# The Making of a State/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV
IN THE WEST (Paris and London. Sept. 1915—May 1917)
IT was time to transfer the centre of our work to the Allied capitals. Even before leaving Prague I had urged that we should be represented in Paris, London and Petrograd, at least; and that, to this end, enough of us should go abroad. Beneš, whom I was expecting, was destined for Paris, while I was to be in London. He reached Geneva on September 2, 1915. I left on September 5, and he followed me to Paris on September 16.
In 1915 Paris was the military and London the political headquarters of the Allies. For France it was important to win and to hold British sympathies and, through them, to influence America also. Besides, England stood closer than France to the Italians. Therefore I decided to live in London, and to visit Paris occasionally. Despite the submarines, communications were quick and easy. Now and then Beneš was to come to London. That, in fact, is what we did. Paris and London together formed an active political whole. The Anglo-French Entente was of the utmost importance during the war and the making of the Peace; and it is important still.
London suited me, too, for purposes of communication with America—an increasingly weighty matter. A very notable branch of our propaganda was being developed in America, as I shall presently show; and when mishap compelled us to alter our channels of underground communication with Prague, I used messengers from America and Holland. From London it was easier to keep in touch with both of these countries.
But our political position in England and France was still precarious. Of our political leaders I alone was abroad, whereas a number of prominent Southern Slav members of the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments, whose names had become known through the Agram High Treason trial of 1909 and through their anti-Austrian activities generally, had got away in time. In addition, the heroic struggle of Serbia created a living programme for all the Southern Slavs and indeed for Europe—a programme written in blood, for the savagery of ​the Austrians and Magyars in Serbia served the Southern Slav cause. Polish propaganda, too, was effective. The Poles had long been known abroad and their aspirations were everywhere recognized.
Of us, on the contrary, the French knew little, hardly more than we could tell them with our feeble means; and in Paris we were especially compromised by the conduct of the Mayor of Prague, Dr. Groš. The Vienna Parliament was not in session. Consequently, no Czech voice could be heard there. Yet this was not altogether a misfortune, either for us abroad or for the development of things at home.
The Austrian, Hungarian and German press kept up a conspiracy of silence about us, and in the Paris “Temps” a statement unfavourable to us had already appeared. No wonder that friends like Professor Denis in Paris and Seton-Watson in London grew nervous. They urged me continually to come to Paris and London. Therefore I hastened thither as soon as Beneš, by a lucky chance—if chance it was—turned up in Geneva. In Switzerland the work was already organized, and to some extent in Paris. Denis’s French review, “La Nation Tchèque,” had been appearing since May 1; Dr. Sychrava’s Czech paper came out on August 22, it having been much harder to establish than the French review, for we had no Czech contributors. All of us had our hands full of other work, my funds were still meagre, and money was beginning to play a more and more important part. The failure of our people at Prague to find roundabout means of sending us money showed that they were not thinking of political propaganda of the kind that was necessary; hitherto, indeed, we had not undertaken it. Yet we lacked neither gladness in our work nor hope of victory. If we were few, all the more reason for intense and thoughtful effort.
Professor Denis.
Something should be said of Professor Denis and of the part he took in our campaign of liberation. The authority he had won among us by his historical work proved useful from the outset in our Paris colony, though it was beyond his power to settle the dissensions among its members He was new to such things and they took him unawares. In French political quarters he was looked upon merely as a professor and man of letters, and he had not a few opponents even among people of his own kind—including the comparatively small circle of ​Slavonic specialists. Though his book on the war gained him a wider circle of friends, he had no influence with French political parties or in official circles. Nor could anyone conversant with French conditions be surprised that, as a Protestant, he should be politically at a disadvantage—exactly as he would have been in Bohemia! While the French Protestants showed their mettle publicly and stood firm in the national ranks, they were slightly suspected of pro-Germanism, even by French Liberals. Denis’s book was enough to show thoughtful readers where he stood; but calm, clear thought was rare in those days. Thus I was by no means astonished to meet with certain difficulties on his account, difficulties that took us long to overcome. At last, Dr. Beneš succeeded in getting official quarters to understand the truth about Denis, and then no further exception was taken to him. Naturally we said nothing of this to anybody, least of all to our own people, some of whom official influence had prejudiced against Denis while others could not understand his horror of party squabbles within the colony. Yet, as a writer, he did great and good work for our cause and helped us also by his efforts to organize Slavonic studies in Paris. His book on the Slovaks was welcome indeed. With him I often discussed our affairs and Slav policy in particular. On the whole, we were agreed. He got on well with Beneš also, though his relations with Štefánik were chilly.
Czech Colonies Abroad.
To give a better idea of the nature of our work abroad it will be well, in this connection, to say something of our colonies. The largest of them, in Russia, America and Germany, I had known before the war, and also those in England and Serbia. I had often stayed among them, had watched their development and had known personally most of their leading people. It was only those in Switzerland and Paris that I met first in war-time.
The question was how to unite them all and to keep them informed a hard matter on account of their geographical dispersion and of the derangement of communications by the war. All of them were split up into parties and groups, and each of them took on a special colour from the country in which it lived. There was no regular tie between them, and, at first, no leading central journal. Hence the necessity of a Czech paper proclaiming our programme and giving news. ​Immediately after reaching Geneva in March 1915 I had, indeed, given each colony instructions and sent it a statement of our aims.
Our colonies consisted mainly of workmen most of whom had left home in search of bread though many had gone to escape military service. In America and in Russia there were tradesmen, engineers and contractors among them, as well as agricultural labourers. Our more educated emigrants were not always of the best quality, and in our journalists the bulk of our people felt too little confidence. Yet in America and Russia an educated class grew up within the colonies. It included lawyers, doctors, merchants and bankers. To some extent this younger generation had found its way into American or Russian society, at the cost of becoming assimilated; but, on the whole, each colony was a little world by itself. Though its numbers grew with the coming of fresh emigrants from home, it remained unknown to the people among whom it lived. Even its knowledge of things at home—drawn from newspaper reading—was inadequate. Our work during the war did our colonies good, especially in America, inasmuch as it drew the attention of their countries of adoption to them.
We were chiefly concerned with three colonies, those in America, in Russia and in Paris. The Paris colony I have mentioned already. Its numbers were not large, but it was politically lively and excitable. In America, the tendencies of the leading section of our people were Radical—a Radicalism derived politically from the old Liberalism of the ’sixties which had survived in isolation and had been influenced by American democratic ideas and institutions. Here and there this Radicalism tended to become Socialism and even Anarchism. albeit a Socialism of the American sort. To the Radicals our Catholics and Protestants were opposed, the Catholics more sharply than the Protestants.
It is needless to refer fully to the dissensions in our various colonies. They were mainly local and personal; and, in America and Russia, centres like New York, Chicago and Cleveland, or St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kieff were so distant from each other that there could be no real unity. Nor, in the absence of instructions from Prague, could they possess, at first, a single plan of action. Instinctively they had all ranged themselves against Austria, but I found it necessary to remind their leaders more than once that the final political decision lay with Prague; for there was no lack of hot-headed fellows who claimed for themselves the right of decision and of leader​ship. There were also people “on the make.” In many a Paris pothouse and elsewhere positions and offices in the future Czech Kingdom were distributed, from the kingship down to the lowest ranks of the official hierarchy. But these things were negligible. On every hand our people rallied to me. Subscriptions came from Canada and South Africa as soon as it was known that I was organizing our colonies, and many touching gifts from simple Czech mothers and grandmothers, accompanied by charming notes on which tears of hope and love were scarcely dry. In money our colonies were not rich. Subscriptions came slowly at first, even from America, though later on larger amounts flowed in.
Numerically, our American and Russian colonies were the most important. The American Czechs could finance us, and in Russia an army could be formed out of our prisoners of war. Yet it was in Russia that we met with the greatest difficulties. As regards America, it was fortunate that Mr. Voska had brought news of me from Prague at the beginning of the war; and, in the autumn of 1915, Vojta Beneš (brother of Dr. Beneš) got away with fresh and fuller tidings. In all the branches of our American colony he organized collections, united the various parties and groups, and urged upon them the need for financial effort.
More serious in Russia than elsewhere was the political strife both between Czech Conservatives and Czech Radicals, and between Kieff and Petrograd. Some of our earlier emigrants to Russia held the political views that had been current when they left home, but the majority had come under the Conservative influence of their surroundings and of the Russian Government and were, in truth, very reactionary. They were entirely dependent upon the goodwill of Russian officials. With the progressive and radical educated class in Russia—Liberals and Socialists of all sorts—our people were hardly in touch at all, and were therefore almost unknown to that influential section of Russian society. Not until the Conservatives had been driven into the background by the Revolution of 1917 was it possible to unite the colony. After the arrival of Dürich in the summer of 1916 (the Czech Member of Parliament whom I have already mentioned as having been selected by Dr. Kramář for work in Russia) its dissensions had been especially acute, for Dürich joined the Conservatives and got caught in the toils of the reactionary pro-German Russian Government.
This Dürich affair, to which the Horký affair was presently ​added, was amply discussed at the time by our press in Russia and America. I wanted to stop bickerings among us and to prevent foreigners from being dragged into them. In this I succeeded, on the whole. Dürich was imprudent, and he had been exploited by dubious people in Paris who wished to use the Czech army for their own purposes. In Russia he succumbed to the pressure of the reactionaries and of foolish officials. As early as January 1917 I published a declaration that we were finanically independent of the Allied Governments. That parried the attacks of the enemy press and dispelled whatever doubts were felt here and there. But Dürich’s dependence upon the Russian Government made a bad impression in London and Paris where fear of a pan-Slav Russia was far too general. These matters I explained confidentially in the proper quarters, for the trouble with Dürich and about Dürich had arisen in Paris and had spread thence to Russia and even to America. It affected Beneš and Štefánik more than me. At last, there was nothing for it save to exclude Dürich from our National Council so as to silence all doubt in our colonies. Of course, we wrote as little as possible about it; and even if our very reserve enabled opponents to cast suspicion upon us until the Russian Revolution helped to clear things up, the affair did us little harm. The controversy compelled our people to reflect more seriously upon our aims and tactics. With the Allies, our vigorous suppression of Dürich did us good as was recognized by the Southern Slavs and the Poles who found it less easy to settle their personal squabbles. Similar strife and personal animosities in Allied countries came to my knowledge, and I used them to silence references to our troubles, or to those of the Southern Slavs and other organizations of “small peoples.”
One complication arose out of the unexpected influx of brand-new Czechs and Czechoslovaks into our colonies. Even Dürich fell into the hands of these “new Czechs.” Since, in Paris and elsewhere, it was not pleasant to be classed as a German, all kinds of renegades who knew a few words of Czech claimed fellowship with us, especially when the Allied Governments granted privileges to our citizens and recognized us not only as a nation but as an Allied Nation.
The National Council.
For our fight abroad we needed, above all, a leading central authority. At first, I was that authority, and the questions ​were: Where to find assistants and how to unite our colonies? The geographical dispersion of the colonies made this a long business. I did not wish to behave like an autocrat by proclaiming myself the national leader abroad, but acted constitutionally, by parliamentary methods. As I have said, the colonies had known me personally before the war, and my authority grew as the work went on. Our people saw what I was doing and understood my tactics. I explained to them why I had gone abroad, who and what parties had known and approved of my departure. Everywhere I was recognized as leader, my membership of Parliament carrying weight in this respect; it constituted my political title. But I was alone. My assistants were not members of Parliament, neither Beneš nor Štefánik. Because other members of Parliament were expected to come from Prague, the formal setting up of our central authority was long postponed, nor did I hurry matters even when several colonies got together and linked up with me. As a name “The National Council” suggested itself naturally on account of old traditions, but I feared to use it lest it compromise our National Council at home and expose its members to reprisals.
Yet, as things developed, we were obliged to set up our central authority formally. We had to make public declarations under a recognized name. We had also to deal with “personal affairs” like those of Koníček and Dürich. Of Dürich I have spoken; but, when Koníček came from Russia to proclaim the Russian Czech programme which the Tsar and the Russian Government had ostensibly endorsed, the question of his credentials arose and also that of the right of final decision in case of dispute. We settled Koníček more easily than Dürich. Another urgent matter was our public declaration of hostility to Austria which, for reasons I have mentioned, had been put off long enough. When we issued it on November 14, 1915, I signed it as “The Czech Committee Abroad.” It was signed also by representatives of all our foreign colonies. This made it the proclamation not only of a provisional Government but of a Parliament abroad.
A Government was exactly what we needed. So, in the course of 1916, the National Council was constituted. When I was in Paris, I agreed with Beneš and Dürich (before the latter went to Russia) upon the name and the form of the organization. Beneš, who was appointed Secretary-General, carried the work through and used the name “The National Council of Czech Countries” in his official correspondence. Publicly ​the name was first used by Štefánik in drawing up the so-called Kieff Protocol on August 29, 1916; and on November 1, 1916, our Czech organ in France, “Československá Samostatnost,” (Czechoslovak Independence) announced that the National Council consisted of me as President, of Dürich and Štefánik as vice-Presidents, and of Beneš as Secretary-General. Its headquarters were in Paris. In opposition to it Dürich afterwards set up a special “National Council” for Russia—though he had not then resigned his position as vice-President of the Paris National Council—but the Russian Revolution soon made an end of it. On March 20, 1917, our brigade in Russia proclaimed the Czechoslovak State with the Paris National Council as Provisional Government and me as Dictator; and, at a Congress in Kieff, a branch of our National Council for Russia was established on May 12, 1917.
Thus constituted, the National Council was recognized by our colonies and their elected representatives. In Switzerland, Holland and England there was no opposition; but in Paris the ambitions of sundry bibulous aspirants to high office in the future Russian Satrapy of Bohemia gave a little trouble. They were a small minority and soon offered me their services. One or two of them even offered their money—not going further than an offer, however. In America, recognition was spontaneous and determined, first by the Sokol organization on September 15, 1916, and by the Czechoslovak National Association on December 14. Even from Kimberley in South Africa recognition came on February 18, 1917.
The Art of Propaganda.
Lack of political relations between Prague and foreign countries had, as I have shown, obliged us to start the work abroad from the very foundations. Yet there was the compensating advantage that we could begin systematically and proceed circumspectly. Thanks to the duration of the war, the work succeeded. Of course, each of us linked up with our friends and acquaintances. Štefánik knew already a goodly number of influential men and politicians. Dr. Beneš and Dr. Sychrava, like Dr. Osuský later, made their own circles. Through my old friends in Allied countries the radius of my own action was constantly enlarged.
Our propaganda was democratic. We sought not only to work upon politicians and men in official positions but above all on the press and, through it, upon public opinion. It ​was precisely this that helped us in democratic States like France, England, America and Italy, where Parliament and public opinion were much more influential than in Austria, Germany and Russia. We followed the same method in Russia after the Revolution. Naturally I always tried to establish relations with Governments, and particularly with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs as well as with the Ambassadors of Allied countries. This also was done systematically. For instance, I have said that, in 1915, I made no attempt to see the French Foreign Minister, M. Delcassé, partly for reasons I have given and partly because I knew that he had long worked to promote agreement between England and France—a circumstance more helpful to us, as things then were, than a conversation would have been at a moment when the Anglo-Franco-Russian Treaty with Italy would have compelled him to show reserve. I made, however, the acquaintance of the principal French Foreign Office officials who knew the situation and were influential; and we were often helped by lawyers, bankers and others who, themselves outside politics, had friendly access to leading statesmen and politicians.
In the psychology of propaganda one point is important—not to imagine that people can be converted to a political idea merely by stating it vigorously and enthusiastically or by harping on its details; the chief thing is to rouse interest in your cause as best you can, indirectly no less than directly. Political agitation often frightens or alienates thoughtful people whom art and literature may attract. Sometimes a single phrase, well used at the right moment, is enough. Long-windedness is always to be avoided, especially in private talk. True, propaganda of this kind pre-supposes culture, political and social breadth of view, tact and knowledge of men on the part of those who undertake it. Paderewski and Sienkiewicz―a musician and a writer—had been the most successful propagandists for Poland from the very outbreak of the war. Those who had read Sienkiewicz’s “Quo Vadis” were already as good as won for the Polish cause. In much the same way Mestrovitch, the sculptor, served the Southern Slavs. Our store of such helpers was small. In Paris we had the painter, Kupka, who joined the Legion; in Rome there was another painter, Brázda, though he was only a beginner; and I think Madame Destinn, the prima donna, lent a hand for a time.
Another weighty point is this—propaganda must be honest. Exaggeration is harmful and lies are worse. Some among us thought that the whole art of politics consists in gulling people. ​Until we stopped them they tried to disseminate “patriotic untruths, forgetting that falsehoods can be exposed. Our enemies used these untruths against us as, for instance, in the case of the falsification of a speech which a Czech Member of Parliament, Stříbrný, had made.
A third rule is not to praise one’s own goods, like inferior commercial travellers. Intelligent and honest policy must accompany intelligent and honest propaganda.
In the chief cities of Allied countries I spoke to big audiences and small. Opponents and pacifists I visited personally, and got into touch with the Universities, particularly with historians and economists. In England, as I have said, the name of Hus helped us. In a word, a policy of culture needs cultivated propaganda. Newspapers were influenced by discussions with their proprietors and editors, and also by writing for them. I wrote many articles and gave interviews myself. We established press bureaux to keep in touch with and inform newspapers and agencies, e.g. the Czech Press Bureau at the end of 1916 in London, and the Slav Press Bureau in America from May 1918 onwards. As early as possible I sought to promote the publication of periodicals which, while political in character, should be scientifically edited. Such an one was Denis’s “La Nation Tchèque.” Later on we had in Paris a strictly scientific review, “La Monde Slave.” In Great Britain and elsewhere Seton-Watson’s excellent weekly “The New Europe,” which appeared from October 1916 onwards, was of the greatest assistance. I urged Seton-Watson to publish it because I recognized his uncommon capacity, political keenness and breadth of view. As regards Europe its standpoint was identical with ours though, in Italian policy, I was more moderate than its editor. The “New Europe” was eagerly read in France and Italy as well as in Great Britain, and it served as a guide for our organs abroad.
Nor was our propaganda solely literary. We took a shop in Piccadilly Circus, one of the busiest corners of London, fitted it up like a bookseller’s window, showed maps of our country and of Central Europe, together with the latest news about ourselves and the enemy and denials of untrue rumours and reports. We founded an Anglo-Czech Society and used Chambers of Commerce for special purposes. In short, we left no stone unturned.
My whole past proved advantageous to me, especially my controversy with Aehrenthal over the “Friedjung” forgeries and my work for the Southern Slavs in general. My book ​“Russia and Europe” attracted attention in proportion as the Russian situation became acute. Many had read the German edition of it and, during the war, it was translated into English though the translation only appeared in 1919 under the title “The Spirit of Russia.” The stand I had made in 1899 on behalf of the Jewish tramp, Leopold Hilsner, who had been falsely accused of ritual murder, was also accounted to me for righteousness. And, as my political authority increased, I was able to strengthen the spirit of concord and steadfastness among our colonies. In war-time, as the Romans knew, efforts must be concentrated; and, in our case, the distances between our colonies and between the Allied countries made concentration indispensable. There was not the slightest rivalry about the leadership. Beneš and Štefánik were loyal, true and devoted friends. We all said the same thing, we all had the same aim. In the Southern Slav and the Polish camps there were, on the contrary, sharp differences. A sort of dictatorship grew up spontaneously in our midst though its character was Parliamentary; and, as the Dürich and sundry minor cases showed, firm decisions had sometimes to be taken.
Towards the end of 1916, thanks to our work, people began to be interested in the Czechs and Slovaks, to know something of them and to talk about them. When I was “interviewed,” a newspaper placard announced the fact. Vienna, too, helped us mightily. The Austrian news we proved to be false. The persecution of our people at home carried conviction that we were rebels in earnest. Martyrdom, and especially blood, win sympathies. The imprisonment, trial and condemnation of Dr. Kramář and Dr. Rašin brought grist to our mill, while the arrest of my daughter Alice was of great service to us in England and America. People argued that when even women were imprisoned the movement must be serious. Throughout America, women petitioned the President to intervene and appealed directly to the American Ambassador in Vienna. These movements in America and in England made our rebellion better known.
Counter-propaganda against Austrian, Magyar and German propaganda was, with us, a specialty and, as we knew the circumstances thoroughly, we soon made our mark. From the summer of 1916 onwards, the American Slovak, Dr. Osuský, who knew Magyar and Hungarian affairs well, did excellent service. We could see through the enemy announcements and interpret them; and, in addition to our own news from home, which we turned to good purpose, we read between the ​lines of the Prague newspapers. Our military information proved trustworthy and was gladly received. It won us many a friend, not least because we refused payment and gave it in the interest of the Allied cause. On this point I was adamant, though it was not easy to keep an eye on all our helpers when this branch of our propaganda grew into a regular system of espionage and counter-espionage. Yet, with insignificant exceptions, nothing went wrong.
Part of our work was to get Allied news into the German and Magyar press. In Austria and Hungary the progress of the Allies was being kept dark. Therefore we tried successfully to smuggle news of it into the Austro-Hungarian newspapers. Dr. Osuský could tell many a tale of the dodges by which he got into Budapest papers reports of the great help the Allies were receiving from America. He did it mostly in the form of attacks upon the Americans; and the news was reproduced by the Vienna and the Prague press.
In the United States Mr. Voska cleverly organized a very efficient system of counter-espionage, gaining thereby political prestige both for himself and for us, as I shall presently relate. In Russia the difficulties were more serious though, after the Revolution, we surmounted them. We never used money, that is to say, we never bribed. I helped some respectable people, Czechs and others, discreetly and without their asking, when I heard they were in need. In that stormy time not a few were in want through no fault of their own.
Beneš, Štefánik and I kept ourselves deliberately independent of the funds supplied by our people in America. My salary as a Professor at London University (its resources were limited during the war) was small, but I was well paid for my articles and was, besides, helped by personal gifts from American friends. As I have said, Dr. Beneš put money into our “enterprise” from the first and still had enough for himself. Štefánik, too, had an income of his own. This financial independence impressed our people favourably, and our frugality had a good effect. All sorts of stories were told about it, and many thought that the cause should be more smartly “represented.” But we needed no such “representation.” We were working. Later on, “representation” came by itself. When I reached America from the Far East our people took for me an apartment in a first-class hotel, as biggish permanent quarters were required for the reception of my numerous visitors. But in Europe we inverted the Czech proverb “Little money, little music” and got plenty of music for our ​little money. In other words, we were all working with a will and made our slender resources go a long way. We did more with a penny than the Austrian and German diplomatists could do with pounds. I doubt whether revolutionary propaganda abroad has ever been so cheaply carried on; nor does modesty prevent me from saying that few political campaigns have been so well thought out as ours was. Here is an account of the money I received from America for the cause:—
| 1914–1915 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. | $37,871 |
| 1916 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. | 71,185 |
| 1917 (up to the end of April) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. | 82,391 |
| 1918 (from May onwards) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. | 488,488 |
| | $674,885 |
While I was in Russia in 1917–1918 Dr. Beneš received about $800,000, so that the whole work cost less than $1,000,000. The subscriptions from America did not increase notably until after the United States had entered the war. Almost all of them came from Czechs. During the war the Slovaks gave little, though they sent $200,000, including some amounts from my American acquaintances, after I had become President. This money, and the balance of the Czech Revolutionary Fund, I spent, as President, in charitable gifts and subscriptions of which public account has been rendered.
The Work in England.
I stayed more than eighteen months in London—from the end of September 1915 to the end of April 1917. Now, as before the war, I enjoyed the hospitality of that mighty City, more populous than the whole of Bohemia. In such a wilderness of people a man disappears unobserved, and can throw himself entirely into his work. I lived in Hampstead, on the edge of the country, and went into town on the top of an omnibus, making up for the loss of time by watching life in the streets. If it rained or snowed I went by underground. Taxis or a motor I could not afford.
Beneš stayed in Paris and, like Štefánik, went now and then to Italy, so that we were officially represented in the chief Allied countries (with the exception of Russia) and were able, besides, to negotiate in London and Paris with the Italian and other Ambassadors.
Once settled in London, I took up the work that had been ​begun by my earlier memorandum to the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. The University (King’s College) offered me a Slavonic professorship. Other Slavonic specialists were to be enrolled and a Slavonic department established. Seton Watson pressed the professorship upon me again and again on behalf of Dr. Burrows, the Principal; and though I was reluctant to take it, because I am not a Slavonic specialist and feared that I should have no leisure for scientific work, I ended by accepting it—and did well to follow the advice of my friends. On October 2, 1915, I settled matters with Dr. Burrows whose manliness and devotion to his University I esteemed highly. In gratitude and friendship I record my relations with a man who was at once a distinguished Classical Hellenist and an authority on modern Greek culture and politics.
The subject of my inaugural lecture on October 19, 1915, was “The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis.” It was our first big political success. Above all, the fact that the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, had agreed to take the chair accredited me to the broader political public in London; and, as Mr. Asquith fell ill, Lord Robert Cecil represented him—a political background that gave our cause a great lift. In itself, the lecture had a good and far-reaching effect, as had the French translation of it. It brought out for the first time the political significance of the zone of small peoples in Europe that lies between the Germans and the Russians; it enabled me to put both the German “Drang nach Osten” (The Urge towards the East) and Russian policy in a new light, and to show the essential characters of Austria-Hungary and Prussia. In this light, the breaking up of Austria-Hungary by the liberation of her peoples was revealed as the main requirement of the war. Finally, I argued strongly against the fear of the so-called Balkanization of Europe and urged, convincingly I think, that small nations are capable of and have a right to independent development as States, each according to its own culture. The lecture was widely reported and its effect noticeable. Henceforth the small peoples and the possibility of their independence were seriously talked and written about. The positive side of the war—reconstruction—came into the foreground, replacing the conception that its object was either defence against the Germanic Powers or their overthrow, and placing the war in its true light as the beginning of the great refashioning of Central and Eastern Europe and, indeed, of Europe as a whole.
​I found in London my dear old friends, the trio Mr. Wickham Steed, Madame Rose and Dr. Seton-Watson. They were the friendly refuge and the centre from which my political circle was daily enlarged. Steed had helped me in Vienna during the contest with Aehrenthal and in the Pashitch-Berchtold episode; Seton-Watson’s interest in Slovakia had brought me near to him. All three knew Austria-Hungary and the whole of Central Europe. This made me feel all the more at home with them. Round Steed gathered not only the English political world but the French and, in fact, the whole of Allied and neutral Europe—men of manifold interests and spheres of activity, soldiers, bankers, journalists, Members of Parliament, diplomatists, in short the active political world. I remember also meeting at his house the author of the “Life of St. Francis of Assisi,” Professor Paul Sabatier, and many others. Steed and Seton-Watson rendered great service to the cause of our liberation, not so much because I was able through them to set forth our aims in the papers controlled by Lord Northcliffe or because the influence of these two friends gave me access to the most influential quarters in London, but especially because both Steed and Seton-Watson fought for our aims and, as British political men and writers, made the anti-Austrian policy their own.
Soon after I reached London, and almost simultaneously with my inaugural lecture at King’s College, Steed published in the “Edinburgh Review” for October 1915 a programme in which he postulated a radical transformation of Austria-Hungary as the condition of a lasting peace, and called for the unification of the Southern Slavs and for a “United Czech-Moravian-Slovak” State. While I was in Paris for a time in 1916, he published a “Programme for Peace” in the same review (April 1916). In it he foreshadowed a United States of Yugoslavia, an autonomous Poland under Russian suzerainty, an independent or, at least, an autonomous Bohemia with Moravia and Slovakia, and a united Roumania. On account of the military situation he framed the demand for our independence with a certain reserve; later on, the reserve disappeared. Dr. Seton-Watson did his part in defining our aims and spreading knowledge of them through his excellent weekly review “The New Europe” of which the influence was very considerable. It may, I think, be gauged by the fact that adversaries moved heaven and earth to get him conscripted into the Army Medical Service—since he was not fit for the fighting ranks. In this they succeeded, until he was ​released for special work by order of the Government, though even then he was forbidden to write.
Our friends’ publications and utterances had an echo in France, Italy and America. Steed was in constant touch with France and Italy, and often went there during the war to lecture and to do other propaganda work. Through these activities, as well as by his personal influence in the most important political circles, his views gained currency and weight. He often found (temporary) difficulties in official quarters. Soon after the outbreak of war, Lord Northcliffe and “The Times” criticized some features of official foreign policy, and the Foreign Office broke off relations with “The Times” during the whole winter of 1914–1915. It was not until May 1915 that the breach was healed. As soon as I had got my bearings in London I began to call on official personages. One of the first was Sir George Russell Clerk, of the Foreign Office, afterwards the British Minister in Prague; then Sir Maurice de Bunsen, the former British Ambassador in Vienna, and a number of secretaries and officials in the Foreign Office and other departments. Mr. Phillip Kerr, the secretary of Mr. Lloyd George, I remember particularly and likewise the group of the “Round Table,” with some members of which I had personal relations. This serious review published a number of instructive and pertinent articles upon our question and European problems generally. Among Members of Parliament I must name Sir Samuel Hoare and Mr. (now Sir) Frederick Whyte (afterwards the First Speaker of the Indian National Assembly). Whyte was a friend of Seton-Watson and a diligent contributor to the “New Europe” which he edited while Seton-Watson was under military discipline. I extended also my acquaintanceship with journalists, Mr. Steed and Madame Rose giving me good openings to this end-openings that enabled me not only to meet prominent newspaper proprietors and writers like Northcliffe, Mr. Garvin of the “Observer,” Dr. Dillon and Dr. Harold Williams, but to “place” articles and interviews. With French, American and many other press representatives I was also in touch; and, from time to time, I approached eminent men in other spheres of life. Among these were Sir Arthur Evans, the famous authority on Cretan culture, who knew the Balkans well, the Southern Slav lands in particular; and the Russian savant, Professor Paul Vinogradoff, of Oxford. Lord Bryce—whose works on the Holy Roman Empire and on America gave me occasion to discuss with him Germany ​and her war plans—I had often opportunity to see, and at his house I met Lord Morley, the biographer of Gladstone. We plunged forthwith into a discussion of Austria on the strength of Gladstone’s famous saying: “Nowhere in the world has Austria ever done good.” Soon after reaching London I looked up Mr. Maurice, the well-known writer on Czech history, and in his company I met a circle of interesting writers of somewhat pacifist tendencies. The historian, Professor Holland Rose, and Professor Sir Bernard Pares I remember well, while I formed a literary connection with Mr. Oscar Browning of Cambridge. And I must make special mention of Mr. Robert Fitzgibbon Young, a young and active supporter of our cause. The memory of Mr. Hyndman, the Nestor of English Socialism, whose knowledge of European affairs and of the Socialist movement was widely esteemed, is dear to me, as is that of his wife, who took a lively interest in the Ukraine. Mrs. and Miss Christabel Pankhurst I must mention, too. They supported our movement in their women’s organizations. Nor can I forget Professor Charles Sarolea of Edinburgh, a Belgian by birth. I had long known him and his extensive literary work. Before 1914 he had written a book proving that Germany would soon provoke war. As long as he edited the excellent popular weekly “Everyman,” he gave me ample space in it.
Needless to say, I did not avoid people of different or even of hostile views. I met Mr. Noel Buxton, the pro-Bulgar; and, at a lecture, Mrs. Green, the widow of the famous historian, who was active in the Irish movement. The pitiable Sir Roger Casement was, at that moment, about to meet his fate—an incident that reminds me how sharp an eye opponents kept on me and how they missed no chance of turning things against us. In several Irish papers the news suddenly appeared that I was going to Ireland to take part in the Irish agitation; but the Austrian and German agents who inspired these announcements overspiced them to such an extent that it was not even necessary to issue a denial. The facts were that Dr. Baudyš, a lecturer at the Czech University of Prague and a student of Erse and the Celtic languages of Great Britain, had got stranded in London and that, in his interest, I spoke to Mrs. Green about the publication of his work. Afterwards I met other Irishmen, in official positions and otherwise, for instance Mr. Gerald Fitzmaurice, the expert on Turkey and the Balkans. Had there been time I should have been glad to visit Ireland, for I knew the political and literary sides of the ​Irish movement and our people had long sympathized with the Irish. The question that interested me most was how and to what extent the Irish character expresses itself in Irishmen who no longer speak the Irish language. English writers often allude, in their portrayals of character, to the peculiarities of Celtic race and blood. Can a people live if its language is dead? The Irish writer, George Moore, once stated this problem very trenchantly as regards himself and the Irish—and it stuck in my mind.
Lectures and public meetings I attended pretty regularly, among others those at which Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw spoke. I had, of course, long read Shaw’s writings; but I got to know him as politician and pacifist propagandist. The level of these meetings and of the discussions that followed them was very high. Opponents listened calmly to arguments and sought calmly to refute them. In similar meetings I came across G. K. Chesterton and his brother, the anti-Semite, and I had a look even at Horatio Bottomley, the proprietor of “John Bull,” a nationalist brawler and super-patriot. This gentleman had been involved in ugly financial affairs before the war, and similar affairs were afterwards to get him a seat in prison in exchange for his seat in Parliament. During the war he was the self-constituted mouthpiece of the John Bulls—undoubtedly a man of talent, a typical exploiter of patriotic feeling—and he actually contrived to get an invitation to visit the British Commander-in-Chief at Headquarters. As Dr. Johnson knew, “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
If I add that I went to numbers of churches (the ritualistic movement had long interested me), that I heard sermons and watched the piety of the people in its relation to the war, I shall have given a sufficient account of my doings in London.
Meanwhile our propaganda was going well. The Press Bureau and the shop window in Piccadilly Circus had their effect. We searched the history of Anglo-Czech relations and turned it to account. Those relations began with the marriage of Anne of Bohemia to Richard II in 1882. We emphasized Wyclif’s relationship to Hus and to our Reformation, and the interest taken by Comenius in English education; and we drew attention to the English and American disciples of the Moravian Brothers and of Hollar. Nor did we forget the ​arms and the motto of the Princes of Wales that were taken from King John of Bohemia at the battle of Crécy. This and especially the fact that there had existed mutual relations—political, religious and educational—between Bohemia and England, had a beneficent influence. But, as I had accepted the Professorship at London University, I had to think of my lectures as well as of propaganda. At the time I thought this a bothersome interruption though to-day I understand that Seton-Watson and Dr. Burrows advised me well when they urged me so insistently to accept the appointment.
The Military Outlook.
As was natural, I heard much in London of the English army and of the situation on the various fronts. Indeed, I had now a chance to consult English and French experts on all military questions. I have repeatedly said that I had been worried by the problem of the war’s duration. As late as the spring of 1915, taking account of every military opinion, I admitted at times that the war would be over by the end of the year. Yet the situation in the field foreshadowed a protracted struggle. The war of position dragged on. It enabled the belligerents to raise forces at home, to equip and train fresh divisions and reserves, and to adapt industry to war purposes. People talked of the growing part that aircraft and submarines would play. To judge by the news, it seemed unlikely that the Allies would make peace without some big success at the front, even though influential people on both sides were working for peace. The victory on the Marne had not been decisive. True, there was some nervousness in Germany, at least among the Socialists, as was shown by the debate on peace terms in the Reichstag and by the attitude of Schiedemann at the beginning of December 1915. Everything I could learn from sound soldiers in all the armies, and occasionally from prisoners, led me to believe that the military operations would last long—a view which political considerations confirmed. What I heard in London of military plans—and I heard much—was not always pleasant. There were sharp differences of opinion even in responsible quarters, not only about the Dardanelles but also about the French and Russian plans of campaign. It was curious to see soldiers as well as politicians put forward ideas of strategy of which the impossible and fantastic character was clear even to laymen. Colonel Repington’s articles in “The Times” showed distrust of British and Allied leadership ​on sea and land, and still more distrust of the Government and the politicians. His articles were cut by the censor, but I read them in the original and, in many respects, agreed with them.
As a result of discussing all these things with intimate friends I wrote for them at their request, towards the end of November 1915, a memorandum on the war strength of both sides. Starting with the assumption that Austria-Hungary and Germany had not recruited more than five or six per cent. of their populations while the French had recruited between two and three per cent. more, I concluded that England, with whose case I was principally concerned, would have to accelerate the mobilization and training of her man-power if the Allies were to withstand Austria-Hungary and Germany in case the latter should raise their percentage. My news from Bohemia showed that more Czechs than Germans were being called up and that, in the south (Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere), more than eight per cent. were being called up as a punitive measure. My object was to show that the Central Powers had mobilized as many men as the Allies though, collectively, the latter had larger populations and had, at first, also had more men under arms. Now, the Russian factor was becoming more and more uncertain. True, numbers and percentages were not alone decisive. Resources and relative ability to equip and to feed the forces raised also came into account. As early as March 15, 1915, Lord Kitchener had spoken doubtfully on this point in the House of Lords, though he seemed to be thinking rather of numbers than of modern equipment. Sharply, albeit indirectly, by laying stress on the superiority of the Germans, I criticized the policy of the Allies and their conduct of the war, and drew special attention to the lack of unity in Allied military operations. That question had already been publicly raised though it was not recognized as an urgent problem of Allied strategy and policy until there had been further failures in the field.
My friends gave this memorandum to the military authorities, several of whom then discussed it with me. Some admitted the gravity of the situation but showed no fear, saying that the British forces would reach France in good time and that conscription, which had been introduced on October 28, would yield adequate results. Others openly demanded a larger army. Repington worked for it, and Major-General Sir William Robertson, who had been on the French front since the beginning of the war, publicly urged an increase in the strength of the ​army during the following autumn. Lloyd George also believed in the necessity of raising very considerably the strength of all the Allied armies if the German front was to be broken through.
Indeed, on all fronts the situation was getting unpleasant and increasingly complicated. Everywhere there was lively disappointment with Russia. In October 1915 Bulgaria joined the enemy, the conduct of negotiations with her being criticized in London, where the failure to win her over to the Allied side was thought a serious diplomatic reverse. Simultaneously a new Allied centre was established at Salonica—after a long discussion which ended in the acceptance of the plan by England and France, thanks to the influence of Briand. The fighting, which began in November 1915 between the Bulgars and the Allied forces under General Sarrail, turned out badly, while the overthrow of Serbia by Mackensen’s army, and the taking of Belgrade on October 8, made a deep impression of which the depressing effect was, however, neutralized by the heroic conduct of the Serbians in withdrawing the remainder of their army across Albania and in transferring their Government to Corfu. And, while the Turks were victorious in Mesopotamia, bloody and indecisive fighting continued on the Western front, where the Germans stood on the defensive because their main forces were opposing the Russians.
This was the position when I decided to issue our manifesto on November 14, 1915, and to declare open war against Austria. As I have said, the manifesto was signed by our “Committee Abroad” and by representatives of all our colonies. It was issued because of the excitement in our colonies and of their fears lest I fail to take a public stand, but especially in order to prevent our people at home from being tempted to give way. I was afraid, too, that the defeat of Russia might have an unfortunate effect at home and lead to reprisals; and I had received in advance the assent of our secret circle of public men, known as the “Maffia,” which had approved of the general lines of the manifesto.
In view of the unfavourable situation, I hardly expected the manifesto to make much impression on the Allies. Yet its effect was considerable. In the French press it was widely reproduced; M. Gauvain wrote upon it a leading article in the “Journal des Débats”; and there was considerable comment in the English papers. At that moment we were better known in France than in England. Soon, however, people in England got to know us better, beginning with ​intellectual and political circles and with official quarters. We made headway, thanks to our work in London and throughout the country, and thanks also to Voska’s doings in America which were highly appreciated in London.
The Work in France.
In agreement with Dr. Beneš, who had been in the habit of coming to London to report to me on our position, I went over to Paris at the beginning of February 1916. Briand had been Prime Minister since October 28, 1915, and Štefánik had prepared him for my visit. I saw him on February 8, and laid before him a small map of Europe and my view of the war—that the division of Austria into her historical and natural elements was a condition of the reconstruction of Europe and of the real enfeeblement of Germany, that is to say, of French security. I spoke tersely, almost epigrammatically, but Briand has a good French brain and grasped the heart of the matter at once. Above all, he accepted our policy and promised to carry it out. Štefánik told me that Briand was really convinced. My visit to him was announced in an official communiqué; and, as a public supplement to it, the kindness of M. Sauerwein enabled me to publish a brief statement of our anti-Austrian programme in the “Matin.” This statement hit the mark not only in Paris but in all Allied countries. It is no exaggeration to say that our policy of resolving Austria into her constituent parts gave the Allies a positive aim. They began to understand that it would not be enough to overthrow the Central Powers and to penalize them financially and otherwise, but that Eastern Europe and Europe as a whole must be reorganized. Briand’s reception of me and my intercourse with him made an impression in London and strengthened our position there. Announcements favourable to us appeared not only in “The Times” but in other papers also the “Matin” had a skilful correspondent in London! It goes without saying that we used this great success to the utmost throughout the press; and we soon had occasion to see that the fact of my having been received by Briand had a profound effect upon Slav politicians and especially upon Russian diplomatists.
I stayed about a month in Paris, paying visits that deepened and strengthened the influence of Briand’s action. I cannot record them all. They included interviews with M. Pichon, afterwards Minister for Foreign Affairs; with M. Deschanel, President of the Chamber and afterwards President of the ​Republic; with M. Leygues, afterwards Minister of Marine and Prime Minister; with the philosopher, M. Boutroux; and with well-known writers like MM. Gauvain, Fournol, de Quirielle and Chéradame. I was kindly received also in the family of Mlle. Weiss (who now edits “L’Europe Nouvelle”) and in the hospitable salon of Madame de Jouvenel. Štefánik’s physician, Dr. Hartmann, brought me into touch with a select society; and, naturally, my intercourse with Professors Denis and Eisenmann was constant.
These visits and relationships were valuable both in themselves and because our opponents, the partisans of Austria-Hungary, got frightened and began to work harder. In London, as in Paris and elsewhere, there was a strong pro-Austrian and pro-Magyar tendency which we could not hope to overcome at one stroke. The decisive battle with it was still before us. The strength of the pro-Austrians in Europe and America lay in the belief of Allied politicians that Austria was the safeguard against the “Balkanization” of Europe—“Now we have to deal with one Power; it would be impossible to deal with ten!” they were wont to exclaim—and a bulwark against Germany. This, if you please, at a time when Austria was fighting alongside of Germany!
Isvolsky and the Slavs.
In Paris I often saw the Serbian Minister, Vesnitch, and exchanged news and views with him upon the whole outlook and the questions that concerned us most nearly. Some of the younger Serbs in Paris were against him-for personal reasons, I felt and were unjust to him politically. Isvolsky, the Russian Ambassador, I found interesting. When he was Russian Foreign Minister before the war, the contest with Aehrenthal had brought us together. I expected therefore that he would pay some heed to our cause. In talking of Aehrenthal he seemed reserved, perhaps because he had lost interest in him, as I had, and other and weightier matters were then uppermost. What he told me confirmed my opinion that, during their famous meeting at Buchlau at the beginning of September 1908, just before the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary, neither he nor Aehrenthal had agreed distinctly enough upon their respective claims. This business is not yet sufficiently cleared up nor, despite the recent statement of Professor Pokrovsky of Moscow, is it certain whether a record of it was kept. I have never heard ​that a record has been found. Upon things in Russia and at the Court, Isvolsky spoke fully, not disguising his fears of Russia’s future. I could see that he knew the Court well, its principal personages and especially the Tsar. Though he was absolutely devoted to his Sovereign and to the Court, his criticism of them was sharp in substance if moderate in words. In this he was a type of those decent and reasonable Russian officials of high rank who saw through the situation and condemned it, but did little or nothing to improve it. I told him what I thought of Russia. He did not and could not challenge my views. And, like so many Russian officials, even Isvolsky had no clear idea of us and of the non-Russian Slavs. Obviously, he thought only of the Orthodox Slavs, or “Brothers.” The unification of the Southern Slavs was no part of his policy; the Catholic Croats were to be left out, even if they got independence. This he often said to many people who told me of it in detail; and it was quite clear that his Government had not told him of any official Slav policy. Briand’s action in our favour impressed him deeply, and he promised to support us in Paris and London. As I found afterwards, he kept his word. Svatkovsky, who joined me in Paris, kept in constant touch with him. Yet it was pitiful to see how unorganized and incapable of organization were the Russians of all parties who were then in the French capital. I conferred with them all. In the hope of organizing them we even got up a meeting at which Beneš and I demanded that there should be a better service of news from Russia and that Russian politicians abroad should get together—but all to no purpose.
At that moment the relationship of all Western Allied countries to Russia was growing troubled. Though France had binding Treaty engagements with her and an official friendship of long standing, a considerable part of the French political public had always shown reserve, while another part was actually hostile. The French Liberals, to say nothing of the Radicals and Socialists, had little love for Tsarism which, even during the war, they continued to oppose theoretically and practically, in the press and otherwise. British relations to Russia had become more friendly in recent years, though in England, too, the Russian system was still regarded unfavourably by a wide public. Italian views of Russia and the Slavs were vague and, at the beginning of the war, somewhat unfavourable. These anti-Russian feelings were strengthened by the reverses of the Russian army. I learned from a number ​of French and English public men that Russia had assured France and England of the excellent state of the Russian army and had declared that Russia would have no fear of war if France were well prepared. Many an Englishman and Frenchman took the Russian defeats as a failure to fulfil a pledge and, indeed, as deceit. It should, I think, have been the duty of those Westerners who knew Russia to take her assurances less uncritically, for while the war with Japan had obliged the Russian military administration to undertake a more vigorous reorganization of the army, the work had been done on a much smaller scale than was necessary.
In view of this state of mind in Paris, Professor Denis repeated to me a request he had made before-that I should give a lecture on the Slavs at the Sorbonne. It was to be the first of a series of lectures on Slavonic affairs, like those that were already being given at King’s College, London; and he thought that, if I could speak in Paris, my standpoint might reassure the political public about our own endeavours, and those of the Slav peoples generally, by showing that they were not pan-Slav in any aggressive Russian Imperialist sense. In support of his proposal, Denis mentioned the misplaced declarations of Koníček and others, including Dürich, whose zeal for the Russian dynasty, and assurances that the Czech people would embrace Orthodoxy, had made things worse. These views were hawked round Paris as representing the policy of Dr. Kramář; and the pro-Austrians and our opponents in general fastened on them eagerly and turned them to account. Indeed, Austrian and Magyar agents found it easy to approach our ingenuous people from whom they extracted all sorts of sense and nonsense. I believe, too, that in France and England some impression had been made by the assertions of the German Emperor and of Bethmann-Hollweg that Russian pan-Slavism had caused the war. Sympathy with Russia had, moreover, been deadened by the behaviour of Russians, of various party allegiance, in Paris and the West; and when finally a small Russian force came to France, its lack of discipline upset the French, and French military men in particular.
Therefore I gave my lecture on the Slavs and pan-Slavism at the Sorbonne on February 22, 1916. In it I proved that among the Slavs and in Russia there was no Imperialism of the pan-German sort. True, I did not defend Tsarism—but that was no abandonment of the Slav cause. I advocated the creation of an Institute for Slavonic Studies at the Sorbonne, and we founded the scientific Slavonic review, “Le Monde ​Slave.” My relations with the Russians were excellent in all Western countries; and with the Southern Slavs and Poles, as later with the Ukrainians, I worked openly everywhere. We are and mean to be Slavs, albeit European Slavs and citizens of the world.
Štefánik.
During this visit to Paris I was constantly with Štefánik. I had known him, years before, when he was a student at Prague. He was poor, and I had found means of making life easier for him. From Prague he had gone to Paris, in 1904 I believe, where he had become Secretary to the Astronomical Observatory. In this capacity he was sent on scientific and astronomical missions to various parts of the world, near and far, such as Mont Blanc, Spain, Oxford, Turkestan, Algiers, South America and Tahiti. Before going to Paris this time I had not, if I remember rightly, had any written correspondence with Štefánik since the outbreak of war, nor had I met him, though we had been in touch from time to time through mutual acquaintances. I wish, however, to indicate what he did during the war. I cannot give a full account, and this or that detail may even be wrong; but, as a whole, it will place upon record what I know.
Štefánik began, as soon as war broke out, by persuading a friend who was a French police official, that the Czechs, Slovaks and other Slavs, though officially classed as Austrians, should be given the same privileges as Allied citizens. Then he started propaganda, resolving to gain at least one supporter daily for our cause. He volunteered for service in the French Air Force and, in July 1915, took part in the battles on the Aisne and near Ypres. Afterwards he was sent as an airman to Serbia; but, during the Serbian retreat, his machine “crashed” in Albania and he reached Rome at the end of November on a special torpedo boat from Vallona. In Rome he got to know the French Ambassador, M. Barrère, and Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister. Two months later, in February 1916, I found him lying in a Paris hospital after a severe operation. As an astronomer he had a good knowledge of meteorology, and distinguished himself during the war by establishing meteorological stations on the French front. Before the war he had acquired French citizenship and thus had access to places from which non-Frenchmen were excluded.
After his recovery he went to work for us in Italy; and in July–August 1916 he travelled to Russia, where he found means ​to confer with all the military authorities and even with the Tsar. As a curious detail I may mention that the Tsar sent me, through Štefánik, very friendly greetings and urged me to go on with my policy—this at a time when the Russian Ministry of the Interior was playing off Dürich against me! Part of Štefánik’s work in Russia was to neutralize the exaggerations of Dürich and some of Dürich’s friends. For this work he had also the authorization of the French Government. With Dürich he sought to reach an agreement by the so-called Protocol of Kieff.
From Russia, Štefánik went at the end of 1916 to the Roumanian front, where he organized many hundreds of our prisoners of war for service in France. There they arrived in the summer of 1917. He himself returned in January 1917 to Russia and thence to Paris, staying with me in London on the way. In Paris he kept in constant touch with Southern Slavs and Italians; and from Paris went again to Rome. The summer (June–October) of 1917 found him in America for the purpose of enrolling Czech and Slovak volunteers. He hoped to get a lot of them but was disappointed. On the other hand, he won Roosevelt for our cause. His strength of character may be judged from the fact that when, on the day of his departure from New York for Europe, he was taken seriously ill after a big meeting in the Carnegie Hall, he had himself carried to the ship on a stretcher. He was then hurrying back to Italy, as far as I remember.
From April 1918 onwards he was again in Italy, where he took part in the Congress of Oppressed Austro-Hungarian Races; and, after effective propaganda, he concluded with the Italian Prime Minister, Orlando, the Conventions of April 21 and June 80 of that year. On September 6 he came to me in Washington on his way to join our army in Siberia with the French officer, General Janin, who was to command it. His original intention was to bring our army back from Siberia to Europe by way of Turkestan, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean—the existence of a Russian railway through Central Asia, and the Allied operations against the Turks in Asia Minor evidently suggested this idea to him—but he recognized that the plan was impracticable and, in February 1919, he returned from Russia to Paris, where he secured the support of Marshal Foch for the transport of our army to Europe by way of Vladivostok. In Paris, too, he convinced many people that the Russians were incapable of an offensive against the Bolsheviks. Then, in the spring of 1919, he ​prepared to fly home from Italy. In the hope of seeing D’Annunzio, he went from Rome to Venice, but missed him. On May 4 he started from Udine—and on the same day his machine crashed near Bratislava, where he found death on his native soil.
This, in the briefest compass, is Štefánik’s record. As I have said, I saw him daily in Paris at the beginning of 1916, often together with Beneš. All circumstances and persons of importance for our movement in Allied countries we passed in review, and worked out in detail a plan for our future action. At that time negotiations were going on in Paris for the transfer of a Russian army to France. The Russians made big promises—40,000 men a month—but ultimately an insignificant number came and, indeed, it would have been better had none come at all. The Russian troops were already demoralized, and their demoralization helped to lower the prestige of Russia in France and among the Allies generally. We had thought that our prisoners of war could be brought to France from Russia together with the Russian troops—a plan of which the French Government approved. Štefánik went to Russia to further it. News from several quarters and from my own trustworthy messengers had shown clearly that the Russian Government did not desire our army to be formed and transferred to France, and that our own people were weak politically and in organization. That is why one of us had to go to Russia.
According to our general plan, Štefánik was also to work in Italy, organizing our prisoners of war behind the Italian front so that they, as well as our prisoners from Russia, might possibly be brought to France. We wished to assemble as large a military unit as possible on one front, and we had, besides, an ulterior project—that our army should march with the Allied armies to Berlin at the end of the war and go home by way of Dresden.
In Italy Štefánik made many friends, especially in the army when, in the spring of 1916, he flew over a part of the front and detected the presence of some strong Austrian divisions of which the Italian Commander-in-Chief, General Cadorna, knew nothing. But for Štefánik’s discovery, these divisions would have surprised the Italian forces. As it was, his information enabled Cadorna to check the Austrian offensive in the nick of time, and afterwards to employ the Italian reinforcements that had been concentrated on the Trentino front for the remarkable manoeuvre by which Cadorna won the battle of the Isonzo in August 1916 and captured Gorizia. ​In Italy, too, Štefánik established with the Vatican relations which he developed throughout the remainder of the war. He, a Protestant, the son of a Slovak pastor, saw clearly how important the Vatican was for us. Indeed, his propaganda was of the greatest value. His methods were those of an apostle rather than of a diplomatist and soldier. In Paris, where he had gradually made a circle of friends and admirers, he smoothed the way for me and for Dr. Beneš in many an influential quarter; and he did the same in Rome. When I think of him I always remember the picture of our little Slovak tinkers who wander through the world; but this Slovak wandered through all the Allied fronts, through all Government Departments, political drawing-rooms and Courts. From him Marshal Foch heard for the first time about us and our work against Austria. In the French army, as I have said, he made influential friends, though he had some opponents in the Government and among the officials.
His political views were more conservative than mine. When, in October 1918, I issued our Declaration of Independence at Washington, he dissented from the terse programme I had drawn up. He feared that we might not be able successfully to organize and build up a consistently democratic Republic. But, after a time, he recognized that I had done right and withdrew his protest. He was hampered by inadequate knowledge of conditions and persons at Prague; and politically he was not always quite on his guard. For instance, the Kieff Protocol which he drew up with Dürich was so drafted that it might have been interpreted as a programme based merely on the principle of nationality, whereas we had constantly insisted upon our historical rights. But then Dürich, who ought to have known better, was guilty of the same mistake. Similarly, Štefánik’s political foresight was defective in Siberia, as is shown by his misreading of the true situation in the army, and of our own people as well as the Russians, especially Koltchak.
For me, personally, his affection was almost touching. I reciprocated it and was grateful for his help. He deserves the gratitude of us all.
Views of France.
While living in London I was in constant touch with France not only through Beneš but through Frenchmen who either lived in London or came there. Thus I experienced the ​Anglo-French Alliance in my own person—an alliance organic in me for family and personal reasons. My wife’s family is of Southern French Huguenot stock (their name, Garrigue, is that of a mountain range in the South of France), and her ancestors went to America by way of Denmark. Besides Czech and Slovak, English and French are currently spoken by the younger members of my own family; and it is no accident that my first Czech work at Prague was an essay on Hume and Pascal. Since childhood I had grown up in spiritual association with France, beginning to learn French at the age of thirteen; and though I had little actual intercourse with French people before the war, I kept so closely in touch with their whole literature that it became to me a living thing. So thoroughly had I studied France, her literature and her culture, that I felt no need actually to visit the country. Indeed, save for one or two landings at Havre, I had not been there before the war. It is sometimes said that Comte influenced me most. This is perhaps true of his sociology, but, as a theory of knowledge, or epistemology, I thought his Positivism too naïve. Comte sets out from Hume, from whose scepticism he escapes by appealing to tradition and to a so-called general opinion. In France, where science and scientific methods are always highly esteemed of this Henri Poincaré was a recent example—Comte’s Positivism had a powerful influence; but the Positivist yearning for clearness and precision may easily lead to a one-sided intellectualism. At bottom, the French cult of reason (from Descartes to the Revolution and to Comte’s Positivism after the Revolution) is what Kant means by “mathematical prejudice” and “pure reason”; and in France as in Germany it ended in a fiasco. Comte himself became a fetish-worshipper and went off, here and there, into a wild Romanticism. One has to be careful about the famous clarity of French thought!
Very early in my intellectual life, the great problem of the French Revolution and Restoration began to persecute me. It was as a link between the Revolution and the Restoration that Comte interested me, for the founder of Positivism and of the Positivist Religion of Humanity carried out the policy of de Maistre. I read Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire (whom, somehow, I did not like) on the one hand, and de Maistre and de Tocqueville on the other. I mention only the most important, though I was acquainted with all the rest, great and small.
I had a pretty severe attack of French Romanticism. ​Even as a boy I took delight in Chateaubriand and the whole Romantic school. Kollár’s strictures upon Romanticism displeased me, and it was comparatively late before I became aware of the unhealthy element in it. This may be seen from many of my criticisms of what I have often called “Decadence,” though that is not quite the right term for it. I was struck by the peculiarly morbid and even perverse sexualism in the French Romantics, a trend of feeling of which I believe de Musset has hitherto been the most typical exponent. In this element of Romanticism I sought—rightly, I think—the influence of Catholicism on quasi-Catholic people; for Catholicism, with its asceticism and ideal of celibacy, turns the mind too much towards sex and magnifies its importance even in tender youth. The sexualism of French literature—and, in this respect, France is truly representative—I attribute especially to this Catholic education. The pro-Catholic poet, Charles Guérin, expressed it as the “eternal duel between the fire of the Pagan body and the celestial yearning of the Catholic soul.” It is not asceticism alone but exaggerated transcendentalism as a whole that leads sceptics and unbelievers of Catholic origin to the extremes of extreme naturalism. I compared the French and the Italians with the English, the Americans and the Germans. Among Protestant (and Orthodox) peoples and writers there is neither this sexual romanticism nor the peculiar kind of blasphemy that arises from the constant and obvious contrast between the transcendental religious world and the ascetic ideal, on the one hand, and the real world of experience on the other. This contrast disturbs and excites. Protestantism is less transcendental; it is realistic. In Baudelaire the romantic association of the ideal of a Catholic Madonna with a naturalistic Venus finds graphic and typical expression—the same somersault is turned as when Comte surrenders Positivist science to fetishism. Zola threw this somersault in his naturalistic novels, which are strange mixtures of unpositivist Positivism and of gross Romanticism.
Carrère’s literary studies on Romanticism, which I had not seen before, were a pleasant surprise. He says many things that I had already said in my essays. One of the chief tasks in French spiritual development has hitherto been to analyse and to criticise Romanticism. De Tocqueville, as afterwards Taine and Brunetière, condemned it. To-day its adversaries are numerous, for instance, Seillière, in his “Away from Rousseau,” and his pupils, Lasserre, Faguet, Gillouin and also ​Maurras—names which show that opposition to Romanticism may spring from divergent views and aims. It is, above all, a moral problem. The Revolution against the old Régime—in the last resort, against Catholicism-degenerated in France into an exaggerated naturalism and into a sexualism that was unhealthy and therefore decadent. In this tendency I see a grave question not only for France but for the other Catholic nations and, indeed, for the whole modern era; and its gravity is not lessened by the fact that the tendency has prevailed in so marked a degree over the more powerful French women writers like Rachilde, Colette and Madeleine Marx.
Since this literary and moral problem bore directly on the war, it is natural that I should have given it attention in Paris and London. I felt it important to ascertain how France and, particularly, her intellectual class would stand the hardships of war. True, I did not accept the arguments on which pan-Germans based prophecies of the final decadence of France and of the Latin peoples. But even temporary decadence has its dangers; and, in the case of France, they were the more threatening because the de-population which alarms the French themselves is certainly connected with moral decadence. And this danger, it seemed to me, would not be wholly averted even by an Allied victory though, at that time, everything depended on victory.
I thought over the stories of disorder in the French army—disorder not explicable solely by pacifist resistance to bloodshed—in connection with this problem of decadence. General Joffre, it was said, had only restored order by extreme severity. These stories were exaggerated, as I discovered; and it must be frankly acknowledged that, against decadence and its tendency towards passivity among the intellectual classes and especially in Paris, there were in France strong activist movements. The nationalism of Barrès proved itself in the war; and, alongside of Barrès, Bourget and Maurras exhorted the youth of France vigorously to withstand the pan-Germans. The names of Bourget and Maurras are associated with the younger Catholic movement, of which the best and most influential section, and its organ, the “Sillon,” were democratic. Since the Revolution, and particularly since de Maistre, the Catholic movement and the religious question have been foremost issues in France. Everywhere and always the fight for control of the schools and for the separation of Church from State has been on the order of the day. In ​thought, the French Catholic movement is not uniform; and, in its chief literary exponents, as, for instance, in Claudel and Péguy, it is by no means orthodox. Maurras combines a national Classicism with his Catholicism, and others attempt in other ways to reach a synthesis between Catholicism and various factors of modern life. The influence which these tendencies exerted and exert is considerable and, on the whole, beneficent. Péguy’s death in battle was characteristic. Eloquent witness for modern France in all her intellectual manifestations was, indeed, borne by the large number of young writers who, like him, fell in the war.
By the side of this mainly political Nationalism there arose, out of the older humanitarian and international movements, a realist European movement, activist, energetic and propagandist. It included, on the one hand, writers like Romain Rolland, Suarès, Claudel and Péguy, to whom, in this respect, the poet Jules Romains may be added; and, on the other, Jaurès, who strove in the same way for a more concrete internationalism on the basis of a new patriotism, not a patriotism inspired by a spirit of revenge but by the ideal of a positive association of all nations in an harmonious whole. Most of these various personalities and leaders in French thought had one thing in common—a yearning for activity that was, in effect, a more or less definite protest against the abstract intellectualism of the Positivist heritage and against the scepticism which found its most artificial expression in Anatole France. To this protest Bergson’s attitude, in his “Intuition and Philosophy,” is akin. In him, as in Gide, Claudel and Jaurès, the watchwords are “élan vital-ferveur-ardente sérénité-effort.” Sorel raised the note to “violence.” In this I see more than the French were conscious of—the influence of German psychology with its “Activism” and “Emotionalism,” from Kant to Nietzsche and after.
I descried in the Entente, in the effective alliance of France with England and Russia, and subsequently with America, a practical expression of this European tendency of French minds. Strong Russian influences were at work in it as well as German, Scandinavian, English and American; and the question arises whether the unhealthy element in Romantic decadence will be overcome by this active striving for comprehension and by the effects of the war.
The best and precisely the most modern minds are well aware of the problem of decadence and regeneration. They ​are constantly examining it. The compound novel, or series of novels, is therefore characteristic of French literature. In this form, and by means of analysing a whole epoch, an effort is made to present a picture of modern France. After Balzac we had the novels of Zola, of Romain Rolland and, latterly, of Martin du Gard and others.
Views of England.
I returned to London from Paris on February 26, 1916. My stay in the French capital had brought home to me the great difference between the two cities in war-time. Paris gave the impression of being a city of mourning—Victor Hugo’s Capital of the Universe had become the necropolis of our civilization. More than once I imagined that I could hear the guns of Verdun. Fort Douaumont fell on the day of my departure.
In London there was hardly a trace of the war. Everything was calm, “business as usual.” Not until later did the war spirit get a hold-slowly, but in grim earnest. Troops came and went. The wounded soon returned; and, presently, German shortsightedness made a point of rousing the country by bombing, with Zeppelins and aircraft, cities like London and other towns strategically unimportant.
Naturally, my stay in London and visits to Paris, as well as constant intercourse with Englishmen and Frenchmen and the observation of French and English soldiers, Anglo-French agreement and disagreement, stimulated me to compare French with English literature and culture. Among British philosophers Hume had attracted me most, for he stated most forcibly the great problem of modern scepticism in its relation to the theory of knowledge; and since Comte, like Kant, took Hume as a starting point, I compared Comte with Hume. How different they are! The Frenchman returns to fetishism and seeks salvation in a neo-antique religion, whereas the Briton or, rather, the Scot, escapes from his own scepticism through a human ethic, not, like Comte, through a Religion of Humanity. Again, the Catholic and the Protestant! Among the more modern philosophers John Stuart Mill—who was also to some extent a follower of Comte—appealed to me as a representative of English empiricism. From Buckle, whom I can only mention, I got a clear notion of the meaning of history. Darwin I had found a knotty problem. I rejected, and still reject Darwinism, though not the theory of evolution. ​Spencer interested me much as a philosopher of evolution and as a sociologist.
Yet, to be quite frank, I paid more heed to English and American literature than to English philosophy. I soon got to know it pretty thoroughly and could compare it with the French in its bearing upon Romantic decadence. Rossetti and Oscar Wilde I had examined already; and now, in London, I deepened my acquaintance with the Celtic renascence and, in this connection, verified my analysis of French Romantic sexualism. W. L. George among the younger, and George Moore among the older writers, seemed good subjects for this inquiry; but, since the war I have found in Joyce the most instructive case of Catholic-Romantic decadence. In him there is a really palpable transition from metaphysical and religious transcendentalism and asceticism to naturalistic and sexual worldliness in practice.
This element of decadence, so strong among French writers, is not to be found among the English. Not that it is confined to the French; it exists also in Italian and Spanish and, to a marked degree, in German-Austrian literature as well as in that of Poland and in our own. This peculiarity perplexes the historians of English literature. Some speak, very superficially, of English prudery and cant; others simply cannot explain a difference that is undeniable. In reality, the difference between France and England is the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, between the morality of religious transcendentalism and a morality more human and natural. Hence there is not in England and in English literature the same crisis that exists in French literature and in France; there is not the same dualism, the same conflict between body and soul. A writer like Lawrence is an exception. He seems to have got his decadence from reading Freud. On the other hand, the Irish, as Catholics, certainly go with the French. I look upon English literature as the healthier; yet, if I ask, with Taine: “Musset or Tennyson?” I answer, “Musset and Tennyson, the French and the English (with the Americans), but be critical of both.” And, while interpreting decadent eroticism in this way, I ask myself whether it can rightly be ascribed to temperament and race, for such an explanation of it is assuredly wrong and based on superficial observation of peoples.
The centenary of Charlotte Brontë, my favourite authoress, was celebrated soon after my return from Paris to London. In her there is Romanticism, if you will, but pure and strong ​withal, love potent yet by no means material, utterly different from the French. I read her again, and Elizabeth Browning, too. In London it dawned upon me that England has, proportionately, the largest number of powerful women writers. With Mrs. Humphry Ward and May Sinclair, and many a novel by Marie Corelli, by the ingenuous “Ouida,” and other authoresses whose books were published in the Tauchnitz edition, I was already familiar. Now I came across a series of them—Reeves, Ethel Sidgwick, Kaye-Smith, Richardson, Delafield, Clemence Dane, Woolf. This is by no means the whole list; for, from Jane Austen to Charlotte (and Emily) Brontë, George Eliot and Elizabeth Browning, the number and the power of English women writers are extraordinary, higher proportionately than those of other countries, though I am not quite sure about America. This shows the penetration of women into public life; they are freeing themselves from the harem-kitchen domain. During the war one could see in London, as indeed in other countries, how women were taking up callings formerly reserved for men. After the return of the men from the war there would doubtless be a change, but, meanwhile, women had extended their rights and also their responsibilities. In the daily press and privately one heard of a strikingly high number of suicides among women—as statistics now confirm. They suggest that women were bearing burdens too heavy for them, and that loneliness had its effect.
The knowledge I had acquired from the history of literature and from literary criticism was thus supplemented in London by reading the authors themselves; for even in the best of our libraries at home there was many a gap. Samuel Butler and his humour did not enthral me. Of Thomas Hardy I had known only the more sensational novels; now I read him right through, and likewise George Meredith, whom I came to like better than before. I extended, too, my acquaintance with George Gissing, Galsworthy, Walpole, Arnold Bennett and Conrad, among the later writers. Wells I knew already. From them I went on to one of the youngest, Swinnerton; and Hutchinson, Lawrence and others likewise cast their spell over me.
English culture I hold to be the most progressive and, as I was able to see during the war, the most humane. Not that I think all the English are angels. But in their civilization the Anglo-Saxons-and this is true of America too—have expressed humanitarian ideals the most carefully in theory, and have practised them in a higher degree than other nations. ​In English views of the war and in its conduct this was evident. The English soldiers were better looked after and better treated than those of other armies. The sanitary service and military hygiene were particularly good. The claims of “conscientious objectors,” opponents of war on religious and ethical grounds, were very liberally admitted. Besides, the English published trustworthy news of the war and did not suppress enemy opinions.
Is all this bound up with England’s wealth? No European city seems so rich as London. I walked and rode through its length and breadth, in all directions. Almost everywhere the door handles were in good order, the many brass plates of business houses well polished, garden fences well kept—these things showed me the wealth of England more clearly than any statistical figures.
The Cinema Spirit.
In London, as elsewhere, I went to the cinema to see war films. They showed every side of war technique, from the initial stages in factories and dockyards up to the life in the trenches. The French pictures were mostly political; and though the French and the English public both liked appeals to sentiment, the English and the American films were less mournful than those of France. I noticed, too, in London, and later on in America, that when portraits of political and military personages were thrown on the screen, the loudest applause was always given to the King of the Belgians, louder, in fact, than to Joffre and Foch. In England, as in America, it was for Belgium that the people had gone into the war. In the cinemas I realized, moreover, that in modern English literature all novels, even those of Hardy and Meredith, have a strong strain of the cinematograph spirit, a preference for mysteries and complicated plots of the detective story type. True, in the older French literature, in Balzac, for example, the novel is already a detective story. While the Germans and we ourselves, led and perverted by the Russians, analyse the soul and dig out of it what is weird and morbid, the English and the Americans are always simpler. Puzzles of a more mechanical sort interest them, though they also have managed to spoil their minds with modern theories, problems and superproblems, and even with Freud’s ridiculous psychology. Take, for instance, Mr. Lawrence, who sometimes seems like Barbusse and Jaeger!
​The trenches and trench warfare could be seen comfortably enough in the cinema—but at Verdun, from February 1916 onwards, month after month the fighting was terribly bloody and grim. Yet the Germans failed, a failure characteristic of the military situation. On the Somme, the war of position was likewise long and bloody. If the Eastern front had been the more generally important in 1915, the centre of gravity shifted again to the French front in 1916. In Russia, the Germans were carrying out their pan-German plan; and, at the beginning of 1917, Mitau fell. Hindenburg and Ludendorff had been placed at the head of the German army in August 1916; and, in the following December, General Nivelle in France took over the chief command from Joffre—on whom the dignity of Marshal was bestowed—while Foch became Chief of Staff. In April 1917 Nivelle sought in vain to break through the German front; his losses were too heavy. The Germans, for their part, began unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917, and shortened their land front in the West by taking up the Siegfried line in March.
Since the beginning of 1916, large British reinforcements had been reaching the front. Though, at first, they were kept in Belgium and the North, their presence was felt along the whole French line. By 1916, too, the Allies had evidently become preponderant in munitions and war material; the German army began to grow nervous and to lose confidence.
I watched the growth of the British army, saw the recruiting and the life in camp and barracks. For the “Tommies” I felt a hearty liking. The Canadians also came through London; and, as the French Canadians and their language interested me, I went to see them. A Continental observer could not fail to be struck by the superiority of British military equipment and general arrangements; and in this respect the Americans outdid even the English. In them both one must recognize the good, nay, the great qualities of steadfastness and tenacity. Mr. Steed always used to console us-and our English friends—by saying that Englishmen take time to get going, but when they start they keep it up; and in 1916 Mrs. Humphry Ward wrote much the same thing of the British war spirit. It turned out to be literally true.
The unexpected death of Kitchener on June 5 seemed a bad omen to many people in England, though the evacuation of the Dardanelles (January 18, 1916) and the capitulation of Kut-el-Amara in Mesopotamia (April 28) had already taken place. A German mine, not a submarine, is said to have sunk ​the cruiser “Hampshire”; yet, as Kitchener’s departure was a dead secret, treason was suspected and it was feared that he might have been the victim of a submarine. If treason there was, we thought that it must have come from St. Petersburg, for it was on the Tsar’s invitation that Kitchener was going to Russia to work out a strategical plan against Austria. Even after his death, the Dardanelles episode continued to be hotly debated in London. The venture may have been a mistake but its boldness was encouraging. England had, however, troubles nearer home. In April the Irish rebellion broke out. Lloyd George took Kitchener’s place at the War Office in July, and became Prime Minister in December 1916. The battle of Jutland (May 81–June 1, 1916) was at first reported in London as a British defeat and the truth was not known till later. In point of fact, the German fleet never again dared take the offensive.
Then the British wiped out their defeats in Mesopotamia and took Baghdad—to my eyes, a very welcome breach in the pan-German Berlin-Baghdad line. (An entry in my diary on January 15, 1916, runs: ad Berlin-Baghdad: First Balkan train Berlin-Vienna-Budapest-Belgrade-Sofia-Constantinople.) Jerusalem, too, was taken; and, in the Balkans, General Sarrail began successful operations from Salonica which allowed the remnant of the Serbian army to come into play, a matter of considerable political importance for Serbia. In the Tyrol the Italians were hard pressed, but on the Isonzo they advanced in August 1916 and occupied Gorizia; and at the end of the same month Italy declared war on Germany. On the Russian front Brusiloff took the offensive against the Germans and Austrians between June and November 1916. He triumphed at Lutsk, and made hundreds of thousands of Austrian prisoners, among them many future Czech legionaries. Though he was checked, his advance relieved the pressure on France, several German divisions having to be transferred from the Western to the Eastern front. Likewise Brusiloff relieved the Italians by compelling the Austrians to stop the offensive they had successfully begun in the Tyrolese Alps towards the middle of May, and to withdraw troops thence for the Russian front. The Russian advance also helped to bring Roumania into the war after protracted negotiations with Russia and the Entente. Roumania declared war on August 27 and pressed rapidly forward into Transylvania—though, by the end of the year, Mackensen was master of Bucarest.
​Yet, despite Brusiloff’s fleeting success, the year 1916 saw the total elimination and retreat of the Slav armies—Russia was definitely defeated. The overthrow of Serbia at the end of 1915 had reached its climax in January 1916 by the downfall and occupation of Montenegro. The Germans of Austria had followed the Magyar example and, on October 11, 1915, “Austria “arose—to vegetate for three years—in the place of the old “Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrat.” The assassination of the Prime Minister, Count Stürgkh, on October 21, 1916, and the death of Francis Joseph on November 11 were omens of impending collapse.
The next year, 1917, was fateful for all the belligerent nations and above all for Russia. It had long been whispered that in Russia a storm was brewing. The characteristic premiership of Stürmer, whom Benckendorff regarded as a dangerous pro-German, had lasted from February 9 till November 28, and had been generally condemned; and though the rigorous Russian censorship prevented news of the extraordinary excitement from reaching Europe, there were too many Englishmen and Frenchmen in Russia for alarming accounts not to be sent or brought to the West. Attention had been drawn to the situation at Petrograd and in the army by the members of the Duma who visited Paris and London; and, later on, Milyukoff’s speech against Stürmer in the Duma of November 14, 1916, which culminated in the question “Madness or Treason?” illumined the position for the public at large. The original British view of the Russian Revolution was that the fall of the pro-German régime would enable Russia to wage war more efficiently and successfully.
The American Declaration of War.
Hard upon the Russian Revolution of March 1917 followed a second far-reaching event on April 6—the decision of the United States to declare war upon Germany and to join the Allies in the fight against the Central Powers. Less attention is usually paid to the naval war between England and Germany than to the fighting on land, though, in reality, this aspect of the struggle was extremely stubborn and of great importance in deciding the issue. Germany had challenged England by the undue expansion of the German navy and by the endeavour to show the German flag on every sea. Immediately after the outbreak of war, England and her Allies began by blockading Germany in order to prevent the importation of foodstuffs ​and raw materials. The French fleet lent its aid. Germanyv replied by submarine warfare. Without dilating upon this contest I must point out that America saw in it a danger to her own shipping and to her trade. As early as August 5, 1915, she tried, unsuccessfully, to mediate between the belligerents; and when, in February 1915, Germany declared British waters a war zone, America immediately protested, her protests being renewed whenever German submarines endangered the lives of American citizens. In February 1916 the Germans intensified their submarine campaign until, on February 1, 1917, they passed to unrestricted submarine warfare. America was incensed, her aversion from Germany having been increased by German and Austrian propaganda in America and by attacks upon American trade and industry in the United States itself. Of this I shall give some account when I tell of the part we took in opposing this phase of German action.
At first the German submarines were very successful. By the spring of 1917, despondent voices were increasingly to be heard in England, foretelling starvation and surrender. Lloyd George himself was seriously alarmed. As I had been living in England since the autumn of 1915, I followed with the utmost attention the course of the naval struggle. One was continually reminded of it in London, even in the daily details of domestic life. There was much talk of a German invasion—a possibility officially admitted as late as the spring of 1918. The question was very important because it affected the estimates of the number of troops that ought to be held in readiness at home and therefore withheld from France. Hence I took comprehensible interest in American protests against Germany. Even before the sinking of the “Lusitania,” on May 7, 1915, their tone was sharp, and it became still sharper in the Notes dealing with the “Lusitania.” In December 1915 an American Note was also addressed to Austria on the sinking of the “Ancona” by an Austrian submarine. In 1916 came the Notes on the sinking of the cross-channel steamer “Sussex” until, finally, war was declared on April 6, 1917. The declaration of war counterbalanced not only the successes of the German submarines but those of the German armies. Such, at least, was my firm belief when I decided, in the spring of 1917, to go for a time to Russia.
About Russia and her fate I had worried continually. Now and again I had gone to see the Russian Ambassador, Count Benckendorff. The Russian journalist, M. de Wesselit​sky, known to readers of the “Novoe Vremya” as “Argus,” lived also in London; and I made the acquaintance of Dioneo, a Russian emigrant, and of Prince Kropotkin, besides Professor Vinogradoff, whom I have already mentioned. Milyukoff and other members of the Duma came over from Russia in April 1916 with Protopopoff, and we agreed with Milyukoff upon our anti-Austrian programme. He issued a declaration upon it in Paris after discussing it with Beneš. Presently he came back to lecture at Oxford, where we had an opportunity of going more fully into political and military details. The Russian writer, Amfiteatroff, who went from Italy by way of London to Petrograd at the end of November 1916, should also be mentioned. He was to edit Protopopoff’s daily newspaper, and he promised me to conduct it on liberal lines. I gave him an article in which I explained to the Russians the necessity of destroying Austria—a doctrine that needed to be preached as much in Russia as in the West, because many Russians held to a vague idea of a diminished Austria in which we Czechs should play the leading part.
Thanks to the Russian visitors, to my own messengers and to a number of our own people who came from Russia to London, I was able to keep an eye upon Russian conditions, our colonies there and their leaders. Dr. Pučálka was one of the first to come; and he worked also for our men in Serbia. Then Pavlu, a journalist, turned up, got to know the state of affairs in England and France and saw for himself the relationship of the West to Russia. Messrs. Reiman, Vaněk and Professor Písecký should also be mentioned. Stephen Osuský, the young Slovak lawyer to whom I have already referred, came from America in June 1916. After a time he went on to Beneš in France, and, learning French quickly, became a valuable helper.
The Russian Polish leader, Roman Dmowski, who came to London in 1916, understood that the preservation of Austria was and would be a continual danger to the Poles. On many points we agreed. Little was then said of the Silesian question, which was very subordinate in comparison with our common aims. I negotiated with Dmowski about it afterwards in Washington.
The Southern Slavs and Italy.
I have already said that in London, where they were numerous, the Southern Slavs had organized their Yugoslav ​Committee. They, especially the Croats and Slovenes, made their political headquarters in the English capital. Among them were Supilo, Hinkovitch, Vosnyak, Potochnyak and Mestrovitch, the sculptor. The Serbian Minister was M. Jovanovitch, whom I had known in Vienna, and until he came the Legation was in charge of M. Antonievitch, whom I also knew well. Professors Savitch and Popovitch, and Father Nicolai Velimirovitch, who carried on skilful ecclesiastical propaganda, were prominent among the Serbs; and when, in April 1916, the Serbian Crown Prince arrived with the Prime Minister, Pashitch, I had conversations and entered into friendly agreements with both.
In view of the Treaty of London, relations with Italy always formed a delicate point, not only for the Southern Slavs but for me too; and, as I was working steadily in concert with them, the Italo-Yugoslav problem was always with me. My former championship of the Yugoslav cause on behalf of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1891–98, in the Agram and Friedjung trials of 1909 and in the struggle against Aehrenthal and in the Vashitch trial at Belgrade—gave me an exceptional position among them. In the present case, their conflict with Italy became especially acute because the Italians in London were diligent in defending the Treaty. My opinion was that Italy would give way in the final peace negotiations. She could not have taken part in the war without some recompense, and the question was whether we did not all need her help to ensure an Allied victory. What if the Austrians and Germans should win? In that event the situation would have been very much worse for the Yugoslavs also, and for a very long time. With insignificant exceptions, our Yugoslav friends were sharply antagonistic to Italy, though some of them held more moderate views and kept in touch with the Italians—which was tactically advantageous. The official Serbian attitude was calm, but it had the effect of exciting distrust among the Croats and Slovenes who often complained that, like Russia, Serbia was betraying the Yugoslavs and Slav interests in general. Our views differed from those of the Croats and Slovenes on yet another feature of the London Treaty—the provision by which the Allies, in deference to Italian wishes, undertook to exclude the Vatican from the Peace Conference.
To us, the relationship to Italy was important for an additional reason. In fighting against Austria, the Italians soon made prisoners of a large number of our men and, as in Russia, ​we were able to organize them into a Legion. As I have said, our National Council entrusted Štefánik with this work. Beneš also went to Italy and was always in contact with the Italian Embassy in Paris. But our colonies acted in unison with the Southern Slavs.
In England our colony was not numerous. Some personal antagonism among its members had been removed during my first visit to London. I usually met my fellow-countrymen at a restaurant kept by Mr. Sykora. He and Mr. Francis Kopecký found much difficulty in getting English officials to safeguard the interests of our people, whom Kopecký urged to join the British army, he himself setting a good example. In August 1916 we organized jointly with the Southern Slavs a demonstration against Austria, at which Viscount Templetown presided and Seton-Watson spoke. In Seton-Watson and Steed the Southern Slavs had ardent supporters. Both of them favoured openly the standpoint of the Southern Slav Committee in regard to the Treaty of London. Seton-Watson helped to organize the Serbian Relief Fund and the important Serbian Society of Great Britain. On the latter model an Anglo-Czech Society was afterwards formed. In the spring of 1917 a Montenegrin Committee was constituted in Paris. Its tendency was antagonistic to King Nicholas; and in March it issued a programme of Montenegrin-Yugoslav union.
The controversy about Italy and the Treaty of London revived, as I noticed, the old dissensions between Croats and Serbs; and the personal quarrels which also arose among them became so hot as to damage the Yugoslav name. Supilo, who had helped me against Aehrenthal after the Bosnian annexation crisis of 1908–9 and during the affair of the Friedjung forgeries, was often with me. He had been in Russia at the beginning of 1915 and had returned indignant because the Russians had accepted the Treaty of London. To this I shall refer when I come to Russia. After the outbreak of war, my intercourse with him began at Geneva. Before long, however, he fell out not only with the Russians and Serbia but with the Southern Slav Committee as well. I did my utmost to put matters right; and the day before I left for Russia, Supilo promised me to bury the hatchet. He kept his word—but I did not dream when I left him that we had seen each other for the last time. He died in the following September.
One incident of the more private side of my life in London recurs to me. As in Geneva, I had blood-poisoning. The ​doctors could not explain it. On their advice I went for a time to the seaside at Bournemouth, where I was operated upon. The surgeon affirmed that I had been poisoned through my laundry; and it was not unnatural to suppose that my Austrian enemies were looking after me in this way. Both at Geneva and in London I had proofs that they were watching me. So I kept up my revolver practice—as I might have done in any case, for I was always fond of target shooting—and it was just as well for those who were shadowing me to see that I was on my guard. One day, indeed, thieves broke into my house probably secret agents who wanted to get at my papers. By a lucky accident they were scared away; but, on the advice of the police, I had electric alarm bells fixed at every point where the house could be broken into.
Peace Feelers.
Meanwhile our systematic propaganda was bearing fruit in all directions. Seton-Watson’s “New Europe” was remarkably helpful in political quarters. The Allied press proclaimed more and more definitely our anti-Austrian programme and the right of small peoples to self-determination; and, in England, the cause of Belgium had drawn attention to the small nations from the very beginning of the war.
Yet the tense situation on all fronts continued to be disquieting. The Germans shouted “victory,” but began to put out peace feelers; they no longer felt sure of victory. We know now that, by the end of 1916, Ludendorff and others were apprehensive about the position in the field, though their “fears” may have been meant to bring on unrestricted submarine warfare. The idea of withdrawing from France in the West and of holding on to Russia in the East was obvious in the German peace feelers. On October 81, 1916, the German Emperor ordered Bethmann-Hollweg to draft peace proposals; and on December 12 the German Chancellor handed them to the American, Swiss and Spanish representatives. Briand was the first to answer and to reject them. The other Allied statesmen followed suit and, on December 30, the Allied Governments sent a collective reply. At this juncture a new and weighty political factor came into play in the person of President Wilson. On November 7, 1916, he had been re-elected to the Presidency of the United States and thus acquired great weight. On December 21, in a Message emphasizing the right of small peoples to self​determination and proposing a League of Nations, he asked the belligerents to state their war aims. A striking passage in this Message insisted that his action had not been prompted by the peace feelers of the Central Powers; and it transpired subsequently that Berlin had been pressing him since the summer to make a peace move and that he had been unpleasantly surprised by German and Austrian action.
The Allies answered Wilson on January 12, 1917, in a joint Note that was a brilliant success for our cause, inasmuch as it included among the Allied conditions of peace “the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Roumanes and Czechoslovaks from foreign rule.” This answer made a stir in all our colonies and strengthened us greatly; and not only in our colonies but in the press and political circles of Allied countries, because we Czechs and Slovaks were especially mentioned by name. This, however, caused some discontent in the Southern Slav and Polish colonies, who thought our success disproportionately great.
I could see at once from the text of the Allied reply that the word “Czechoslovaks” had been inserted into a completed draft which had demanded only the liberation of the “Slavs” in general; and this turned out to have been the case. Dr. Beneš heard that the Allied reply had been drawn up. He conferred with M. Philippe Berthelot and others, but met with great difficulties because the Allies hesitated to bind themselves to break up Austria-Hungary entirely or to promise freedom to the Austro-Hungarian peoples. Verbally and in writing Beneš insisted that this promise should be given to strengthen the resistance of the oppressed Hapsburg races, and asked in particular that the Czechs and Slovaks should be expressly mentioned. Influential persons like M. Leygues, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Chamber, supported him. M. André Tardieu, in the “Temps,” and M. Jules Sauerwein, in the “Matin,” wrote in our favour on January 8; and the “Matin” reminded M. Briand of the promise he had given me a year before. The Allies had decided, after discussions between Paris, Rome and London, to speak only of “Slavs” in general so as not to give umbrage either to the Italians or to the Southern Slavs; but the French Foreign Office succeeded in fulfilling the desire of Beneš. There is an interesting point of inner history in the use of the word “Czechoslovaks.” Three proposals were made the liberation of “Bohemia,” of “the Czech People” and of “the Czechoslovaks.” The third was accepted after consultation between Beneš, Štefánik and Osuský.
​Despite the Allied reply, President Wilson did not lose hope of a comparatively early peace. The German Ambassador at Washington, Count Bernstorff, invoking the authority of Colonel House, asked the German Government for its peace terms on January 28, 1917. Thereupon Germany sent, on January 29, a list of her demands in which she made the most of the military status quo, foreshadowing, in particular, a frontier rectification at the expense of Russia, and pleading for Poland as a country under German control. Washington found this answer unsatisfactory.
It is characteristic of German diplomacy that, simultaneously with the peace terms, it should have notified Wilson of the beginning of unrestricted submarine warfare. This notification was published on January 31, 1917; and, on February 5, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. Next day President Wilson called upon the neutrals to do the same. Their answers were interesting. As far as I could find out, ten of them replied, some in the negative, others evasively. Austria, for her part, made a parallel peace move when feeling against Germany began to rise in America. Through his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Parma, the Emperor Charles secretly approached Poincaré and other Western statesmen. To this I shall refer more fully later on.
All these peace moves I watched very carefully. No less than the operations in the field, they indicated the general situation. Hopes of peace, and pacifism, had everywhere been stimulated by the downfall of Tsardom and by the Russian Revolution. On April 10 a declaration of the Russian Provisional Government promised self-determination to all Russian nationalities. This was followed on April 15 by a manifesto of the Russian Workmen’s and Soldiers’ representatives demanding peace without annexations or indemnities and, on April 19, by a manifesto of German, Austrian and Hungarian Social Democrats supporting that of the Russian Workmen and Soldiers pronouncements of which the effect was weakened by the American declaration of war. From Wilson’s utterances and those of the Allies it was obvious that America had declared war in earnest, not as a momentary means of pressure. All doubt on that score was set at rest by the rapidity of American armaments for which, indeed, some preparation had already been made.
A Disavowal.
I did not and could not expect that our success in the Allied reply to President Wilson, a success won by intense effort on our part and by the exceptional friendliness of France, would bring about what I so greatly feared-that our members of Parliament at home might disavow us. The course of home affairs I had naturally followed with keen attention. Not only did we get the Austrian and Czech papers, and news by messenger from Prague and Vienna, but, as far as I could manage it, the principal reports made to the Allied Governments. I have already mentioned that people in Allied countries taxed us with supineness. Enemy propaganda constantly harped on the same string, not without effect. We made the most of the persecution of our people by the Austrians, though it is comprehensible that the arrest and condemnation of men like Dr. Kramář and Dr. Rašín could not have the same effect abroad as at home. The Allied peoples had their own losses and sufferings, especially in France, where nearly every family was mourning the death of one of its members. We utilized everything that we decently could, and there was no lack of material. For instance, the summing up of the Court against Dr. Kramář contained an eloquent description of our anti-Austrian work, and we took advantage of it. Thus the folly of Vienna and of the Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief recoiled upon itself.
After I had left Prague there had been no great improvement in the political situation. Parties and persons were as divided as ever-a matter of less moment because there could be no public political life under the prevailing military pressure. Therefore I welcomed the attempt that was made towards the end of 1916 to unite Czech parties and Members of Parliament in a Czech Association and in an (incomplete) National Committee. When the Emperor Charles succeeded to Francis Joseph on November 21, 1916, this union was judicious and certainly necessary. Indeed, Francis Joseph’s death strengthened our position, for the opinion had long been prevalent that, on the death of the old Emperor, Austria would break up. I had often heard this opinion before the war, in America and elsewhere; and the death of the popular old Emperor was taken as an omen of the beginning of the end. The new Emperor was unknown, and what was said of him inspired few hopes. The assassination of Count Stürgkh, the Prime Minister, which had preceded the Emperor’s death, ​had revealed Austria’s weakness; and Dr. Adler’s defence, an indictment in which he emphasized effectively her responsibility for the war, damaged her anew. We made it our care to spread documents like these far and wide in foreign countries.
Then came the Allied answer to Wilson, with its special mention of “the Czechoslovaks.” It was not surprising that the Catholic Party in Bohemia should hasten to reject it (as early as January 14); nor was it astonishing that the German and Austrian press should hail this rejection as an act of loyalty. But the Czech Association also repudiated it. I understood the difficult predicament in which our members of Parliament had been placed, and expected that they would be compelled to say something, particularly after the Clerical declaration. The only question was, How? I imagined what they might have said—but it turned out otherwise. True, the omission of my name weakened the effect of the disavowal, and this vagueness caused the press and the political public to take less notice of it; but Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, did us the best service in publishing only a short letter from three Members of Parliament whose names were unknown abroad. Nevertheless, the pro-Austrians abroad used the disavowal to the full, and it gave us not a little to do.
Our opponents rubbed their hands over a first manifesto in which the Czech Association and the National Committee had proclaimed, on November 19, 1916, their attachment to the dynasty and to its historic mission. The fact that both of these organizations took part in the coronation of the Emperor at Budapest on December 30, 1916, was likewise turned against us; and when the disavowal followed, it was skilfully linked up with the two other episodes. I explained the disavowal as an acknowledgment of the pardon granted to Dr. Kramář and his comrades, but it was unnecessary to have paid so high a price for it. As we heard abroad, Francis Joseph had thought the indictment of Kramář for high treason an act of weakness; and, by pardoning him, the Emperor Charles confirmed this view. Vienna would not have dared to take the lives of our public men whom she had imprisoned, and it seemed to us that our policy at home was concentrated too anxiously upon having them set free. I thought also that the disavowal might have been secured by the influence of the young Emperor, who was preparing for separate peace negotiations with France and the Entente, and held out to our people the prospect of an early peace. That was certainly ​a serious consideration. But a telegram of congratulation that was sent to the Austro-Hungarian General, Boroevitch, made a far worse impression on me. He had only been successful in a minor action on the Italian front, and it was all the more striking that our people should have congratulated him especially upon it.
Yet the disavowal was soon forgotten. The Russian Revolution and the entry of the United States into the war filled men’s minds and strengthened hopes of an Allied victory; and its influence at home was evident in the manifesto which our Members of Parliament issued on April 14, 1917. This manifesto helped us because it contained, albeit indirectly, a criticism of Austria. And when, in view of this situation, the Austrian Parliament was convened, my fears began to diminish.