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A 1937 dispute between Czechoslovakia and Portugal over the sale of 600 machine guns led to the termination of diplomatic relations between the two countries, an interregnum in official contact that would last 36 years.

The dispute originated with Czechoslovakia's suspicion that Portugal would attempt to transship Czechoslovak machine guns it had purchased to Spain, and Portugal's belief that Czechoslovakia's concern was due to pressure on it from the USSR. Diplomatic relations were restored in 1974, before again being terminated eight years later.

Background
Historically, the Czech lands and Slovakia on the one hand, and Portugal on the other, have had few points of intersecting interest. In the 1920s, following the creation of the First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia and Portugal began interacting with greater regularity. During this period, Czechoslovakia had a massive, domestic arms industry led by Škoda Works. In 1937, Škoda Works alone exported more than Kčs628 million worth of arms. Competition in the international arms trade between German and Czechoslovakian exporters was particularly intense, with the two powers jockeying for domination of continental European arms markets.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had been gradually exercising greater influence in Czechoslovakia and, in 1935, concluded a mutual defense treaty with it. By 1936 there were reports of elements of the Soviet Air Forces operating out of Czechoslovak territory.

Finally, Portugal had aligned itself with the Nationalist forces in Spain's ongoing Civil War, against which the Soviet-backed Republican faction was fighting.

Dispute
In July 1937, the government of Czechoslovakia requested assurances from Portugal that it intended to use ZGB 33 machine guns on order from the state-owned Czechoslovak Arms Manufacturing Co. to supply its own army and that it would not pass them on to Spanish Nationalist forces then engaged in the Spanish Civil War. Contemporary reports noted that the Portuguese order of 600 machine guns exceeded what was the realistic needs of Portugal's 30,000-man army.

The request for assurance personally offended Portuguese prime minister António de Oliveira Salazar and relations between Czechoslovakia and Portugal quickly deteriorated. The following month, after the exchange of several demarches between officials of the two countries, Portugal terminated diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia.

Though breaking diplomatic relations over disagreement regarding a single weapons sale was noted as an extreme course of action, according to the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings, "Portugal defended her action on the ground that the refusal of the Prague government was determined not by its own arms needs or noninterven­tion pledges but by instructions from Moscow". An article in Diário de Notícias derisively accused Czechoslovakia of "being perhaps the Soviet's largest air base".

For its part, the Czechoslovak government observed that breaking diplomatic relations over what it characterized as "the failure of commercial negotiations" was "unprecedented in the history of international relations".

Aftermath
Following the breakdown of relations, Portugal named Italy as its protecting power in Czechoslovakia. It subsequently placed a new order for machine guns, to replace those denied it by Czechoslovakia, from German manufacturers. The following year, on the eve of World War II, Czechoslovakia was dismembered by Germany and by Poland.

Portugal reestablished relations with Czechoslovakia in July 1974 and, later that year, accredited a new ambassador to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. A further dispute in 1982 resulted in relations, once again, breaking down before later being restored.