The Times News

ULTIMATUM TO PRAGUE ENDS AT MIDNIGHT
Polish Officers Have Trouble in Restraining Army From Advancing
WARSAW IS IGNORING FOUR-POWER TREATY
By JUNIUS B. WOOD
Copyright, 1938, by United Press
TESCHEN, Polish-Czech Frontier, Sept. 30. (UP)—Polish army commanders had difficulty today restraining their troops from marching into Czechoslovakia and forcefully occupying the 600 square miles of lower Silesia.
The Polish government ignored the Munich settlement of the German-Czech crisis.
The army was ready to strike. Soldiers were concentrating all along the Czech border, hoping for orders from Warsaw to advance into Czechoslovakia when the time limit for Prague's reply to Poland's demands expires at midnight.
In Warsaw, President Ignacy Moscicki called a conference of Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly, commander-in-chief of the army, Gen. Felician Skorzewski, the premier, Eugen Kwiatkowski, the vice-premier and finance minister, and Col. Josef Beck, the minister of foreign affairs. It was said here that upon the conference may depend Poland's threat to send her army into Czechoslovakia.
"We are ready to occupy the territory before daylight tomorrow," a Polish government representative said. "The four-man 'fire squad of Europe' (Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier) can take three months or whatever time they please to discuss a situation we have already settled."
Demonstrators paraded in Warsaw, carrying placards which proclaimed that a historic hour was approaching. Newspapers reported additional fighting along the border with a number of Poles killed and wounded.
Poland's attitude was that despite the Munich agreement which might save western Europe from a devastating war, her ultimatum to Czechoslovakia stood. Responsible spokesmen said the Poles feel they were not a party to the conference and not obliged to abide by its decisions.
Government leaders emphasized that the problem of the lower Silesian district was not settled by the Munich conference; that on the contrary the situation was becoming more serious hourly.
Czechoslovakia must return lower Silesia, that portion of Poland which the Czech seized on Jan. 23, 1919, while the Poles were fighting Soviet Russia, by Saturday or suffer an armed invasion.
"Poland reserves all right of action," one official told the United Press.
That brief statement was the first official comment regarding the decision of the four great European powers in Munich yesterday. The fact that the conference foresaw Poland and Hungary eventually getting satisfaction for their territorial claims, was not commented upon. But a foreign office spokesman, by telephone from Warsaw, said that Poland was not obligated by agreements made without her participation.
WILL HOLD COUNTY OCTOBER SING SUNDAY
The Henderson County Singing convention will meet at the Peoples Tabernacle, on Kanuga drive, two miles from Hendersonville, on Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock.
A number of visiting singers are expected to attend, including the Rice quartet of Buncombe county.
Weather
THURSDAY
Maximum temperature—72 degrees.
Minimum—57 degrees.
Mean—64.5 degrees. Day's range 15 degrees. Rainfall—.67 inch.
Normal mean temperature for September—66.9 degrees. Rainfall to date—3.68 inches. Normal rainfall—5.04 inches.