted Berlin's statues.

Young men marched under the Reichsadler flag, practicing formation drills in the Tiergarten.

In a small town near Plzeň, a Czech soldier found a cache buried beneath a toolshed four rifles, three German grenades, and a pile of leaflets written in Sudeten German.

They called for immediate separation from Prague.

He radioed his commander.

"Orders?"

There was a pause.

"Seal the site. Burn the leaflets. Say nothing."

That evening, in Prague, Beneš met alone with his secretary, an aging woman named Marta who had served him since his teaching days.

"Do you ever wonder," he asked, pouring two glasses of Slivovice, "what we'd be doing if this were a peaceful January?"

Marta took the glass, warming it in her hands. "I'd be at my niece's wedding in Brno. You'd be writing another book."

"On what?" he asked.

She smiled faintly. "How to rebuild Europe from fragments."

He sipped and stared out the window at the snow-covered rooftops.

"They're watching us unravel, Marta. And they call it geopolitical caution. I call it cowardice."

"Then don't unravel," she said simply. "Hold, even if it's just to spite them."

On the following day, in the Sudeten town of Cheb, Czech police entered a printing house suspected of aiding Henlein's network.

Inside, they found nothing but posters for cultural events a youth concert, a chess tournament, a language exchange.

"Looks harmless," said one officer.

The other nodded. "Yes. Which is why it's dangerous."

In Britain, Chamberlain reviewed the latest diplomatic dispatch from Prague.

His advisor frowned. "Henlein is stoking separatism. The Czech response has been nothing but defensive."

Chamberlain leaned back. "And yet any conflict in Central Europe risks pulling us into war."

"Better war now than surrender later."

Chamberlain's jaw tightened. "Your grandfather said the same in Crimea. Fifty thousand graves later, the peninsula remained Russian."

In a pub near Bratislava, a farmer named Jakub slammed his glass on the counter.

"I was born Czech, raised Czech. I'll die Czech."

"You think they care?" the barman muttered. "They'll walk over us with treaties and call it peace."

Jakub laughed bitterly. "Then we must teach them what walking over Czechs costs."

That night, an unmarked truck crossed the German border into Liberec under heavy snowfall.

Inside were ten crates.

Contents, uniforms, flags, film equipment.

Two men stepped off and handed a note to a local Sudeten organizer.

"Prepare for incidents. We'll capture the outrage. You create the provocation."

In Prague, Beneš met quietly with a British journalist named Michael Winthrop.

"I need your pen more than I need your embassy," Beneš said.

Winthrop raised an eyebrow. "So I report… what, exactly?"

"The quiet. The build-up. The silence that suffocates. Let them know we are not plotting we are bracing."

Winthrop scribbled notes.

"You know," he said, "the last man who said such things to me was Haile Selassie. Before Italy swallowed him whole."

Beneš nodded grimly. "And what did Britain do then?"

"Filed it under 'imperial adjustments,' I believe."

Later that evening, in Sudetenland, a Czech teacher stood before his last class.

"I was told," he said gently, "that starting tomorrow, all lessons must be in German. I will not be here for them."

A girl raised her hand, eyes glistening. "Will you come back, teacher?"

He paused.

"Yes. When it is our land again."

And then he walked out.