The Tribune

THE eyes of the world have been on the conflict in Ukraine as Russian forces have invaded.

As the tanks rolled in and fighter jets battled in the sky, one reader of The Tribune was reminded of an editorial from our edition of March 25, 2014.

The lessons of history remain as a guide for our world today – and that editorial of eight years ago compared the actions of Russian forces in the Crimea in Ukraine to days long gone by when Germany targeted the Sudetenland.

The reader contacted The Tribune to say how much the editorial resonated with today’s events in Ukraine. And so we revisit the article itself, for all our readers to consider where we are now, and where we have been before.

Is world history today repeating itself?

As we watched in horror a Russian tank smash through the gates of a Ukrainian army base in Crimea’s Balbek city on Saturday, it was as though a sledge hammer had forced open the memory box of a small child sitting in her father’s editorial office many years ago listening to him discussing another European land grab by a mad tyrant. Only this time – the mid-1930s – the names were different – Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland… WAR! The names were too difficult for the child to pronounce, but she never forgot them.

In those years, an insignificant Austrian sign painter by the name of Adolf Hitler was determined to undo the peace treaty which was patched together at Versailles by the old men of Europe after World War One. Out of that Treaty was born the Republic of Czechoslovakia. Hitler’s flimsy excuse, much to the dismay of some of his army commanders, was a vow to smash Czechoslovakia on the pretext of protecting the Sudeten Germans, one of the many nationalities taken from the defeated Hapsburg Empire to create the new Republic. Hitler, who had served in the first world war, felt that the Treaty had humiliated Germany. He was particularly upset that the treaty put the full blame for the war on Germany. Hitler dedicated his life to righting that perceived wrong – in so doing he almost destroyed the world.

Today, 76 years later, a diminutive Russian (5’ 5”) who has worked hard to project himself as a “he-man” and “super hero”, is determined to repeat history by putting the once great Russian Empire back together again. For the moment, President Vladimir Putin has set his gaze on the Ukraine. In a bold land grab this weekend, his army took over the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea from whose parliament building the Russian flag now flies. His excuse? Like Hitler’s – the protection of ethnic Russians. These are his people, he says, living in Crimea whose rights he claims are being abused by the Ukrainians. It is also where Russia’s Black Sea fleet is located and is land-locked Russia’s only southern route to the Mediterranean and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean. However, up to last weekend it was Ukrainian territory. Today it is Russian.

Although – like Hitler with Sudetenland – Putin said he would respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, it would seem that he has his eyes set on other parts of the Ukraine, where ethnic Russians have also settled.

Hitler’s generals believe that had England and France been stronger in the handling of Hitler, letting him know that if he continued on the path he seemed to have set himself, they would take up arms to block him, there would have been no Second World War.

But they didn’t. They fell into the trap that all he wanted was a declaration of justice for the Sudeten Germans. If not he would have to see that they got that justice. The idea was gaining traction that the only way to settle the dispute was to cede Czechoslovakia’s Sudeten area to Germany. It was a solution that Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain felt he could live with. England believed it would satisfy Hitler’s thirst for conquest. But it didn’t.

Chamberlain took his first air flight at age 69 to meet with Hitler in his Berchtesgaden retreat in Germany to discuss the face-saving deal. The meeting was September 15, 1938. By then we were eight years old and as keen as was our father to read the cable news sent daily from the Colonial Office in London and to climb on his knee to listen to the BBC news broadcasts. Dad was one of the few in Nassau who believed that war was inevitable. He lost many friends because he talked war while they talked peace.

The English set in Nassau, like those in England, were delighted with Chamberlain’s return from Berchtesgaden waving a worthless piece of paper declaring: “Peace in our time!”

We recall Sir Etienne returning home one afternoon from having had tea with Lady Tute, wife of Chief Justice Sir Richard Tute (1932 to 1939) and recounting to our mother how Lady Tute had slapped him on his cheek because, despite her protestations, he insisted that Bahamians had to start preparing to live in a world at war. Lady Tute quickly regained her composure and apologised profusely.

The next we knew Poland was in Hitler’s sight. By 9pm on September 3, 1939, with the sinking of the British passenger liner Athenia, the world was at war.

Is today’s world now on the brink with Putin? Unlike the thirties, the world is so far advanced and well equipped on all sides with nuclear armaments that war is no longer an option.

However, history seems to be repeating itself. Like Hitler, Putin, a little man with a large chip on his shoulder because he does not believe the world is giving him or his country the respect he thinks is deserved, he is on a mission to rebuild the great Russian empire by retaking lost territories. Does this mean the whole of the Ukraine, the Baltic states and possibly even Finland and Poland?

The question now is: How far can the world let him go without him self-destructing, and possibly taking all of us with him?