# The Making of a State/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III
IN ROUSSEAU’S BIRTHPLACE (Geneva. January—September 1915)
IN Rome I had still been getting my bearings. Now, in Switzerland, systematic work was to begin. Bordering on friendly and hostile countries, and especially on Austria, Switzerland suited my purpose well. Thence it was fairly easy to communicate with Prague. Political refugees from many countries sought asylum on Swiss soil and I could meet and confer with them. Enemy newspapers and the whole range of German and Austrian publications, political and military, were available; and, naturally, also our own press—a great advantage since it enabled us to follow the course of things at home and throughout Austria. This was invaluable in our fight against Austrian and Magyar propaganda. At Geneva and Zurich all the necessary books, reviews and maps were to be had; and I needed quantities of them for my friends as well as for myself. Later on, in London and even in America, I got what I wanted from Switzerland. For purposes of precise political observation, I was accustomed to supplement the reading of daily newspapers by the study of political and historical literature. In fact, I have always kept in touch with the literatures of the principal countries so as to comprehend their political development in the light of their material and mental life. At Geneva I soon collected quite a respectable war library.
In Switzerland, moreover, there were colonies of Czechs, whereas in Italy there had been none. We had to tell them of the situation at home, to bring together those scattered in various Swiss towns and to organize them systematically for joint action. At Geneva we soon found vigorous helpers and, among them, Dr. Sychrava who took over a heavy journalistic task all the heavier because no contributions came from Prague and he was almost single-handed. In addition, he superintended communications with Prague. From Count Lützow, the well-known Czech nobleman who was then living at Montreux, I held aloof so as not to compromise him. But he knew what I was doing and agreed with it, as mutual friends afterwards told me in England. Especially did he agree with my Russian policy.
​Hardly had I settled in Geneva when news of my son Herbert’s illness came unexpectedly from my family in Prague; and, on March 15, a telegram announcing his death. Thus, like thousands of families at home, we were stricken. He was clean and honourable in rare degree, a poet-painter whose ideal of beauty was simplicity. Healthy he was, too, and strong through physical exercise. He had done all he could to avoid fighting for Austria and yet found death through the war. Typhus, caught from some Galician refugees whom he was helping, killed him—a case for fatalists! My old Clerical opponents did not fail to send me from Prague their coarse and malicious anonymous letters. “The finger of God!” they said. To me it seemed rather an injunction not to abate or to grow weary in my efforts.
Our first and most urgent task was to organize “subterranean” work, the sending of messengers to and from Prague. It went well, for we all worked with a will. I threw myself heartily into it. The task was at once technical and psychological. Very onerous was the work of composing cyphers and different keys to them so that they could be changed at intervals. M. Baráček, an engineer who was with us at Geneva, invented a special cyphering machine. We invented, too, or made up, all sorts of things in which letters, coded and otherwise, could be hidden. For instance, a skilful joiner made chests and boxes with sides in which a good number of newspapers and letters could be stowed away; and the police never found us out, notwithstanding their vigilance. Our rule was to do nothing usual—no false bottoms, nothing hidden in boots or clothes. Every dodge had to be new. It was harder to choose and train men. Each messenger had to be instructed according to his talents and his degree of education, so that he might be equal to emergencies. In such matters trouble often arises because messengers do not stick to their instructions but improvise thoughtlessly or grow careless. It was through imprudence of this sort that Dr. Kramář was compromised. He and, soon afterwards, Dr. Rašin were arrested, together with members of the staff of my newspaper, the “Čas,” Madame Beneš and my daughter Alice. I was particularly anxious about Dr. Beneš. It would never have done for him to be caught. He was ​a member of our subterranean organization, and a Social Democrat; and it irked him to see his Party taking so small a share in the work abroad. So, unknown to me, he took it into his head to send a messenger to its leader, Dr. Soukup, by way of stirring up the Party. The police caught the messenger. It was a bad business for us, as we had to begin all over again with new methods. The police, too, had become smarter, so that we were obliged to be more wide-awake than ever.
To some extent we communicated with Prague “legally,” by post. In the early days, at least, non-political letters got through. Thus, in a form agreed upon, I was able to hint that, in certain circumstances, I should come home. True, Dr. Beneš had telegraphed at the end of January that this would be impossible, and Machar sent me word that I should be executed on crossing the frontier. Friends in Prague got wind of a telegram sent from Rome by Baron Macchio, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the Quirinal, charging me with treasonable activities in Rome. Macchio had disliked me ever since my fight against Aehrenthal in 1909–10, when he was a Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. To keep me informed, our people at home made clever use of the advertisement columns of the newspapers, including the German newspapers. Dr. Beneš even managed to come twice to see me in Switzerland for a few days. Professor Hantich, M. Habrman (a Member of Parliament) and Dr. Třebický came also.
Another aspect of our task was to create a single organization for our people in all Allied countries. In this progress was slow, because correspondence was difficult. As time went on I managed to visit our principal centres myself or to send emissaries to confirm written instructions. We felt the need for a journal to guide and inform all our colonies as a substitute for voluminous correspondence. Friendly newspapers helped us to some extent by publishing news and interviews—as did hostile newspapers by their denunciations and indictments—and our people everywhere understood what was wanted. At Berne they formed a Central Executive Committee of Czech Societies in Switzerland (January 8, 1915). In Paris, the weekly papers “Na Zdar” and “L’Indépendance Tchèque” were published, and soon afterwards the “National Council of Czech Colonies was formed. (It must, however, be confessed that these Paris undertakings did harm as well as good. They were short-lived ​and led to strife. There were, naturally, personal and party differences in all our colonies, in Paris more than elsewhere; but there was also abundant goodwill.)
In the United States a Congress of the “Czech National Association in America” met on January 18 at Cleveland, and formed a centre for the efforts of our American colony. At Moscow the first Congress of the delegates of Czechoslovak Societies in Russia was held, and a General Association of those Societies founded. Our people organized themselves likewise in Serbia and Bulgaria. In Germany, where they were more numerous than elsewhere, they could not, of course, form a militant organization.
Everywhere, too, plans were approximately the same, opposition to Austria-Hungary taking the form of enlistment in the Allied armies, though the statements of our political aims were often very radical and ill-conceived. Some of them, for instance, claimed that not only should Vienna and Austria be included in Czechoslovak territory but also the whole of former Silesia and other regions which had once belonged for a time to the Bohemian Crown. It never seemed to occur to these enthusiastic politicians that a Czechoslovak State thus constituted would be mainly German. As long as these fantastic ideas were confined to our own people they did little harm, but harm was done when they were laid before Governments and statesmen.
Nevertheless, towards the summer of 1915, the process of creating a “single front” was practically completed. My authority was promptly recognized on every hand without much difficulty. We established, too, a press with a single policy. On May 1 our friend Professor Denis brought out in Paris his periodical “La Nation Tchèque.” On June 15 Pavlu published the “Čechoslovák” in St. Petersburg, while Švihovský issued the “Čechoslovan” at Kieff. Finally we had the “Československá Samostatnost” (Czechoslovak Independence), edited by Dr. Sychrava, which appeared, from August 22 onwards, in the little French town of Annemasse. This was the official organ of our whole movement abroad. In America the Czechs and Slovaks had their own separate journals; and, in Russia, a Slovak paper was published in May 1917. Later on, in Siberia, there were Czech as well as Slovak papers. In response to my constant demands that some Members of Parliament and journalists should come from Bohemia to help us, M. Dürich, a Member of Parliament, arrived at the end of May. I had met him in the Vienna Reichsrat. He was quite a good parliamen​tarian, speaking French and Russian but not strong enough politically for the situation now facing us. He came saying that Dr. Kramář had selected him specially to represent our nation in Russia. To this I had no objection as long as we were agreed upon a programme. He was for the Tsar and even for the Orthodox Church, like so many of our Russophils who awaited salvation from Russia. But among our fellows at Geneva his inert pro-Russianism and his failure to take part in our work made bad blood. They reproached him for not hastening to Russia and, in order to avoid an open quarrel, I had more than once to act as peacemaker. At the Russian Legation in Berne I noticed that they were corresponding with St. Petersburg about his journey, though they said nothing of it to me; and I was struck by the delay in arranging it.
Slav Differences.
In Switzerland, ties with the Allies grew stronger. Above all we gained many new friends among the Swiss themselves, the French Swiss in the first instance but among the Germans too. I was soon in touch with the press and the universities and, in this respect, my daughter Olga was very helpful. Our news from Prague contained valuable information, particularly on military matters-a reason for establishing regular contact with the Italian Legation. Cooperation with the Southern Slavs continued. We let each other know what was being done, took counsel and often acted together. From all Yugoslav lands, public men, political and other representatives, came to Geneva; and in London a “Yugoslav Committee” was formed on May 1, 1915, as the organ of the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. This Committee published a “Bulletin Yugoslave” in Paris and laid memoranda before the French Government and the British Parliament. The Serbians of Serbia produced their own journal, “La Serbie,” at Geneva, where there was also a Serbian Press Bureau. The progressive Montenegrins had an organ of their own, while King Nicholas issued his “Glas Crnogorca” at Neuilly near Paris. When the Young Yugoslavs issued their national programme, I wrote a preface to it.
Old acquaintances, among them Professor Božo Markovitch of Belgrade (who had been an important witness in the Friedjung trial), were in Geneva, and Supilo himself came for a time on his return from Petrograd, whither he had gone early in 1915 to plead the Southern Slav cause with official Russia. Of that ​journey I shall have more to say. Through these friends we got news of our people in Serbia; and from Paunkovitch, the Commander of the Serbian camp for prisoners of war, we heard what was going on and how many of our fellows had been taken prisoners by Serbia. I thought of going to see them, but circumstances kept me at Geneva. The Serbian Consul provided us all with the necessary passports and visas for France and elsewhere.
As Bulgarian propaganda was pretty strong in Switzerland, keen disputes soon arose between Bulgarians and Serbians, partly on account of the Russian “Cadet” leader, Milyukoff, who sided with Bulgaria where he had lived after his expulsion from pre-Duma Russia. Though I disapproved of Bulgarian policy (since the Bulgarians claimed not only the whole of Macedonia but Old Serbia and the territory of the so-called Bulgarian Morava) I took no part in this dispute; for it should not be forgotten that the Allies had promised those regions to the Bulgars when they wanted to win them over. This Allied policy, directed against a Serbia who was bleeding for the Allied cause, was much discussed by my Southern Slav and English friends.
Disputes arose too among individual Southern Slavs and their organizations, the Serbians holding fast to a Great Serbian centralized programme, most of the Croats and Slovenes to a Federal programme, and not a few Croats to a Great Croatian programme. All alike proclaimed national unity in “Yugoslavia” as their object, but that comprehensive term covered very different and often hazy ideas. There were, besides, some special shades and tendencies of opinion, one of them being pro-Austrian, even in Serbia as well as in Croatia.
M. Svatkovsky, who was already in Switzerland, kept me in constant touch with Russia; and though I maintained relations with the Russian Legation in Berne they were unimportant. I corresponded, however, with the leaders of the Czech colony in Russia; and, at the beginning of February, one of them, M. Koniček, a member of the first Czech deputation to the Tsar, came to me by way of Paris ostensibly for the purpose of offering me the leadership in Russia. I “sized him up” at once. He was one of our many political tyros in Russia, a thoroughgoing partisan of the reactionary “Black Hundreds.” Even in public meetings he began his speeches with the words, “Little Father, the Tsar, sends you his greetings.” That put him out of court at once with all our colonies, in Paris, in Geneva, and afterwards in America. Many took him for a Russian ​official agent. He soon fell foul of me and began to intrigue in the grossest fashion. It was he who had dominated the “National Council of the Czechoslovak Colonies” in Paris, and had founded the “Indépendance Tchèque.” He brought trouble enough upon us and aroused French ill-will by his reactionary pan-Slavism, though he gained several adherents, some of whom were guilty of conduct so excessive that they were taken for Austrian agents provocateurs.
Towards the middle of April 1915, when our organization was sufficiently advanced, I went for a short time to Paris and London. From our colonies in both cities I had received news of political and personal bickerings, and my friends, Seton-Watson and Steed, urged me to come for political reasons. In Paris I discussed everything with Professor Denis and saw many members of our colony. Peace was made. In London it was comparatively easy to settle the dissensions, but I stayed longer there so as to work out a memorandum for Sir Edward Grey and for political circles generally, defining more exactly what I had discussed with Seton-Watson in Holland. I laid stress upon our historical right to independence and vindicated our whole undertaking. This was the more necessary because a number of English political men were inclined to conceive the future settlement of Europe on racial lines rather than to take account of historical rights. I criticized also the allotment of a considerable part of Dalmatia to Italy. Of this I had heard something in London as well as in Geneva and Paris, for the negotiations between Italy, England, France and Russia had been long drawn out.
On the situation in Germany I got trustworthy information in London. There I saw the Russian Ambassador, Count Benckendorff, to whom I gave a number of documents and explained our position and that of Austria. He seemed to be under the influence of the Treaty with Italy; at any rate he could not trust himself to make any promise, and what he said showed that Russia had no definite Slav policy. This was no news to me, but Benckendorff’s bearing confirmed it. He advised me to go as soon as possible to St. Petersburg in order to see Sazonof and, particularly, the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was apparently omnipotent.
On the way back to Geneva I made another short stay in Paris and completed what I had begun there. With Professor Denis I considered the outlook in all Slav countries and the world situation on the basis of his book, “La Guerre,” which I had sent to Prague as soon as it appeared. On the whole we ​were agreed, though Denis differed from me on the very important question of Constantinople.
In Paris, too, I met the Southern Slavs. Among them the most important was M. Vesnitch, the Serbian Minister, whom I had known as a student. He was our true and helpful ally throughout the war. We discussed of course the concessions in Dalmatia which the Allies, including Russia, had made to the Italians; for, even in Paris, Slav interests were long driven into the background by the desire to win over Italy. On this account I did not approach the French Foreign Minister, M. Delcassé, as I thought he might not like it; besides, I knew that he would not last long. He resigned, indeed, on October 18, 1915.
Italian Action.
Yet I was delighted when Italy cut loose from the Triple Alliance on May 4, 1915, and declared war against Austria on May 28. The moral, political and military significance of her action was all the greater because the Allied position in the field was then unfavourable. True—and this was characteristic of the Italian political standpoint—Italy did not declare war against Germany until August 28, 1916; and the Austro-Hungarian Croats and Slovenes were sorely disquieted by the terms of the Treaty of London which brought Italy into the war.
Prince Bülow, as I have said, had tried to hold Italy back; and, under German pressure, Austria-Hungary had suggested terms for the maintenance of Italian neutrality. On March 27, 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Burián, had offered Italy the Italian-speaking part of Tyrol, but on April 9 the Italian Foreign Minister, Baron Sonnino, demanded much more and especially territory inhabited by Austrian Germans and Slavs. Before the Austro-Hungarian counter-proposals were made, on May 10, the Treaty of London had been signed on April 26. It promised, among other concessions, about half of Dalmatia to Italy. In quarters that were quite well informed it was said at the time that the German Emperor had compromised the position of Germany and Austria-Hungary by his unbridled personal criticism of the King of Italy; and I learned afterwards that he had in fact insulted the King by a curt peremptory telegram calling upon him to fulfil his obligations as an Ally.
In following the course of the war from Switzerland, the articles contributed to the “Journal de Genève” by the famous ​Swiss military writer, Colonel Feyler, were a great help. I was still tormented by the question that had worried me at the outset whether the war would really last as long as I had reckoned. At the beginning of 1915 a number of French politicians and soldiers, e.g. Generals Duchesne and Zurlinden, still looked for an early triumph, thanks to Russia; and when, in the following summer, I got to know the position in the chief Allied countries and realized how little we were known and how scanty were our political relationships, I feared we might achieve nothing if the war ended quickly. If it were protracted we should have more time for propaganda. Meanwhile, there was much talk of a drawn war; and in 1915, as subsequently, the situation was not such as to put this contingency out of the question.
The battle of the Marne and its consequences I studied constantly and sought in all directions expert views upon them, though I only got them fully in England. After that battle the struggle in the West transformed itself more and more into a war of position—a circumstance which suggested that it would last long. In April 1915 the Germans, employing their usual tactics of intimidation, sprang a surprise on the Allies with gas attacks. But there were no decisive battles.
In the Eastern theatre the Russians, who had been beaten in East Prussia in 1914, were again beaten on the Galician front at Gorlice and Przemsyl in 1915. Thus vanished the hopes of a Russian occupation of the Bohemian Lands. In the summer the Germans occupied Russian Poland. Warsaw and Vilna fell, and the Russian army, though not annihilated, was driven back into the interior. The position in Russia and the political and military incapacity of the Tsar and his advisers were revealed on September 6 by the Tsar's decision to take over the supreme command in person.
Elsewhere things dragged. The Italians advanced slowly, fighting a whole series of battles, twelve I believe, on the Isonzo; and the bold British attempt, begun in February, to capture the Dardanelles was soon seen to be fruitless.
So effectively did German propaganda in Switzerland turn to account the situation in the field that I went for some days to Lyons in order to watch French military arrangements and especially the recruits. Alarming accounts of their spirit and of anti-war feeling at Lyons and in Southern France were being disseminated by enemy agencies, just as unfavourable accounts were being spread of the state of mind in Northern Italy. In France I noticed how the Catholic movement affected the army ​and saw recruits wearing medals of the Virgin Mary. Here, as everywhere else during the war, I kept a careful eye on religious movements. But from France, as later from a short trip to Northern Italy (where I stayed with the Russian writer, Amfiteatroff), I returned with an easy mind.
Action against Austria.
The time had come to take public action against Austria. All Czech colonies abroad expected and demanded it. In Russia a Czech Military Unit, or “Družina,” had been formed in the autumn of 1914. In France our fellows had joined the army. In all Allied countries our people were vigorously opposing Austria and Germany, and our men were behaving well in the Austro-Hungarian army. We made this widely known with good effect. On April 8, 1915, when the Prague Regiment went over to the Russians at Dukla, even the Austrian newspapers announced that it had been disbanded, though they had until then said nothing of our movement. Political reprisals at home became more severe. As I have said, Dr. Kramář and Dr. Rašin were arrested. The Government at Vienna, yielding more and more to German influences, changed the State escutcheon and abbreviated the constitutional style of the country from that of “The Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrat” to that of “Austria.”
In our propaganda we turned all these things to account, but we lacked, so to speak, an official designation. The Southern Slavs were ahead of us with their Central organization and their manifestos. The truth was that we needed funds. Money is the sinews of all war; and, for the moment, I had little. None came from Prague, and communications with America were slow. Without money I would not and could not begin to act officially; for action, once begun, must not slacken but must increase and be intensified. Therefore I began by educational propaganda. On July 4, 1915, I spoke of John Hus to our own people and to some Germans at Zurich; and, on July 6, the fourth centenary of his martyrdom, Professor Denis and I held a meeting in the Hall of the Reformation at Geneva. Denis gave an historical address to which I added political comment. Thanks to good publicity the celebration found a favourable echo in all Allied countries, while upon our own colonies and soldiers it had the educational effect of showing that, in the spirit of our Hussite ancestors, we were fighting for a moral as well as for a political purpose. In following years we organized ​successful Hus celebrations everywhere. On July 6, 1916, for example, references were made to Hus and the Czechs in all English churches. Even in Austria the Geneva celebration of 1915 hit the mark, the “Neue Freie Presse” denouncing it as “the first Czech declaration of war against Austria.” From purely political declarations I still refrained, partly because I had been advised from Prague to wait a while. So I sent our people there a draft manifesto and awaited the arrival of Dr. Beneš. When he came for good on September 2 and our work abroad had been properly apportioned, we came out publicly against Austria on November 14, 1915. By that time I was in London.
The Meaning of the Fight.
I have said that the resolve to fight Austria involved for me a moral as well as a political problem. I had long pondered over War and Revolution, for they are the main moral problem, and Humanity was more than a word to me. And the problem of humanity is a specifically Czech problem. Our writers and leaders, Kollár and Palacký, had decided in favour of Comenius the question whether our model should be Žižka, the Hussite soldier, or Comenius, the educator. In our own time Tolstoy had dealt with the problem on general grounds. Him I had often visited. With his doctrine of non-resistance I could not agree. I held that we must resist evil always and in everything, and maintained against him that the true humanitarian aim is to be ever on the alert, to overcome the old ideals of violence and heroic deeds and martyrdom, and to work with loving-kindness and wholeheartedly even in small things—to work and to live. In extreme cases, violence and assault must be met with steel and beaten off so as to defend others against violence.
Neither morally nor, I think, psychologically, did Tolstoy recognize the distinction between aggressive violence and self-defence. Here he was wrong; for the motives are different in the two cases and it is the motive which is ethically decisive. Two men may shoot, but it makes a difference whether they shoot in attack or in defence. Though both do the same thing the implications are not the same; the mechanical acts are identical but the two acts are dissimilar in intention, in object, in morality. Tolstoy once argued arithmetically that fewer people would be killed if attack were not resisted; that, in fighting, both sides get wilder and more are killed; whereas if the aggressor meets with no opposition he ceases to slay. ​But the practical standpoint is that, if anybody is to be killed, let it be the aggressor. Why should a peace-loving man, void of evil intent, be slain and not the man of evil purpose who kills? I know well that it is easy to pass from defence to attack and that it is difficult, when resisting attack, to remain strictly on the defensive; but against doctrines like those of Tolstoy no other ethical principle can be invoked than that of the right of self-defence. I know, too, that it is sometimes hard to say precisely who the aggressor is; yet it is not impossible. Thoughtful men of honest mind can distinguish impartially the quarter whence attack proceeds. In my work “The Czech Question” and elsewhere I dealt fully with the humanitarian problem of aggressive and defensive war and of Revolution; and, shortly before the Great War began, in “Russia and Europe.”
At Geneva, Romain Rolland, who was working in the Office for Prisoners of War, represented Tolstoy’s views. His hatred of war exposed him to much hostility and he was often accused of having sold himself to the Germans. This was thoroughly unjust, as discerning readers may see from his articles collected under the title: “Au-dessus de la mêlée.” Tolstoy’s doctrine was Rolland’s starting point, and it was in the light of it that I judged his pacifism. It led me, indeed, to pass my own humanitarian ideas once more in review.
At that time pacifism was spreading everywhere. Against Rolland’s pacifism I have nothing to say for he, who could not and would not fight, worked for the prisoners of war. But there are several sorts of pacifism―for instance, a pacifism of the naturally weak and timorous, a pacifism of the terrified and sentimental, and a pacifism of speculators. Yet another variety was that of the extreme International Socialists which found vent in their Conference at Zimmerwald on September 8, 1915. Very repugnant to me were the pacifists who defended the Germans as though they had been victims of aggression whereas they had long been and then were the bitterest foes of pacifism. I refer, of course, to official Germany which wanted the war and waged it. Among the German people themselves, as elsewhere, there always had been pacifist tendencies, some of which survived even during the war.
My point of departure is that war in the field is not the worst evil that can befall human society. But in war there is much besides the fighting of heroes. By the side of it there has hitherto been a whole system of abominations—lying, greed, baseness, vindictiveness, cruelty, sexual outrages and what not. ​People of romantic, too romantic, mind see in war only the Napoleons and the heroic leaders depicted by painters of the older school, and forget that even in the field Ulysses counts for more than Achilles. The social conditions out of which war arises have also to be taken into account, and the plight not only of the fallen but of those who are crippled or broken in health, and the way they are cared for. All this is war.
In my case the issue, Humanity versus violence, came to a very practical head in the question whether Czechs and Slovaks, fighting as the soldiers of our revolution, ought to fire upon their Czech and Slovak brethren in the Austro-Hungarian army. This was no abstract casuistry, for our legionaries actually met their fellow-countrymen in battle. In some instances, brother fought against brother, father against son, though as a rule they recognized each other, those on the Austrian side coming over to our Legion. But there were also instances of very stubborn fratricidal strife when our men in Austrian regiments clung to Palacky’s original view that “if Austria had not existed it would have been necessary to invent her.”
Many a sleepless night did I pass in thinking of the fate of our volunteers and insurgents who fell into the hands of Austrian military justice. Reports of the execution of these young fellows grew more frequent-and I felt burning pain at the thought that I was preaching stern resistance and was urging them on to a life and death struggle. Often I yearned to go into the fighting line, since I was proclaiming war—yet I had to remember that, in the very interest of the fighters, the leader must not expose himself. This much I did resolve—that I would shirk no danger, or fear for my own life, that is to say, I would not give way to fear, for I think every man feels fear when his life is in danger and mine was certainly in constant danger everywhere.
Not less tormenting was the thought of what our people would say if we did not win. Into the details of that complicated question I cannot enter. I can only explain the reasons for my action against Austria and Germany, and why my humanitarian ideas drove me into the ranks of the belligerents; for that is what our work really meant, as I had gone abroad in the conviction that we must have an army of our own. In Switzerland, France and England our numbers were small. Few volunteers could therefore be enrolled. In America and in Russia our colonies were stronger; and in Russia there were our prisoners of war, many of whom had given themselves up ​to the Russians. Hence our army must be formed in Russia. America might provide a certain number of recruits, though her neutrality would be an obstacle. Unless we had a fighting force, our claim to freedom would hardly be heeded. In a world at war, mere tracts on “historical and natural rights” would be of little avail.
From Russia I often got scraps of news of what our people, and especially our “Družina,” were doing there. Russia was practically cut off from the West and her propaganda was feeble. Russian papers came late and irregularly. I eked out what I got with my own knowledge of men and things, and to cover emergencies I sent a special messenger to Russia. Other messengers went into Austria and even to Prague. They were, of course, mostly neutrals, men and women of education and intelligence who went for the sake of the cause. I gave them careful instructions not to approach my acquaintances but to get all possible information about conditions and persons. Visitors from Russia, Austria and Germany often gave me news; and I met in Switzerland some well-informed men from Vienna, among them officials who disagreed with the policy of the Government and told me frankly what they knew. One Parisian banker, a Hungarian citizen thoroughly versed in the affairs of Vienna and Budapest, gave me many an interesting detail in the course of a walk by the lake.
The Question of War Guilt.
From the humanitarian standpoint the question of war guilt was very weighty. Literature upon it grew mightily even during the war. To-day it forms a whole library. My own judgment was based upon long observation of Germany and of Austria, and especially upon the pan-German movement. In forming a right opinion, details alone are not decisive—whether this or that country mobilized a few hours or a few days sooner or later—but the question who did most to create the whole political atmosphere out of which, when opportunity offered, the war arose almost mechanically.
In the German Empire and in Austria-Hungary the guilt lies with Imperialism and Imperialistic militarism. German Imperialism, as defined and practised by the pan-Germans, was at the bottom prone to violence. In Germany and in Austria. Hungary violence was shamelessly done to non-German races, and violence characterized domestic policy as a whole; yet it must be admitted that Europe made no protest. A German ​philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, advocated the extermination of the Poles, while the historian, Mommsen, taught that Czech skulls should be cracked. In German diplomacy, with its aggressive, ruthless, domineering and impatient character, a corresponding tendency prevailed. On the one hand, pan-German doctrine was the expression of actual practice; on the other, its teaching that the Germans were a “ruling race” fashioned the whole policy of Germany and Austria. In this spirit German philosophers and lawyers exalted violence into an ethical and juridical principle. It was the Germans who most zealously developed the theory that right proceeds from might and force, and it was they who, at the same time, practised it most effectually and ruthlessly. In lands where public opinion had thus been pervaded by aggressive militarism, where uncompromising pan-Germanism became the creed of civilians and officers alike, where the army was kept in constant readiness, the State and, with it, the people, rushed light-mindedly into war as soon as opportunity offered. The Sarajevo outrage offered it.
The thesis of Treitschke and, after him, of all the theorists of the German Drang nach Osten—that it has ever been the task of Germany to colonize the East and, in particular, to subjugate the Slavs—may explain though it cannot justify this aggressive education of the German people. It is clear from the secret Austro-German Treaty of 1909, which made the true meaning of the Triple Alliance clear, that Austria and Prussia-Germany were always thinking of war. (The Viennese editor, Dr. Kanner, has rightly drawn attention to this Treaty.) But, in Allied countries, the whole onus of guilt was somewhat one-sidedly thrown on to the Germans, less attention being paid to Austria because the conflict with her was indirect. Yet Austria bears a great part of the guilt, and her fate and her punishment have rightly been proportionate to it. Austria had a right to demand, as she did demand—though, oddly enough, rather late—satisfaction for the Sarajevo outrage. On this point all States were agreed. But Austria was to blame for having risked and provoked war with Russia by her exaggerated claims upon Serbia. After the Sarajevo outrage it was falsely declared in Vienna and Budapest that the Serbian Government had instigated it. The Serbian protest had no effect. A Serbian warning of the possibility of an outrage was given in Vienna, as is shown in Professor Denis’s book on Serbia and as the recent Memoirs of Biliński, the former Austro-Hungarian Minister, confirm. Under Count Berchtold the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office ​pursued against Serbia the same Machiavellian policy as it had followed under his predecessor when the anti-Serbian documents were forged. Vienna and Budapest literally raved against Serbia. She was to be annihilated. There was disagreement only upon the most effective means to this end.
In relating the Pashitch-Berchtold incident during the winter of 1912 I have already referred to the difference between the leading Ministers of Serbia and Austria-Hungary. During a victorious war the Serbian Prime Minister had been ready to rule out further conflicts with Austria-Hungary; and the Austro-Hungarian Minister had haughtily rejected the offer. Biliński rightly says in his Memoirs that the Great War might never have broken out but for Berchtold’s inability to understand that offer—an inability that was, however, inherent in the Austrian and the German system.
The great guilt of Germany is that she gave her ally a free hand and allowed Austria-Hungary, in so far-reaching a matter, to take the decision; and that, under the pretext of allied loyalty, she used the declaration of war against Serbia as a long-expected opportunity. The Memoirs of General Conrad von Hoetzendorf now make it certain that Germany promised to support Austria even if the action against Serbia should bring on a big war. Conrad heard this from Berchtold as early as July 7, 1914. Germany was capable of greater wisdom than the superficial, good-for-nothing Austro-Hungarian Government and is therefore the more to blame. One strong, decided word from the Emperor William would have frightened Vienna. Corruptio optimi pessima. Further, Germany is guilty of not having utilized the English proposal for a Conference and of not having arranged a meeting of the Emperors, Kings and Presidents, or their Foreign Ministers, in order to deal with the dispute directly and face to face. The conduct of the war by Germany and Austria-Hungary, and especially the “frightfulness” of their methods, confirmed their guilt. The sinking of the Lusitania, the shooting of Miss Cavell at Brussels, the bombing of London, and many other strategically superfluous raids, the use of poison gas and similar methods rightly inflamed feelings against Germany everywhere. Moreover, the advance of the Austro-Hungarian armies in Serbia and in Galicia was wholly barbarous—thousands and thousands of people were killed and tortured, often with a cruelty that was sickening. Karl Kraus’s drama “The Last Days of Mankind” is based on authentic proofs of these things. It reveals at the same time the cruel degeneracy of the Hapsburgs. Nor must I forget ​Professor Reiss, a Swiss, who saw the cruelties perpetrated by the Austrians and the Magyars in Serbia, and spoke in public of them in Switzerland and in Paris and London. His addresses and writings helped us and the Southern Slavs greatly.
Of a piece with this policy of violence were the untruths and positive lies systematically circulated by German and Austro-Hungarian propaganda; for what I say of Germans and Austrians applies equally to the Magyars. For instance, the lie that the French opened hostilities by crossing the frontier and by bombing German territory from aeroplanes, whereas in reality the French withdrew their army six miles behind the frontier in order to avoid “incidents.” I am persuaded that this action on the part of the French helped to win them sympathies and to overcome the reserve of England. I verified the untruth of this lying allegation; and though I admit that untruths about the Germans were spread by the Allies, it was done on a much smaller scale. English and American writers were besides, incomparably more decent and honourable than those of the enemy. For us, the character of German and Austrian propaganda was of especial importance because we were able to expose its methods in the United States. But of that I shall speak when I come to America.
The question of war guilt is being zealously debated everywhere, if only for the reason that at Versailles the Allies charged the Germans and their allies officially with aggression. I have gone through the whole literature of the question without finding any reason to change my view. In Germany and also in Austria it is now noticeable that their guilt begins to be more generally recognized than it was during the war and immediately after the peace; and I repeat that, while there may be differences of opinion upon all sorts of details, for example, whether the Russians or the Austrians mobilized a few hours sooner or later, the war of 1914 was a necessary consequence of the doctrines of militarism and of the right of the mailed fist which were most effectually formulated and propagated, philosophically and scientifically, in Prussia-Germany. Therefore the heaviest share of guilt for the war lies with Prussianism. It may be said that guilt should be ascribed in the first instance to States and to their Governments rather than to peoples. This I admit though I cannot deal here with the question how far a people is responsible for its State and, in this case, for Prussia, the leading German State. That is a problem to which I shall revert.
Intrigues in Switzerland.
Even in free Switzerland Austria gave us a taste of her quality. Like Germany, she was officially represented there and used her advantage. The police searched the dwellings of our people, and the authorities of the Canton of Geneva forbade anti-Austrian propaganda. In practice, the prohibition was mildly applied. All the same, Dr. Sychrava transferred our Czech paper, the “Československá Samostatnost,” to the French side of the frontier at Annemasse—to which a tramway runs from Geneva. Otherwise things went on as before, though we had to be very careful not to get the Government into difficulties. Later on, in February 1916, Sychrava was expelled from Switzerland; and a number of Czech students who returned home were imprisoned and condemned to death because they had listened to my address on John Hus and had talked to me.
In Switzerland, as elsewhere, German, Austrian and Magyar propaganda was strong and there was a considerable current of pro-Austrian feeling. Professor Lammasch and other Austrians came personally from Vienna and established relations with many subjects of enemy countries. It was not only to us that Switzerland gave asylum but to all others, including pacifist Socialists; and it was thence that Lenin started for Russia with the help of Swiss Socialists. German Switzerland was strongly pro-German, as were the higher officers and heads of the Swiss army.
Austrian spies were always at our heels. One came from Prague straight to my hotel. I had, however, been warned of his coming-a proof that our subterranean communications and the “Maffia” in Prague were working well. I asked him to see me the very next day and put him all sorts of questions, in the most innocent fashion, about Prague and the police. My younger comrades had plenty of fun with him. Some of them won him over to our side and made a double traitor out of him. More interesting was an Austrian officer, a Moravian by birth, who pretended to be a deserter and offered me an invention to enable airmen to hit a given target. I put him into touch with the French at Annemasse, but in Paris they thought his invention worthless and kept him at a distance. He told me a long romantic story which I verified and found false. Then he evaporated. In the spring of 1915 one of my arms began to give trouble. Small abscesses began to appear on my shoulder. My doctor ascribed them to poisoning and our own people ​thought the Germans were trying to get at me through my laundry. The matter would not be worth mentioning but for the fact that the same thing happened to me in England, where the doctor also diagnosed poison. I put it down to lack of air and exercise, and took to riding; for on horseback one is supposed to pass twice as much air through the lungs as when walking.
Naturally our chief care was to counteract Austrian intrigues and propaganda, the stupidity of which often helped us. But we took into account the difficult position of Switzerland who was exposed to ruthless German and Austrian pressure. At the same time I studied with interest the racial and political institutions of the Swiss; for the relationship between the French, German and Italian Swiss resembled roughly what the relationship of Czechs, Germans and Magyars would be in the Czechoslovak State which we hoped to found. There are indeed many similarities between us and the Swiss. Switzerland, too, arose from a struggle against Austria and, like us, she has no access to the sea. Weightier seemed to me the fact that, despite the sharp antagonisms of racial feeling, the unity of the Helvetian Republic was not disturbed during the war. Many distinguished German Swiss, like the poet Spitteler, came out strongly against Prussianism. I had already known Swiss writers, e.g. Keller, C. F. Meyer, Spitteler, Amiel, Seippel, Rod and Ramuz; and after the war I made the acquaintance of the German Swiss writer, Roninger. The realism of these Swiss writers is, I believe, an effect of Swiss democracy. I have always taken the quality of Swiss literature as a proof that inter-racialism is not detrimental to racial character and that no harm is done when French and Germans live as friends side by side. Linguistically and racially, Switzerland is a classical example of strong racial originality combined with the closest inter-racial intercourse.
Small though she is, Switzerland gained her influence upon European civilization through her spirit. She has developed inter-racially as intensely as racially—witness the humanitarian international institutions, from the Red Cross to the League of Nations, which are established on her soil. True, Switzerland is democratic and free whereas, in Austria and in Hungary, races were held together by force under monarchical absolutism. For this very reason we Czechs may learn from the Swiss, though we must always remember the differences between us and them. Of these the most important is that Switzerland is a Federation of small independent State-Cantons all of whose citizens belong ​racially to great nations, organized as great independent States, and that from time immemorial there have been no racial conflicts in Switzerland.
Thanks to the Swiss mobilization, I saw something of the army and studied the militia system which the Socialists recommended and which I also adopted. The very fact that a militia is possible proves how firmly founded is Swiss democracy. But observant foreigners must study the democratic institutions and the freedom of a nation as a whole. Therefore I visited various Cantons and studied the relation between Federalism and democracy, comparing it with the arrangements in the United States and Germany.
The Swiss Cantons are small and the whole Federation is thinly populated. Hence many forms of direct Government by the people, such as the Referendum and the Initiative. The smallest Cantons have no regular Parliament. The people meet and decide. The election of the Government and of the President, the nature and the duration of their functions, correspond to the peculiar simplicity of this State mechanism. Switzerland has also proportional representation.
The tendency of Swiss democracy towards direct government found expression in Rousseau, the leading theorist of modern democratic philosophy, whose political and religious outlook was influenced by his Swiss Fatherland. Upon him and his theory of democracy the Calvinism of Geneva also set its mark; and his statue, which I saw several times a day, brought again to my mind the whole problem of Rousseau and impelled me to study it anew.
* ↑ The leader of the Young Czech Party and a strong Nationalist. He was condemned to death but not executed, and afterwards became the first Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak Republic.
* ↑ A prominent public man of outstanding financial ability. As Finance Minister he carried through the reform of Czechoslovak finance.
* ↑ J. S. Machar (born 1864), a realist Czech poet-philosopher of strong originality, whose writings have had marked influence upon the younger generation.