Neutrality, the rights and duties of neutral countries during war were defined by the Hague Conventions. This why I said that neutrality was a vague term during peace. It simply had no agreed definition.
Ethiopia and China are relevant in the sense both countries were trying to elicit help from the Western Powers, and they did much more in this regard than Czechoslovakia.
They fought, hundreds thousands of their people died, Haile Selassie visited lots of countries, spoke in Geneva during League of Nations sessions. There was the Battle of Shanghai - Stalingrad on the Yangtze, then the Rape of Nanking. All in vain, nobody lifted a finger in their defense.
They Czechs should have known what to expect.
The info about Beck is from an old but quite good his biography written in the communist Poland. Because the author was hostile to Beck, I'm assuming he didn't embellish anything in this case. He wouldn't miss such a opportunity to attack him - and he says he was recalled.
I've checked contemporary newspapers and during the visit he wasn't decorated with others in Warsaw, and later in Kraków. Maybe he received his Legion independently.
Or as he was leaving France after his recall. I think this was customary at that time.
I've wrote to la grande chancellerie de la Légion d’honneur for a clarification but as I understand it, they have no more than a person or two doing this, and the French workweek is very short. So most likely it will take them a few months to answer.
French agreement to a Soviet invasion of Poland in 1938
Re: French agreement to a Soviet invasion of Poland in 1938
Have come across an article written by the Polish historian Anna Cienciala in which she says that Beck was awarded the Legion of Honour in April 1923 so before he was recalled. The accusation that he sold military secrets to the Germans was made by a French newspaper which later apoligised. Colonel Beck in a lot of books is a slandered man.