Abstract
This study seeks to analyse decision making and policy formation within the British Foreign Office's Central Department in regard to the Czechoslovak political exiles based in Britain and the wider Czechoslovak question between 1939 and 1945. This thesis will examine the general interaction between the British and Czechoslovak authorities during this period and will study the development of British policy on a number of crucial issues that defined this relationship. These are the recognition question, the influence of military considerations, tripartite relations with both the Soviet Union and the Polish government in exile, relations with the Sudeten German exiles in Britain and the evolution of British policy on population transfers from Czechoslovakia, and finally the role played by the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Particular emphasis will be placed on the manner in which British policy evolved, the external influences on this process and the extent to which the exiles themselves were able to shape the prevailing course of British policy. This study is based on a detailed and systematic examination of primary materials held by the Public Records Office and in other archives. This research incorporates materials from a number of departments and from other governmental and non-governmental institutions that played a role in the creation of British policy during this period. Much use has also been made of official sources, published documents, diaries, private papers, memoirs, and the canon of secondary works on this subject in both English and in Czech. The secondary works on this subject, written during the Cold War, are of particular interest and this study seeks to undertake a critical examination of the conclusions they contain and to compare them against the current state of archival research and new developments and approaches in historical studies. This is not least as these works, predominately written by Czechoslovak emigres based in the west after 1948, continue to have a disproportionate influence on our understanding of Anglo-Czechoslovak relations during this period.