Taking a detour from the 750th anniversary of Lewes and Montfort’s parliament, 14 March 1939 marks the 75th anniversary of a little-known firefight that occurred near the River Ostravice separating Silesia and Moravia. A troop of Wehrmacht soldiers crossed the bridge into Moravia with the intent of seizing the army base in Mistek, as was agreed by the capitulation of rump Czechoslovakia, recently abandoned by the West and Soviet Union, as part of Hitler’s demands for total occupation. The Czech soldiers were not aware that these plans were supposed to take place the next day and opened fire, killing as many as twenty of the invading force before word arrived from Prague that surrender was in order. Prague itself would not match this first act of resistance to Nazi aggression throughout Europe until 3 days before the war’s end.
