# The Making of a State/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
FINIS AUSTRIAE (Washington. April 29—Nov. 20, 1918)
ONCE on a British boat I felt I was again in Europe and in America, not merely by force of international law but because all the surroundings were European or American. I am a good sailor, and the fine, calm weather restored me. Part of the restful effect of a sea voyage comes from watching the waves, the currents, the weather, the colour of the water, and the skies. I noted that on April 24 we crossed the so-called date line, 181 degrees East Longtitude. I thought of Jules Verne’s “Round the World in Eighty Days” and how his hero unexpectedly gained twenty-four hours by going from West to East.
Among the passengers was Mr. Wright of the American Embassy at Petrograd with whom I discussed once more the Russian situation; and in the ship’s library I found a number of English novels. I read, too, with interest the centenary work on Charlotte Brontë by Miss May Sinclair, an authoress with whom I am well acquainted. But much of my time was spent in reviewing the international situation as it had developed since I left England. Russia, I reflected, was out of the war and bound down by a forced peace. Kerensky’s offensive in 1917 had come too late. Ludendorff and the Germans had feared it might come sooner and be dangerous. Since defeat and revolution had cost the Tsar his throne, failure in the war might be expected likewise to sweep away the Emperors William and Charles and their systems. Europe would thus be freed from absolutism, democracy would win and the freedom of small nations would be more fully assured. On the other hand it was a drawback that Russia could fight no longer and that her internal development was uncertain, perhaps actually endangered.
After occupying Poland, the Germans had gone forward and had occupied the Border States. In September and October 1917 they had taken Riga and the islands of Oesel, Dagö and Moon. Then they had entered Finland on April 2, ​1918, and had there beaten the Bolshevists who had failed to recognize the Finnish declaration of independence of July 19, 1917. (This, too, is proof that the Germans were not unreservedly pro-Bolshevist.) Ever since the battle of Gorlice in May 1915, they had gone on step by step till the pan-German “Urge towards the East” seemed to be satisfied in that part of Europe. They had recognized the small States which arose under their patronage—Courland, on March 15, 1918, Lithuania on March 23rd, Lettland or Latvia on April 9th, and Esthonia on April 10th. The two last-named declared forthwith (April 13) their adhesion to Germany. The Ukraine, yielding to force majeure, had made peace, Roumania likewise. The Germans and the Austrians were masters of Poland. The country had been occupied in the summer of 1915 and was administered by Germany and Austria-Hungary. Under the Governor of Warsaw, General von Beseler, a German scheme to raise a Polish army half a million strong had suddenly been formed. To this end the Kingdom of Poland was set up (November 5, 1916); but the scheme fell through and, despite the appearance of Austro-German concord, Germany wrestled long with Austria for mastery in the new Kingdom of Poland, as, indeed, in regard to Roumania. Russia, it should be said, had blundered badly from the beginning in her handling of the Polish question. The promises she made at first were whittled down—the censorship would not even allow “autonomy” to be mentioned—and the proclamation of an independent Polish State by the Russian Provisional Government, on March 80, 1917, came too late.
On the other hand, Greece had joined the Allies on June 27, 1917, after the expulsion of King Constantine; and, in Asia, England had continued her victorious course, the Turks losing many men in winter from hunger and disease. Moreover, England had made a wise move in November 1917 by pledging herself to support the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Thus she gained the goodwill of Zionist as well as of non-Zionist Jews the world over. But German submarine warfare caused her serious anxiety until, towards the end of 1917, the Germans themselves began to doubt its efficacy and expediency.
In France, the increase of the American army had made itself felt from June 1917 onwards, though German pressure remained dangerous. In the spring of 1917 General Nivelle had failed to break through the German front; and, at the end of May, it had been necessary to suppress outbreaks of ​dissatisfaction with the leadership of the French army. Changes had again been made in the high command, General Pétain, the opponent of Nivelle’s strategic plan, becoming Commander-in-Chief; while, after the great German offensive in March 1918, General Foch had been placed in command of the Allied armies on the Western front. Unitary leadership had long been necessary. An earlier attempt to secure it had come to nothing, though the Supreme Military Council of the Allies had been set up in November 1917. Now, after the German offensive of March 21, 1918, unity of command was indispensable. The offensive seemed at first so successful that the French thought once more of removing the Government from Paris; but the Germans failed to take Amiens, their chief immediate objective—a failure which convinced them that they or, at least, their strategic plan had not succeeded and that the “great battle” in France was still undecided.
Politically, France was winning. Clemenceau, who became Prime Minister and Minister for War, had established his vigorous rule from November 16, 1917, onwards. The internal situation was characterized by the expulsion of M. Malvy, the former Minister of the Interior, by the arrest of M. Caillaux, the former Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, on January 14, 1918, and by the execution of Bolo Pasha on February 5. It should be remembered, however, that the law against defeatism and pacifist propaganda had been passed on June 26, 1917, nearly five months before Clemenceau took office.
After the Caporetto disaster in October 1917 Italy had pulled herself together and had reorganized her army with the help of British and French divisions. Austria had won her victory with German aid; by herself, she was, obviously, no longer equal to her task, strategically or militarily. We know now that the object of the Caporetto offensive was so to crush the Italians that the enemy could cross the Alps into Southern France. I had all along expected an attempt of this sort.
The Peace Treaties which Germany had concluded with her Eastern adversaries, especially with Russia, were an index to the whole military and political situation. To me they seemed likewise to foreshadow peace in the West. In fact, a number of peace feelers were put out by both sides during 1917 and the early months of 1918, principally by the Central Powers. As early as December 1916 Germany and her Allies had made an official offer of peace to the Western Allies; and there were afterwards a whole series of secret offers, how many cannot exactly be said, emanating either from authoritative quarters ​or from influential persons acting on their behalf. After the death of the Emperor Francis Joseph at the beginning of December 1916 Austria opened with the Entente secret negotiations which were protracted until the spring of 1918. Of them I shall have more to say. It was significant that they should have been undertaken by the young Emperor Charles through his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Parma. A year later, they were publicly revealed by Clemenceau. They bore witness both to the weakening of the Central Powers and to a decrease of the harmony that had existed between Austria and Germany under Francis Joseph. On April 12, 1917, Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, dilated officially on the weakness of Austria in a confidential report to the Emperor Charles. This report came to the knowledge of the Allies—through an indiscretion on the part of Erzberger, it is said, though Erzberger himself denied it. Czernin’s report would certainly account for the young Emperor’s peace negotiations; and, as we shall see, they were not an isolated effort. Throughout the whole of 1917 Austria sought to approach all the Allies.
On July 19, 1917, the German Reichstag had adopted, by 214 votes against 116 and with 17 abstentions, a peace resolution demanding, after the Russian fashion, peace without annexations or political or economic indemnities; and secret overtures were also made to the Allies by official Germany. The German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, was prepared to treat for peace with France on the basis of ceding Alsace-Lorraine in whole or in part—so, at least, it was said in Vienna and stated by Austrian agents. Of one Franco-German peace overture details are known. Baron von der Lancken, the former Counsellor of the German Embassy in Paris, who was then in Belgium, got into touch with M. Briand through a number of intermediaries. Matters went so far that he was to have met Briand in Switzerland on September 27, 1917, but Briand did not go. There was a sequel to this episode in a controversy between Clemenceau and Briand. Next month (October) the Germans approached England through Spain, and still other threads were spun from Germany to England by way of The Hague.
Between Germany and Russia there had been several attempts to negotiate. I have mentioned two German offers to the Tsar. In October 1916 Russia apparently approached Germany, and in December Germany approached Russia. In February 1917 Bethmann-Hollweg tried to treat for peace ​during the last days of the Tsarist régime, and another attempt was made with Milyukoff under the Provisional Government. Other negotiations were carried on in Scandinavian countries by Rizoff, the Bulgarian Minister in Berlin, though I am not sure whether the German Chancellor went as far as he. During the Russo-German armistice Germany again sounded Russia through Erzberger, also in Stockholm; and Kerensky made peace proposals through a Polish intermediary, Ledwinski, the President of the Polish Liquidation Commission.
The German Emperor is known to have favoured, in the autumn of 1917, milder terms of peace than those which had been offered in December 1916. Early in July he conferred with the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. Pacelli, and asked for vigorous peace propaganda by the Pope. During the following month, Vatican action, and the diplomatic correspondence to which it gave rise, were alike weighty, though the Vatican entirely failed to gain the ear of the Allied Governments. Besides issuing its public Peace Note, which was too vague to be taken by the leading Allied Governments as a basis for negotiations, the Vatican approached them and Germany very emphatically in secret. Through the British Government it made soundings for peace terms and, by means of Mgr. Pacelli, the Nuncio in Munich, it informed the new German Chancellor, Dr. Michaelis, that England wished to know the real intentions of Germany, particularly in regard to Belgium. The German reply was indefinite and therefore not acceptable. Bethmann-Hollweg had resigned the Imperial Chancellorship on July 18, 1917, because Hindenburg and Ludendorff opposed him on the ground that the peace resolution of the Reichstag had been a sign of weakness. But at the end of July, mutinies broke out in the German navy, and Ludendorff himself soon began to waver. The year 1917 was marked, moreover, by developments in the German Social Democratic Party which gradually split into two groups and tendencies; and at the beginning of 1918, the first political strikes took place—in Vienna on January 16 and in Berlin on January 28—while, in Germany, workmen’s councils were organized.
During this period—from the summer of 1917 to the summer of 1918—the situation at the front, and especially the German submarine campaign, disquieted the British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George. He feared that England would not be able to raise enough men. Therefore he favoured vigorous action against Turkey—which was taken—and defensive tactics in France. I do not know whose idea this was but I heard ​that outstanding Allied Commanders, even Foch, shared it. Pacifist tendencies showed themselves in England by the action of Lord Lansdowne and others; and the speech in which Lloyd George outlined his peace terms, on January 5, 1918, will be remembered. He, too, had taken part, albeit very prudently, in Prince Sixtus of Parma’s secret negotiations with Austria; and in the spring of 1917 I heard in well-informed quarters in London that he was thinking of peace and was prepared to make notable concessions to Germany. How keenly I watched the manoeuvres of Prince Sixtus may be seen by the following telegram which I sent from London on April 20, 1917, to our people in Paris: “Dear friends, be on your guard. Serious negotiations are alleged again to be going on for a separate peace with Austria. For this reason the Head of the Government has returned. Everybody seems to have had enough of the war. We are to get an autonomous administration, etc., in a slightly diminished Austria.”
Still more important was President Wilson’s message to the United States Senate on January 8, 1918, in which he laid down his well-known Fourteen Points. They were rejected by Count Hertling, on behalf of Germany, and by Count Czernin, on behalf of Austria, in a fashion that proved Berlin and Vienna to have been smitten with lasting blindness. I shall have more to say on the subject of Wilson’s message.
Meanwhile, in June 1917, the Socialist International had held a Conference in Stockholm at which the Czech Social Democratic parties were represented by Habrman, Němec and Šmeral. Dr. Šmeral stuck to his pro-Austrian standpoint but confessed that 95 per cent. of our working-class, and of the Czech people as a whole, were on my side, not on his—an admission which we published everywhere with excellent effect. Moreover, the demand—publicly put forward by all three Czech Social Democrats—for an independent Czech State within a federated Austria-Hungary, was meant to counter the Austrian Social Democratic idea of restricting the autonomy of the Hapsburg peoples to educational matters. This Czech Social Democratic demand was the first authorized voice from within Bohemia to be raised abroad. Professor Maxa, whom I sent from Russia to Stockholm, told our members of Parliament there how well our cause was going in Russia and in Europe. Habrman was then preparing to stay abroad for good; but, as it seemed to me that he would do better work at home, I sent him word to go back and to insist that no ​compromises or concessions should be made and that we should not be disavowed again.
This review of the situation as a whole forced me to conclude that the hour of decision was drawing near. The elimination of Russia as a belligerent; Bolshevist influence upon the Socialist parties in Europe; the spread of pacifism; the war-weariness of the armies in the field, and their obvious discontent; the difficulty of winning a decisive victory; and the peace negotiations, secret and open, all compelled me to recognize that the war could not last much longer. I concluded, too, that the decision would be in our favour. This was no mere hope. It was a conviction formed after more than three years of critical observation. True, there were not a few shortcomings on the side of the Allies, whose political and strategical mistakes had been many and serious; but the Germans and the Austrians had blundered as often and as badly. The only doubt was whether American troops would reach France fast enough to bring the war to an end before 1919.
In the opinion of some political and military experts it would last until 1919. Even in the autumn of 1918, after his first victories over the Germans, Marshal Foch did not look for a decision until the spring of 1919. But, taking the situation as a whole, I judged that 1918 would see the end of the war, and therefore I hastened from Russia to the West.
We, for our part, had been ready for peace as early as the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918. Our Legions were our greatest asset. Their success in Russia gave the final fillip to the organization of the Legion in France, and hastened it in Italy. No sooner had we begun seriously to make an army in Russia than I asked Beneš to negotiate with the French Government about it and to conclude a Treaty. Simultaneously I had sent contingents of our prisoners from Russia to France, including some from Roumania. Another volunteer contingent reached France from America, where Štefánik had organized recruiting in 1917. So successful were Dr. Beneš’s negotiations that, by August 1917, an Agreement was made; and eventually a decree, establishing a Czechoslovak army in France, was issued on December 16th. A few weeks later (January–February 1918) the French Prime Minister, M. Clemenceau, and Dr. Beneš concluded a final Convention. Thus we were, in any case, sure of important advantages in the peace negotiations.
In Italy, our difficulties were somewhat greater. We Czechs ​were little known to the Italians, and the Italian propaganda against the Yugoslavs was steadily gaining ground. Štefánik and Beneš worked hard in Italy and I dealt with the Italian Ambassadors abroad, especially in Russia. In January 1917 we obtained permission to concentrate the Czech and Slovak prisoners in one camp, and we continued our efforts to form an army. In this we were helped by an incident on the Tyrolese front at Carzano in September 1917 when a Slovene officer named Pivko secretly encouraged his men, among whom were a good number of Czechs, to go over to the Italians. His action made a great impression in Italy and awakened sympathies for the Austrian Slavs, all the more because the Viennese papers denounced the Carzano “treason” and the Austrian Germans raised the question in Parliament. Next month (October 1917) Italy recognized our National Council and allowed us to form Labour contingents. Most of the men who had gone over at Carzano remained on the Italian front and fought in October 1917 at Monte Zebio and Asiago. From February 1918 onwards, recruiting—conducted by Sychrava and Osuský—began among our prisoners in Italy. Thus our Legion came into being there also. Its establishment was recognized in a first Treaty between the Italian Government and our National Council, signed on April 21, 1918, by Štefánik and the Italian Prime Minister, Orlando. Meanwhile the Congress of oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples was held in Rome, on April 8, 1918, the day of my arrival at Tokio. The political importance of this Congress will soon appear.
My news from Bohemia and Vienna was also satisfactory. Upon the disavowal in January 1917 had followed, in April, the first declaration of our members of Parliament (to which I have already referred) and, above all, the manifesto of our writers in May. This manifesto, I felt, had been meant to encourage our Parliamentary politicians; and I ascribed the political liveliness in the spring of 1917 to the influence of the Russian Revolution which was bound to weaken Monarchism and to strengthen Republicanism. Indeed, the effect upon our people of the Russian Revolution of 1905, after the Russo-Japanese War, had been very similar. It is true that the Constitutional Declaration made by our members of Parliament on May 30, 1917, when the Austrian Reichsrat met for the first time since the beginning of the war, still referred to the Hapsburgs and to Austria and put forward the idea of a Confederation of States on a racial basis; but this did us no harm abroad because the Declaration demanded a Czech State, ​including Slovakia, notwithstanding its (obviously platonic) recognition of the dynasty. In any case, I thought, the meeting of Parliament could no longer do harm and might do good as soon appeared from the interpellation brought forward by our Social Democratic members upon the suppression of their Stockholm demand. Very weighty, and very useful to us abroad, was the step taken by our members of Parliament in Vienna on July 28 when they decided (albeit by the small majority of three votes) to take no part in the proceedings for a revision of the Austrian Constitution. Unless I am mistaken, this decision was influenced by the news which Habrman brought home from Stockholm. Dr. Rašín and Dr. Kramář were released from prison; and though they were not allowed to return to Parliamentary life, Dr. Rašín was able to devote himself entirely to Prague and to the work in general, which was even better. The Austrian German interpellation of December 5, 1917, upon our disloyalty, was the very thing I wanted, for I knew that, from the end of September 1917 onwards, all the Czech members of Parliament had joined our Parliamentary Association—a unanimity which I took as a proof that they too felt the decisive moment to be at hand.
Then came the Declaration of January 6, 1918. I thought it satisfactory despite its reference to earlier pronouncements which, by implication, had ratified the Constitutional Declaration made on the first meeting of Parliament in May 1917. Indeed, in its vagueness, this portion of the January Declaration was the less understood abroad because the rest of it was in harmony with my own programme. I took this very vagueness to mean that some, perhaps a majority, of our members of Parliament would resist any definite pro-Hapsburg or pro-Austrian policy-a view apparently shared by the Austrian Prime Minister and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, both of whom denounced the January Declaration as “high treason.” The Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, followed this up with a personal attack upon me. It did him harm in England and America, where personal vilification has long been discredited. In his rage, Czernin actually helped us by accusing our whole people of agreeing with me and by saying, “There are such fellows as Masaryk even within the frontiers of the Empire.”
Our people at home were no longer unaware of our doings abroad. They had heard about the battle of Zboroff; and Habrman, Pšenička and others had brought back full ​reports. Despite the unpleasant position on the Western front, I had thus no reason to fear any further disavowal. Of this the solemn oath taken on April 13, 1918, by the gathering of Popular Representatives at Prague was an earnest; and I was delighted to get the news of the first Slovak act of revolt at Liptovsky St. Nicholas under the leadership of Šrobař.
In America.
At Vancouver, where alas! a cable from Vladivostok informed me of Klecanda’s death, I was met by Mr. Schelking, a former official of the Russian Foreign Office whose advice had been very helpful to our people at Petrograd when they were working against the policy of Stürmer and Protopopoff. Once again we talked of Russia, the causes of her fall and of her prospects. Representatives of Czech and Slovak organizations in America met me also—Mr. Bosák for the Slovaks and Mr. Pergler whom my fellow-countrymen in America had chosen to be my secretary. I had cabled him from Tokio to meet me so that we might take advantage of the long journey from Vancouver to begin work at once. During my whole stay in America he was with me, working indefatigably. We left Vancouver on April 30, travelling through Western Canada to Chicago and breaking the journey at St. Paul so that I might see my fellow-countrymen, many of whom I had met there before. Chicago was reached on May 5. Here a new phase of activity began—and on a big scale from the start.
After the American fashion, our people in Chicago had arranged a spectacular reception for me. Next to Prague, Chicago was the largest Czech city in the world and it was also the centre of our financial organization. It was the home of Mr. Štěpina whom I had begun to bombard with appeals for money as soon as I got to Venice at the end of 1914; of Dr. Fisher, the head of the Czech Alliance; and of Vojta Beneš (a brother of Dr. Beneš) who had gone the round of our colonies in America to collect the funds for our liberation. Our people had managed to win the goodwill of practically the whole of Chicago, the Americans as well as the Slavs. From the railway station to the hotel there was a huge procession; the city was beflagged with Czech and Slav colours; and during the procession English and Czech speeches were made in the streets. The reception was splended and served as an example for other cities with Czech and Slovak colonies. It was followed by a ​number of meetings, great and small, Czech and Czecho-American. Towards the end of May, I had to return to Chicago in order to hold meetings of our various organizations. Then I spoke at the University, in the Press Club and elsewhere. At Chicago University I had already lectured in 1902, when I had made many friends among the Czechs and Americans; and Mr. Judson, now President of the University, had helped me very liberally.
Receptions and meetings like those at Chicago took place later on in New York, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Pittsburg and Washington. Everywhere things were so organized as to arouse American interest. Our national costumes, colours and emblems and the artistic arrangement of the processions were pleasing and drew the attention of the masses to our movement for independence. Before the war I used to denounce “flag-wagging”; but, in America, I realized that in so doing I had overshot the mark. Professor as I then was, I had failed to see that a well-organized procession may be worth quite as much as an ostensibly world-shaking political article or a speech in Parliament. During the Chicago procession I well remember thinking of the well-known British preacher, Spurgeon, who said he would be willing to stand on his head if, by so doing, he could call attention to a good cause—this in a church, then why not in the street?
At first there had been personal and political dissensions in our American colonies as elsewhere. America was then neutral; and German, Austrian and Magyar influences were strong. Some of our people distrusted the revolutionary character of our movement and among them were quite a number of pro-Austrians. But our movement made headway, the leadership of the National Council was recognized, the pro-Austrians no longer carried weight, and though the Dürich affair caused some excitement no political damage was done. Naturally our colonies were greatly and, in many cases, decisively influenced by the American declaration of war on Germany on April 6, 1917. Then doubts disappeared and unanimity prevailed, as the collections for our funds testified.
Two consequences deserve special mention. The first was that our Catholics went hand in hand with our “Freethinkers” and Socialists so strong was the unifying force of the movement for liberation, as those will appreciate who know what the relations between the Catholics and the non-Catholics had been before. On November 18, 1916, the Czech Catholic Congress at Chicago had agreed upon a memorandum to Pope ​Benedict XV which was entrusted to the Papal Delegate. He approved of it and promised to lay it before the Pope. It demanded Czechoslovak independence, the liberation of the Historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown and of Slovakia. I myself attended the Catholic Congress in Washington on June 20, 1918, where I defined my religious standpoint and explained why I had become a decided opponent of the political Catholicism which had been fostered in Austria and Hungary under Hapsburg influence. I advocated the separation of Church from State on the American principle; and the American Catholics understood that to be independent of the State is by no means harmful to the Church. I promised to work for a peaceful separation; and, as regards Church lands, I repudiated confiscation. When the Executive Committee of the National Alliance of Czech Catholics in America resolved, on October 25, 1918, to send its representatives to the Czechoslovak Republic in order to enlighten the priesthood and the Catholics on the subject of separation, I welcomed the proposal in a letter dated November 15. I may add that on November 27 the “Association of Slovak Catholics” in America also recommended that the relations between Church and State should be settled in accordance with the principle of separation, due account being taken of conditions in Slovakia.
The other weighty consequence lay in the negotiations at Pittsburg between Czechs and Slovaks. There, on June 80, 1918, I signed the Convention (the “Czechoslovak Convention”—not Treaty) between the Slovaks and the Czechs of America. It was concluded in order to appease a small Slovak faction which was dreaming of God knows what sort of independence for Slovakia, since the ideas of some Russian Slavophils, and of Štúr and Hurban-Vajanský, had taken root even among the American Slovaks. Therefore Czechs and Slovaks agreed upon the Convention which demanded for Slovakia autonomous administration, a Diet and Courts of Law. I signed the Convention unhesitatingly as a local understanding between American Czechs and Slovaks upon the policy they were prepared to advocate. The other signatories were mainly American citizens, only two of them being non-Americans, though further signatures were afterwards added without ​authorization. In the Convention it was laid down that the details of the Slovak political problem would be settled by the legal representatives of the Slovak people themselves, just as I subsequently made it clear that our Declaration of Independence was only a sketch of the future Constitution, and that the Constitution itself would be finally determined by the legal representatives of the people. And so it was. The Constitution was adopted by the Slovaks as well as by the Czechs. The legal representatives of Slovakia thus expressed themselves in favour of complete union, and the oath sworn upon the Constitution binds the Slovaks, the Czechs and me too. Even before the Pittsburg Agreement, on May 1, 1918, the representatives of the Slovaks had declared themselves in favour of union at Liptovsky St. Nicholas, and they renewed the declaration on October 80, 1918, at Turčansky St. Martin. Union is the main thing. A demand for autonomy is as justifiable as a demand for centralism, and the problem is to find the right relationship between the two.
Among the Slovaks and Czechs in America it was rumoured that, at the beginning of 1918, Count Károlyi had come to the United States in the hope of inducing the American Government to recognize the indivisibility of Hungary; he was alleged to desire freedom for the Czechs but wished Hungary to retain the Slovaks. Colonel House informed the Czechs, who agreed with the Slovaks to stand together for a united State. Indeed, the more thoughtful Slovak leaders saw that the Slovaks would derive no benefit from territorial autonomy and that an independent Slovak movement for the liberation of Slovakia must end in a fiasco. This was fully discussed at the Pittsburg Conference. I was able to show the Slovaks how little they were known in the political world and how serious a failure we should have courted had they acted independently. The idea of an independent Slovakia could not be taken seriously though there might be a theoretical possibility of Slovak autonomy under Hungary. But since this possibility was not practical in the circumstances, there remained nothing save union. During the war, all the small peoples were demanding freedom and unity. Both Slovaks and Czechs knew that I had always stood for Slovakia; that, as a Slovak by origin and tradition, my feelings are Slovak, and that I have always worked, not merely talked, for Slovakia. In Bohemia, sympathy for Slovakia has ever been lively. The ​Czechs—Havlíček, for instance—recognized the racial individuality of the Slovaks and Moravians. I know Slovakia and the Slovak people pretty well, being in touch with the older and the younger generations and having worked with both for the rebirth of the country. I know, too, that even the Russophil Slovak, Hurban-Vajanský, favoured union with the Czechs when the question became serious, as his father had done, and Kollár before him. But I am quite aware that many Slovaks, in their racial and political humiliation, sought consolation in visions and dreams rather than in action or work. And when some Russians—Lamansky for example—took delight in Slovak racial originality, such Slovaks thought this originality sufficient and did little to resist Magyar pressure.
This state of mind persisted among some of the Slovaks in the United States; and, when America entered the war, the “Slovak League” published a memorandum—prepared in advance—in which the autonomy of Slovakia within the Hungarian State was demanded as it had been in the old memorandum of St. Martin. In reality, this “Slovak League” was not recognized by the authorities until May 17, 1919, and until then existed only in name. Yet, for a time, individuals and small local groups repeated the cry for an independent Slovakia linked, somehow or other, to Russia; and Koníček, to whom I have referred in earlier chapters, carried on an agitation to this end both in Russia and in America. The war brought about a Romantic revival among the Slovaks in Russia, whom the first Russian official proclamations filled with enthusiasm. They dwelt upon the interest which the Tsar had shown in the Slovaks during the audience he had granted to a Czech deputation, and upon the fact that the Grand Duke Nicholas had mentioned them by name in his manifesto to the Austrian peoples. The idea of Lamansky and others affected them, and many a Slovak workman dreamed of Slovakia either independent or associated with Russia, just as other Slovaks maintained that Slovakia should join Poland, while yet others believed in joining Hungary. In 1915 the “Russo-Slovak Štúr Commemoration Society” was formed at Moscow where, under the influence of politically ingenuous Russians, all sorts of anti-Czech illusions were cherished in a vague and jejune pan-Slav and pan-Russian spirit which many a Czech shared. The Memorandum presented to the Tsar of September 1914 referred to a “Dual Kingdom”; and the “National Council” formed by Koníček ​among the Czechoslovak Communities in Paris sent a message to Slovakia on February 15, 1915, in which independence was promised to the “Slovak Regions” with a Diet of their own at Nitra. On May 81, 1915, the League of Czechoslovak Societies in Russia also declared that Slovakia would have a Diet and political and linguistic autonomy.
Nevertheless, the great majority of Slovaks and of their leaders in Russia and in America supported the only reasonable and practicable plan—a united Czechoslovak State. At a Congress held at Cleveland, Ohio, in October 1915, the Slovaks and Czechs agreed upon unity and cooperation; and the American Slovak leaders were among the signatories of the first anti-Austrian manifesto of November 14, 1915. The Czechoslovak agreement at Pittsburg in 1918 was only one of a series of programmes and, it may be noted, not the most radical of them.
American Democracy.
When I reached Washington on May 9, work began at once in the form of giving interviews and in resuming close touch with Mr. Charles R. Crane whom I had last seen at Kieff. With him my relations had been intimate since 1901. At that time he had established a Slavonic Foundation at Chicago University where I lectured in 1902. Thereafter he had devoted himself with quiet intensity to Slavonic affairs; and his position in American industry had brought him into political life. An excursion with him and his friend, Mr. Houston, the Secretary for Agriculture (who enjoyed the good-will of President Elliot of Harvard), and with a British officer, Major Innes, to the battlefield of Gettysburg—where, on July 8, 1868, Meade defeated Lee—served to inaugurate my American work in 1918.
As a memorial to the American War for national unity, Gettysburg impresses Europeans deeply. Many monuments are there, great and small, but by no means monuments in honour only of one military commander, or even of several. In this, too, the spirit of democracy finds expression. Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech cannot be read without emotion—the speech which sums up American democracy in the well-known words “Government of the People, by the People, for the People.” As a souvenir of my visit, the local minister of religion gave me a bullet which he had found in a grave and had kept as a warning symbol against the spirit of war; and, as such, it lies on my desk to-day.
I cherished the hope that in America, and with President Wilson particularly, good fortune would attend me. My personal and family ties with America were close. I had been there repeatedly, from 1878 onwards; and American democracy and the development of American civilization had aroused my lively interest from the beginning of my scientific and political career.
There is democracy and democracy. As the latest historical studies of the development of the American Republic clearly show, democracy in the United States was built on religious foundations. The importance of the moral influence of religion upon the American Republic is rightly indicated by de Tocqueville. Nor has the splitting up of America into the most diversified sects weakened either the Republic or democracy, for sectarianism is a sign of religious vigour, and equally of modern individualization. In America, as in England, ​even the Catholics are more firmly rooted religiously than in the Catholic States of Europe—an effect of a Protestant environment.
In the early days of the American Republic this religious factor was of especial significance. Inadequate means of communication, in a huge, sparsely peopled territory, precluded effective control from one administrative centre. Hence, through their organizations, the various religious communities and Churches acquired great importance as elements of cohesion.
The American Republic is the work of pioneers, energetic men who had shown their energy in breaking away from their home surroundings and who had only been able to keep foot in America by yet greater vigour and industry. The pioneers sought freedom and well-being—even to-day, the American Republic serves chiefly an economic purpose and ideal, all the more because it is free from political and racial problems like those of Europe. Independence and Puritanism made up the real religion of the pioneers. The Constitution, framed in the spirit of the Rationalist philosophy of law that was prevalent in France and England towards the end of the eighteenth century, is a veritable code of pioneer economics. Estranged by emigration from the English dynasty, the American colonies had no dynasty and therefore no aristocracy, no army and no militarism. The Republic was founded upon communities religiously organized, and its founders were not soldiers on expansion bent but pioneers, farmers mainly, then traders and the inevitable lawyers. Thus the American State differed from European States, particularly from Prussia, Austria and Russia. Even the French Republic inherited from the old régime institutions like the aristocracy and the army which, in America, did not and do not exist. In the course of its development the American State has grown to the size of a continent. Yet, in the process, it has but accentuated its original characteristics; for, by reasons of the gradual conquest of the West and the South, the pioneer spirit remained a constant moral and political factor.
In the cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield and in other places my mind often dwelt on the idea that our Czechoslovak State would resemble America in that we have no dynasty of our own and no liking for a foreign dynasty; that we have no aristocracy, no army and no military tradition. The traditions of our Reformation, on the other hand, preclude intimacy with the Church—a point of weakness unless we can realize that a ​democracy and a Republic must rest upon moral foundations. Our reborn State, our democratic Republic would have to be based upon an idea, it must have a reason for existence which the world at large would recognize.
Some special features of the American Constitution are noteworthy—the Presidency, in particular. To the President the Constitution entrusts great power. He himself selects the Government, not among Members of Parliament—the American President is, after the English fashion, de facto an elective constitutional King. The American example might serve in some degree to correct those shortcomings of Parliamentarism against which protests are now to be heard on all hands—the disunion entailed by the growth and the splitting up of parties. Significant, too, is the principle that the constitutional validity of laws is subject to the judgment of the Supreme Court. In the federal character of her Republic and her Democracy, America gives us, moveover, a political lesson—the very reverse of European centralism which has nowhere made good. Even the small Swiss Republic points to autonomy and federalism. American federalism and autonomy must, however, defend themselves against the centralization which is developing strongly at the cost of autonomy. No inner harmony has yet been attained between the self-government of the various States and the Central Government, nor have the technical consequences of this lack of harmony, such as redundancies and lack of uniformity in legislation, yet been overcome.
In Europe, particularly in Germany and Austria, “Americanism” is often condemned as a one-sidedly mechanical and materialistic outlook on life, pointed reference being made to the almighty dollar, to the lack of political sense among Americans and to the inadequacy of their science and culture. ​These strictures are themselves one-sided, exaggerated and, especially from a German standpoint, unwarrantable. As though Germany herself had not been dominated by a machine—a military, militarist, State machine! In Germany, materialism triumphed alike in philosophy and in practical life, while German science and thought subordinated themselves to Prussian and pan-German domineering. True, some members of European reigning families, and of the aristocracy of all countries, have been wont to woo American dollar princesses—as the Gotha Almanac bears witness—and it is comprehensible that such people can feel but little liking for the entirely non-military humanism of America. But if this is evidence against American democracy, it tells equally against European aristocracy. American civilization appeals to me, and I believe it appeals also to our emigrants who form a notable section of our race. In America we can and should learn not merely the mechanical side of things, but love of freedom and individual independence. Political freedom in a Republic is the mother of the peculiarly American simplicity and openness, in social as well as in political and economic matters. The American humanitarian ideal has been practically realized in exemplary hospitals and in welfare work. In America, a philanthropic and generous use of money has been developed, and in not a few respects America is creating fine precedents for the civilization of the future.
American Literature.
I do not and cannot assert that there is no dark side to American life, or that it presents no hard problems. Antiquated forms of Puritanism and its narrow-minded rigour have long been censured in American literature (Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” appeared as early as 1850 and he was by no means their first assailant) in the same way as the parochialism of cities great and small and of country districts is being attacked to-day. The younger generation of critics tilts at the lack of artistic sense, at the failure to understand social and socialistic thought, and at the stereotyping and standardization of culture and intellectual life. If the American philosopher, Baldwin, insists so emphatically upon aesthetic sensibility as the primary need, the conclusion may be drawn that American life is devoid of it.
In American literature, moreover, the beginnings and the growth of decadence may be studied. A number of authors ​treat of it, among them the well-known Mrs. Wharton. From time to time our newspapers report that, in America, abortion has become a business and that the number of divorces is legion. Whence does decadence spring? In France its source is said to have lain chiefly in militarism, because the French were bled white and enfeebled by wars and revolutions; yet America, a wealthy land without army or militarism, is alleged to be degenerating by reason of peace and wealth! If America is called a young country, one must say that she is not young but new—her inhabitants left Europe already old, and spent their strength in pioneering. In Europe, decadence is attributed to over-population and its consequences; yet America shows signs of decadence despite the comparative sparseness of her population. Who can tell how the blending of races, the “great melting-pot”, as the Americans say, is working out morally and biologically? Nervousness and neurasthenia are widespread, and the number of suicides is increasing, just as in Europe; and there is constant talk of the nervousness—I would rather say the “nerviness”—of American women.
These and other American problems have always interested me both in themselves and as reflected in literature. In 1877, when I first came into close touch with America, a peculiar realism and, with it, new tendencies were making themselves felt. The cleavage wrought by the Civil War was healed and the unity and the power of the nation were expressing themselves in a realist and critical consciousness of the special character of America and of Americanism. From the beginning my attention was fixed on Howells and his realism, for in him the thesis can be proved that realism is the method of democracy—the observation and artistic treatment of what is called “everyday,” that is to say, non-aristocratic life. Just when I was beginning to pay more heed to American writings, the notorious case of Comstock and his campaign against literature, native and foreign, made a stir; and, through my personal associations, I was brought into lively intercourse with the great American writers then living—for, between 1877 and 1897, representatives of the elder generation like W. C. Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Whitman, Holmes and Emerson, were still alive. My relations led me also to study older writers such as Thomas Paine, Theodore Parker, the two Danas and Daniel Webster. Hawthorne I have already mentioned; in substance and in artistic value he is akin to Edgar Allan Poe whose grave I often visited when in Baltimore. Poe was a decadent. Between him and Baudelaire the comparison is ​obvious, though there is a clear difference since Poe does not show the same degree of nervous sexualism. The name of Dostoyevsky came also into my mind for he, too, was certainly decadent; and I reflected that one finds in the “new” and “fresh” American and Russian world what “old” France also offers. The wonted classification of nations will have to be thoroughly revised.
In Europe, and especially in our country, we have but a fragmentary knowledge of American literature. This is a mistake. I admit that I took no pleasure in the American philosophers, neither in the school of Edwards nor in that of Franklin, nor even in the newer tendencies. The epistemology, or theory of knowledge, of William James’s Pragmatism I found as impossible to accept as that of Positivism; though his brother, Henry James, was more interesting, particularly in his attempt (in “Daisy Miller”) to analyse the characters of Americans and of Europeans. Indeed, I have always followed the spiritual development of America rather in her imaginative literature than otherwise. For instance, in the struggle against Puritanism and Calvinism a modern and humane standpoint is especially conspicuous; and the fight against slavery was waged with the pen long before the Civil War began. Throughout American writings a strong progressive element is to be observed. Knowing that their State and nationality were born of revolution, Americans feel no fear of what is new, and sympathize genuinely with nations that have won freedom. Thus, in our rebellion against Austria, we, like other races before us, found well-wishers in America.
American literature, not unnaturally, reflects mainly the external side of life—the life of the East, the West, the Centre and the South, the social conditions of the various strata of the people and especially of the negroes and of the multifarious immigrants. The principal phases of American history, with their heroes, are—somewhat inartistically—portrayed; and, little by little, American writers are seen to have grown conscious of their specifically American speech, manners and outlook, and of the difference between them and Europe, even Anglo-Saxon Europe.
The growth of American realism is noticeable, too, in the treatment of women and of love—important themes with novelists—though this realism has developed side by side with the realism of European literature and, to some extent, under its influence. And in America, as in Europe, the short story is characteristic, albeit not wholly new, as Poe proves. ​Indeed, in the age of the telegraph and of the telephone, brevity and terseness are attained even in literary style and in scientific writing.
In 1914, when the war was coming on in Europe, an American periodical began to publish satirical poems, ostensibly written by the dead in protest against the lying eulogies upon their tombstones; and in 1915 they were collected under the title of “The Spoon River Anthology,” by Edward Lee Masters. The very title is a satire upon America and her intellectual and moral provincialism. There were 250 such poems with an epilogue. They interested me not on account of their poetry, which was poor, but because of their revolt against current American culture and civilization. They contained philosophical arguments which Voltaire, and others before him, had used in Europe, and echoes from Browning and parts of “Faust”; they formed, indeed, a compendium of the ideas of young or, rather, youngest America. Their author, who lives in Chicago, denounces Chicago and the big American cities in general. In his eyes Jesus, for instance, is a peasant farmer who is slain in the city by the city, that is to say, by bankers, lawyers and judges.
In the footsteps of Masters, a series of writers continued this literary revolution. Dreiser describes Chicago, Titan among cities, and shows us the titanic multi-milliardaire. His strictures make Sodom and Gomorrah seem homes of virtue by comparison; for the moral decay of the Roman Caesars, of Renaissance Italy, of Paris, of Moscow, of Berlin, falls short of the decadent perversity which he attributes to Chicago and New York. Nor does Dreiser’s indictment stand alone. Anderson and many others write in the same strain.
In calling themselves realists, these critics of America imitate the Russians and the French. On principle they are opposed to Romanticism and Idealism and to modern English Transcendentalism. They wage war against the Churches, against machinery, with its moral and material effects, and therefore against industrialism, capitalism and mammonism. They assail narrow-mindedness, Pragmatism in philosophy, and the tendency to exaggerate the value of science. They stand up for complete freedom of conscience and for the emancipation of women, just as we do in Europe and they make the same mistakes as we. In opposing one-sidedness they are radically one-sided. Their aims are hazy and negative, superficial with a typically American superficiality; and, here and there, they grow rhapsodical over “free love” and fall into ​excessive sexuality. It is one-sided to upbraid Puritanism for its lack of poetic and artistic sense and disdain for intellectual progress. There are more poetry and romanticism in the Old and New Testaments, which the Puritans never tired of reading, than in their ultra-realist opponents; and a pretty thesis for a literary degree could be written on the way in which the highly imaginative, journalistic sensationalism of Poe grew out of the estrangement from nature and humanity which Puritanism, and transcendentalism after it, fostered by their fantastic imaginings.
Alongside of the so-called American Realists there is a long list of modern poets, both realist and idealist, many more of the latter than of the former. Machinery and capitalism have by no means uprooted Romanticism in America—on the contrary, they may even have strengthened it, for the real miracles of modern mechanics have fostered the belief in the marvellous which is the main element in Romanticism. Witness the works of H. G. Wells and their influence on American literature.
There are, too, numbers of women writers though proportionately fewer than in England. This disproportion interests me, for I cannot quite account for it. Two of the newer American authoresses, Miss Cather and Miss Canfield, describe the West or, rather, the Middle West where—not in the East—many American sociologists now tend to place the modern centre of American culture. Both of them analyse Puritanism, albeit less one-sidedly and negatively than the male writers. Miss Canfield makes a frankly critical effort to formulate a truer and purer view of men and women, and of their relationship to each other, than that of the American decadents who have followed in the train of European decadence; but she simplifies her problem by painting her Mephistopheles so black that the American Marguerite can hardly fail to withstand him. In Miss Cather’s work there is a description of the Czech immigrants; and, notwithstanding her affection for them, her account is realistically accurate.
The influence of Europe upon American literature is interesting to trace. Besides the English influence, which was formerly decisive, that of French, Russian and Scandinavian writers is particularly evident in the more recent American work, whereas German influence expresses itself rather in science. America is being Europeanized just as Europe is being Americanized. Of her own accord America tends towards an increasing intellectual activity and condemns the ​narrowness of one-sided economic interests, while Europe is likewise Americanizing herself spontaneously. Politically, this drawing together of modern America and Europe is noteworthy; and, in it, immigrant influences are traceable, especially those of the Germans and the Jews. On the other hand, the interest which Young England takes in Young America should not be overlooked, although, or perhaps because, Young America deliberately takes its stand against Anglo-Saxondom and claims that America is no longer Anglo-Saxon. And it is only in the nature of things that Bennett, Cannon, Walpole and Lawrence should be widely read in America alongside of Wells. The American decision to join the Allies, and thus to evince a lively interest in Europe, was not wholly unconnected with this intellectual development and with the change in modern America which is reflected in her literature.
I hasten to add that my own interest in American literature was political rather than literary. As in the cases of France and England, I sought in literature an answer to the question what part the Americans would play in the war, with what spirit and with what success. Nothing evil was prophesied even by the most trenchant critics and malcontents; and what I saw and heard strengthened my conviction that the American contribution to victory would be weighty. To the numbers and equipment of the troops sent to Europe I paid special heed. The way the troops were looked after—not only the officers but the men—impressed me greatly. Europeans, accustomed to aristocratic armies in which the officers are chiefly cared for, cared for, would have called it downright luxurious.
The Political Aspect.
Naturally, I sought to get a grasp of the American political situation without delay. This meant, in practice, making the acquaintance of the most influential people in the Government, in Congress and in society. Mr. Charles R. Crane was an admirable auxiliary, for he knew nearly everybody whom I wanted to meet and was “close to” President Wilson. His son, Mr. Richard Crane, afterwards the first American Minister to Czechoslovakia, was a Secretary of Mr. Lansing, the Head of the State Department. Besides Mr. Lansing I must mention Mr. Phillips, the first Assistant-Secretary of State; Mr. Polk, a Counsellor of the State Department; Mr. Long, Assistant-Secretary of State; Mr. Baker, Secretary for War; and Mr. Lane, Secretary for the Interior. Finally, through the good offices of Mr. Crane, I came into touch with Colonel House and President Wilson.
Our task was to gain the favour of the public, and in this we succeeded. Before long I was able to place interviews and articles in the largest and most influential daily papers, weeklies and reviews, and to establish personal relations with prominent writers of all opinions. Mr. William Hard, whom I saw frequently, Mr. Ira Bennett, Mr. Dixon of Boston and Mr. Martin of Cleveland I mention by way of example, for from a fuller list I might inadvertently omit some deserving names. To them all, and to American journalism in general, I owe a debt of gratitude.
My work obliged me to visit the principal cities, to get into personal touch with people and to look up old acquaintances; and, in Washington, to cultivate the society of the Senators and Congressmen of the two chief parties and of all shades of political opinion-including, of course, Mr. Hitchcock, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate—and Republicans like Senator Lodge whom I sought to inform. Senator Root I had already met in Russia. I had, too, the advantage of knowing the Preparatory Committee which, under the Chairmanship of Professor Mezes, was working upon material and memoranda in view of the peace negotiations and for the President. On behalf of the Czechs, Professor Kerner worked with him. Later on, the journalistic staff which Mr. Creel got together for the Peace Conference acquired great importance. I was in touch with him and, in fact, with all the principal organizations and institutions. But I had little leisure to visit the Universities or to see men of learning, ​though I went to the Universities of Chicago and Harvard. To the President of Chicago University I have already referred; and in Cambridge (Mass.) I must recall especially President Elliot who, as ever, took a truly scientific interest in the political problems of Europe. Among the historians I remember Professor Coolidge; Professor Wiener, the Slavonic Scholar who has long been well known; while President Butler of Columbia University supported me with his goodwill and his understanding of world affairs. The French philosopher, Bergson, and the French author, Chéradame whom I had known in Paris, were among the prominent Europeans whom I met.
In America, as elsewhere, the Jews stood by me; and particularly in America my former defence of Hilsner, the Austrian Jew who had been falsely accused of ritual murder in 1899, did me a good turn. As early as 1907 the New York Jews had given me a gigantic reception. Now I had many personal meetings with representatives of Orthodox Jewry as well as with Zionists. Among the latter I must mention Mr. Brandeis, a Judge of the Supreme Court, who came originally from Bohemia and enjoyed President Wilson’s confidence. In New York Mr. Mack was a leading Zionist and I met Nahum Sokoloff, the influential Zionist leader. In America, as in Europe, Jewish influence is strong in the press, and it was good that it was not against us. Even those who did not agree with my policy were reserved and impartial.
Especially did I make a point of cultivating the pacifists and the pro-Germans. In their camp were some of my former acquaintances, and I was therefore the more eager to vindicate our national cause in their eyes—an important matter, because pacifism was widespread and inadvertently supported the Germans, in America as everywhere. On account of the high percentage of Americans who had either been born in Germany or of German parents in America, German influence was, directly and indirectly, a very serious factor. And, last not least, I sought out the men I knew in financial circles, not so much in the official world where President Wilson’s son-in-law, Mr. McAdoo, was Secretary of the Treasury, as among bankers and in the Bankers’ Club of New York.
To ex-President Roosevelt, whose goodwill Štefánik had gained for us, I must make special reference. Before the war I had opposed and had written against him; but, during the war, he took a decided anti-German stand and, in speeches and statements, came out strongly for the Czechs. I met him only once, on Lafayette Day in New York, where I heard him ​speak for the first time. There was little chance of personal intercourse, though we had a number of mutual friends. After the war, not long before his death, he sent me the full programme of a lecturing tour which he intended to carry out in Europe, and it was his intention to deliver a whole series of political addresses in Bohemia.
In my work I had, as personal assistants, Mr. Pergler who had met me at Vancouver; and, as I soon needed a literary secretary, Mr. Cisař who had received mathematical, scientific and literary training. Together with Pergler he did much useful propaganda. Everywhere in the vast country we made friends and gained well-wishers of whom I must mention, at least, one—Mr. Townsend, a young naval officer and son of a former First Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris. Notwithstanding fatal illness—influenza killed him—he worked for us to the last.
Diplomatic Relations.
The democratic character of our propaganda did not by any means exclude active relations with Ambassadors and Ministers. Through them I had to second the work of Beneš and Štefánik in Europe, and all of them rendered me valuable service. It is fitting to give the first place to the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, who had been many years at Washington, knew everybody, was known to everybody and, of all the Ambassadors, had the greatest influence on American statesmen and President Wilson. Both by reason of his political experience and literary culture—he wrote in English as well as in French—he had become a recognized authority in diplomatic circles and in Washington society. We had besides to negotiate with the French Military Mission and with Frenchmen who came to America on special service.
With the British I had frequent and very pleasant intercourse. At that time Mr. Hohler, the Counsellor of Embassy, who knew Constantinople and Petrograd, was representing the Ambassador; and when Lord Reading came to Washington he gave us generous support. Sir William Wiseman, whom I had known in England, was also helpful in many matters as head of the British Intelligence Service. Count Cellere, the Italian Ambassador, understood our position, realized the moral and political significance of our endeavour to form a Legion among our prisoners in Italy for the fight against Austria, and therefore did all he could for us. In Baron Cartier, ​Belgium had a good and experienced Minister. The Japanese Ambassador, Count Ishii, acted as intermediary in the difficult relations with Japan and Siberia; while Russia was represented, even during the Bolshevik period, by the former Ambassador, M. Bakhmetieff. And, as a matter of course, I got into permanent touch with the Serbian Legation and with all Yugoslav representatives and workers immediately after reaching the United States.
Cooperation with the Yugoslav.
Cooperation with the representatives of the other races which were striving for freedom, formed, indeed, part of the propaganda by which we secured recognition in America and among the Allies in general. All along, my object was to show the Allies by practical demonstration, as it were, that the object of the war was and must be the political transformation of Central and Eastern Europe in particular, and the liberation of a whole series of peoples whom the Central Powers oppressed. Hence I appeared in public as often as possible with the leaders of those peoples’ organizations which were working for the same end. My relations with the Southern Slavs before the war, particularly during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, made intimate cooperation with them natural during the Great War itself. I have already said how it began in Prague and developed in Rome, Geneva, Paris, London and in Russia. In America, it was the more effective because, like us, the Yugoslavs possessed in the United States colonies of considerable size, among whose members were men well known to the Americans, such as Professor Pupin and Dr. Bianchini (the brother of the Austrian member of Parliament from Dalmatia), whom I had long known, and who worked at Washington as President of the Yugoslav National Council. As early as 1915 the Southern Slavs had sent envoys to their fellow-countrymen in America—Dr. Pototchnyak, Marianovitch, Milan Pribitchevitch and, in 1917, Dr. Hinkovitch. Not only did we leaders work together, but our people held joint meetings; and in our own meetings we advocated freedom for the Southern Slavs and they advocated our freedom in theirs.
At this point it is expedient that I should, with due discretion, complete what I have already said and should speak my mind on Southern Slav conditions and political problems; though, as I am not writing the history of the movement for Yugoslav freedom, I shall refer only to matters which affected ​us directly and in which circumstances involved us. But I had watched, in our own interest and with the closest attention, the development of Southern Slav political affairs of which I had known much beforehand and learned more during the war.
Despite the temporary reverses suffered by Serbia in the field, I looked upon her as the centre of the Southern Slav world and, what counted most, as its political and military centre. The Croats had assuredly their own special rights. It was just that they should invoke them and should appeal to the maturity of their culture. This, however, did not preclude the recognition of Serbia as the political point of crystallization. The lessons of history, an accurate valuation of the guiding ideas and forces, and a right estimate of Austria and of Hungary, all pointed in this direction.
It was on account of Serbia that Austria had provoked the war. Serbia, then a small country, based her hopes chiefly upon the solemn promises of the Tsar, of the great brotherly Slavonic Empire. But, from the spring of 1915 onwards, the defeats of Russia had shifted towards the West the centre of gravity in the Serbian and Yugoslav question, and the Treaty of London (April 26, 1915) had made of the relationship between Italy, Serbia and the Southern Slavs a big problem which determined in a high degree the subsequent development of the war and of war aims.
I did not like the terms of the Treaty of London, though the military situation in 1915 made it a question whether the entry of Italy into the war was not a necessity for the Southern Slavs themselves, lest Austria triumph. Italy had her irredentist aspirations, and it was natural that she should invoke her historical rights and should claim union with the minorities of Italians beyond her borders. At first, this point of view was not understood. Many a Croat and Slovene looked upon me as excessively pro-Italian and pro-Serb. The more gladly do I therefore recognize that, as time went on, the leading Croats, Dr. Trumbitch in particular, appreciated the importance of Italy for the Allied and particularly for the Southern Slav cause. After the conclusion of the Treaty of London, Russia, for her part, sided with the Italians and the Allies in the Yugoslav question.
Many Serbians, among them people in official positions, were, I admit, prejudiced against the Croats. But the Croats were also prejudiced against the Serbians though the common interest should have commanded them not to show hostility towards Serbia. The absurd lengths to which some people ​went may be seen from their allegations that the Serbian Government was financing our movement, Štefánik especially being made an object of direct suspicion. To dispel this distrust I had from time to time to issue statements, even in writing.
Yet it was not distrust alone that played a part; there was a kind of friendly jealousy, for our Yugoslav friends made no secret of their astonishment that we Czechs should make such rapid headway in the political world, and they envied us for having been expressly mentioned in the Allied reply to President Wilson. Much the same thing could be seen among the Poles who, like the Southern Slavs, forgot our Legions and our united and consistent action on the basis of our programme, whereas they had long wavered in regard to their own programme. Nor were there among us the same dissensions and internal struggles as among our friends—it was only in Russia that, at first, our house was not quite in order. We gained the ear of the Allies precisely by our discipline and precision, while the Yugoslavs and the Poles complained to them about their own people.
Even Dr. Trumbitch came under the influence of unjustified suspicions, and taxed us with selfishness during the discussions on the Declaration of Corfu, as I heard from people who took part in them. But the main thing was that he, as President of the Southern Slav Committee abroad, should have come to an understanding at Corfu with Pashitch on July 20, 1917, and that both of them should have signed the Declaration in which the Serbian Government and the Southern Slav Committee agreed that the Serbo-Croat-Slovene nation would be united in one State under the Karageorgevitch dynasty, and that the Constituent Assembly, to be elected by universal suffrage after the Peace, should draft the Constitution. This Corfu agreement gladdened me the more because there had been serious instability in the Southern Slav Committee since 1916. In America I learned that Trumbitch and Supilo had previously settled the lines of the Corfu Declaration with Steed and Seton-Watson in London. It was a notable political success that, a ter the Declaration had been issued, the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, should have had both Sonnino and Pashitch beside him on the platform when he made his Queen’s Hall speech in London at the end of July 1917.
Important and helpful, too, was the Rome Congress of April 8, 1918, at which all the oppressed peoples of Austria-Hungary agreed upon common action against their oppressor, ​even the Italians and the Southern Slavs making friends with each other. Thus they toned down the effects of the Treaty of London which, by lapse of time, had already lost the keenness of its edge. Though many Italian politicians still invoked it, neither the public opinion of Europe and America nor President Wilson himself accepted it. Once again, the credit for the agreement in Rome belonged mainly to Steed and Seton-Watson.
After the Caporetto disaster the Italians and the Southern Slavs had begun to come together, both sides acknowledging that they stood nearer to each other than to Austria-Hungary, and the Southern Slavs realizing that the defeat of Italy would be a defeat for them too. Towards the middle of December 1917 Steed invited Italians and Southern Slavs in London to a joint meeting at his house, where they found a basis of agreement against Austria-Hungary. Then Steed persuaded the Italian Prime Minister, Orlando, to negotiate with Trumbitch. This was done in Steed's presence in January 1918. In February, an Italian and a French Parliamentary Committee made preparations for a Congress of oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples; but the negotiations were by no means easy. They began in Paris with Beneš. On the French side, MM. Franklin-Bouillon and Fournol took part in them and, on the Italian, two members of Parliament, Torre and Gallenga, with Amendola, Borgese and Lazarini, who possessed the confidence of the Italian Vice-Premier Bissolati. Florescu represented the Roumanians and Dmowski the Poles, though the Poles showed some reserve. The task of Dr. Beneš was to keep the Yugoslavs in line—a difficult matter, for our Southern Slav friends made very drastic demands upon the Italians. Torre and Borgese went to London and negotiated with Steed and Seton-Watson amid constant difficulties. Trumbitch was recalcitrant until the sharp language of Steed and Seton-Watson finally led to the adoption of a common formula. Nevertheless, in Paris, Dr. Beneš had still to persuade Dr. Trumbitch not to hold aloof. In the end, the Congress, at which our representatives were Beneš and Štefánik, went well. Its proceedings were solemn and their high political significance and influence were enhanced by the circumstance that, under Lord Northcliffe, England began vigorous anti-Austrian propaganda on the Italian front, Steed having drafted the policy on which it was based. He proposed to the Allies that they should proclaim forthwith the freedom of the Austrian peoples and should make the fact known to the Slav regiments in the ​Austro-Hungarian army by means of leaflets. Though the Italian Prime Minister, Orlando, and the Commander-in-Chief, General Diaz, were in agreement with Steed, Sonnino made objections as usual; but the British and the French Governments gave their assent. The leaflets bearing this Allied proclamation undoubtedly had a strong anti-Austrian effect upon our own and the other Slav troops in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Italian front. Moreover the importance of the Rome Congress may be judged by the fact that, on May 29, 1918, America accepted its resolutions, and that the American acceptance was adopted by the Allied Conference on June 3.
Before referring to the final phase of our relations with the Southern Slavs, I must revert for a moment to Russia and to her attitude towards them and Serbia. By official Russia the Southern Slavs were ignored; she took cognizance only of Serbia and Montenegro. The Southern Slav question was treated as a dynastic and family affair in which Montenegrin as well as Serbian influences made themselves felt. Therefore, after the Treaty of London, the Russian Government acted in accordance with it and prohibited, for instance, the demonstrations on behalf of Dalmatia which, probably at Supilo’s suggestion, had been started by Professor Yastreboff; and in the Italian semi-official “Messaggero” the Russian Government actually made a declaration in favour of Italy.
After Supilo—whose doings I have already described—had left Petrograd, Dr. Manditch went there in the summer of 1915 on behalf of the Southern Slav Committee. He soon found that, in the eyes of official Russia, the Southern Slav question simply did not exist. According to Russian ideas, Serbia was to get Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is to say, their occupation by Austria-Hungary was to cease; and Serbia was, besides, to obtain access to the sea. As for Montenegro, nobody at Petrograd dreamt that she might disappear. Like the other Allies, Russia still took Bulgaria into account at that time, and when, in the autumn of 1915, Serbia was overrun by the Austrians, and Bulgaria sided against the Allies, official Russia was painfully affected by the “treachery” of the Bulgarians—but threw the blame for it on Serbia. Sazonof thought Serbia responsible for not having given Macedonia back to Bulgaria in time. But Russian official opinion changed at the beginning of 1916, when the overthrow of Serbia and Montenegro was complete. Then some members of the Duma, Milyukoff especially, began to take an interest in the Southern Slav question. Yet there was still a total absence of any ​clear and definite Southern Slav programme, or of a policy in favour of a united Yugoslavia.
Simultaneously, an experiment analogous to that made in regard to us by official Russia in the Dürich affair was undertaken in regard to the Southern Slavs. It failed; but, on the other hand, the Serbian Government put forward a scheme for a united Yugoslavia under the leadership of Orthodox Serbia—the emphasis was on the “Orthodox”—and Spalaikovitch, the Serbian Minister at Petrograd, supported it. Milyukoff, on the contrary, opposed it, and advocated the unification of the Southern Slavs irrespective of their ecclesiastical allegiances; but the “Novoe Vremya” characteristically sought to prove that the idea of unity was absurd and impossible. Even as late as February 1917 Professor Sobolevsky insisted upon this Russian official standpoint. Then came the Revolution; and, just as revolutionary Russia declared in favour of us and our programme, so it supported the idea of Yugoslav union. Notwithstanding the difficulties and wranglings among the Yugoslavs themselves and in the Southern Slav Committee, the Declaration of Corfu and the Rome Congress were, as I have said, finally brought about with the help of Steed and Seton-Watson.
When I reached Russia in May 1917 the dissensions between the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were very acute and their respective programmes diverged considerably. The Slovenes published a periodical called “Yugoslavia” and demanded a Great Slavonia which would join Serbia and Croatia in a federation—a programme of which the vagueness and exaggeration were by no means diminished by the verbal explanations which Slovenes gave me.
One effect of these dissensions was to smash the Yugoslav Legion in Russia. The Croat and Slovene section of it, to which some of our volunteers belonged, broke away from the Serbian section and vegetated at Kieff; and the Yugoslavs in Russia suffered still further from the consequences of the unhappy episode at Salonika, where the secret society of Serbian officers known as the “Black Hand,” otherwise “Union or Death,” had begun its revolutionary activity. An attempt was alleged to have been made upon the life of the Prince Regent. On this account the former Chief of the Serbian General Staff, Dimitriyevitch, was shot in June 1917, and some of his associates were deported to North Africa. Serbians assured me that the French command on the Salonika front had insisted on the punishment of the offenders; but, in ​Russia, the partisans of Dimitriyevitch appealed for Russian sympathy and approached me also with a memorandum. Naturally, I held aloof, for I had heard something of the “Black Hand” in Belgrade before the war. But, again and again, I reconciled the warring factions and calmed their excitement. Though I recognized that the Serbians had made mistakes, the situation demanded discipline and quieter tactics.
Later on, towards the end of the war, the Italian occupation of Croat and Slovene territory led to further differences with the Serbians. The Diet of Zagreb addressed to President Wilson, on November 4, 1918, a protest against the Italian occupation, and further protests followed from Dalmatia and Bosnia. Among the Croats the rumour spread that Dr. Vesnitch, the Serbian Minister in Paris, had assented to the Italian occupation. Dr. Trumbitch, on the other hand, maintained that it ought not to be carried out either by Italian or by Serbian but by American troops—a standpoint which gave displeasure in Serbia.
Before I had been long in America I saw that the Yugoslavs were at sixes and sevens. Among the Croat colonies in the United States—and in South America too—local views and influences were making themselves felt just as they had done at first in our own case. Bad blood was caused also by the action of Pashitch, the Serbian Prime Minister, in pensioning off the Serbian Minister at Washington, Mihailovitch, in July 1918, for having, it was said, consistently supported the Declaration of Corfu and the unification of the Southern Slavs. Therefore he lost the favour of Pashitch who, according to serious Croat information, had been convinced by the pro-Austrian war aims speeches of Wilson and Lloyd George in January 1918 that Yugoslav unity would be unattainable and that Serbia must secure for herself at least Bosnia-Herzegovina and access to the sea. It should, however, be said that the Declaration of Corfu had been expounded in America one-sidedly and in a manner suggestive rather of a “Great Croatian” and republican programme than of Yugoslav unity.
For the sake of completeness I ought to say that a representative of Montenegro, or rather of the King of Montenegro, came also to see me. King Nicholas had looked upon me with disfavour since the days when I had criticized Montenegrin policy in the Vienna Parliament. I admit that I handled him somewhat severely in that speech, and he let me feel it when I went later on to Cettinye, though I went with his permission. But the war effaced these memories, and he sent to me one of ​his Generals who wore rather too much gold braid, and made, in consequence, a doubtful impression upon the Americans. I advocated the union of Montenegro with Serbia, whereas the Montenegrin representative was working in the interest of the King. I reminded him that, in the spring of 1914, King Nicholas himself had proposed to the King of Serbia a union between the two countries, and I argued that, after the war, their relationship would have to be more intimate. The Montenegrins in America, for their part, addressed to President Wilson a vigorous protest against the policy of King Nicholas.
After we had been granted recognition by the United States on September 8, 1918, the Yugoslav leaders wished likewise to be recognized and asked me to approach the American Government to that end. Towards the middle of October Dr. Trumbitch sent me the same request from Paris. It was natural that I should do all I could for the Yugoslavs; and the Corfu Declaration and the Rome Congress made things easier for me. But, just as our adversaries were on the alert, so were those of the Southern Slavs. They kept the Allied Governments and influential people informed of all the Southern Slav dissensions, and stirred them up against us. The mood which prevailed in many quarters towards the end of the war may be judged from the fact that, even at the Peace Conference, Clemenceau said France would not forget that the Croats had fought for the enemy. Moreover, to some extent, the attitude of the old official Orthodox Russia, which had favoured Croat separatism, still made itself felt; and the adversaries of the Southern Slavs drew the attention of the American authorities to the various pro-Austrian declarations which had been made by Slovene members of Parliament on September 15, and by the Catholics of Bosnia-Herzegovina on November 17, 1917.
All along, the circumstance that they were officially represented by Serbia hampered the Yugoslavs; and, at the beginning of the war, Serbia had put forward a strong claim for union with them. Serbia commanded lively sympathies everywhere; but the Yugoslav emigrants from Austria-Hungary, who were still nominally Austro-Hungarian subjects, had to organize themselves in some way since neither the Serbian Government nor its diplomatic representatives abroad could really take charge of their interests. Thus the Southern Slav Committee arose. I know that Pashitch himself originally favoured it and recommended it to the Allied Governments. But it was not long before the views of the Committee diverged from those of the Serbian Government. Supilo’s action in the ​spring of 1915 caused anxiety in Western Allied circles as well as in Russia; and it was noticeable that, under the influence of the military reverses of Serbia and Montenegro, “Great Croatian” tendencies presently grew stronger among the Croats and Slovenes, in whose eyes the ultimate fate of Serbia seemed uncertain. Even Serbia was obliged to contemplate a future less brilliant than she had dreamed of. I have no wish to dwell upon this point, for I was often caught between two or more fires. Nevertheless I worked steadily in the Yugoslav interest; and when I met Dr. Trumbitch in Paris in December 1918 we found ourselves in excellent agreement. It is true that, at a Conference held in Geneva at the beginning of November, Pashitch had agreed with Dr. Trumbitch, Dr. Koroshetz and the representatives of the various parties upon racial and territorial unity and also upon the recognition of the Southern Slav National Council which had been constituted at Zagreb on October 6 as a representative Government for the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. They had agreed further that a unitary Government for Serbia and the Southern Slavs should be elected alongside of the individual Serbian and Southern Slav Governments. Consequently, I looked upon the anti-Serbian proclamation in favour of a Southern Slav Republic, which the Southern Slavs in America had issued at Washington on November 1, as having been disposed of by the Geneva Agreement. (The proclamation had been the work of Dr. Hinkovitch who, together with a large number of the American Southern Slavs, had abandoned the Southern Slav Committee.) But undoubtedly the Geneva agreement accentuated dualist tendencies among the Southern Slavs, despite its non-ratification by the King and Government of Serbia.
If I refer thus to the history of the Southern Slav movement it is, I must repeat, solely in order to deal with those aspects of it which affected us and to insist that complaints against us were and are unjustified. There was no dispute between us as to principles. The Southern Slavs, not we, decided upon their programme, though I always advised them to formulate it more concretely. I was often in disagreement with them about tactics, as, for instance, about Supilo’s action in regard to Russia. Neither did I approve of the Southern Slav Committee’s protest in “The Times” against Lloyd George’s war aims speech of January 5, 1918, in which he demanded only autonomy, not independence, for the oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples, nor of the impossible plan which the Committee originally cherished for a convention of all Southern ​Slavs, with the King and the Serbian Skupshtina at their head, to decide upon the future organization of the Southern Slav lands. One of their leading men in America rebuked me for not having taken action against Lloyd George. True, I did nothing publicly; but I drew the attention of President Wilson—whose demands, at that time, were the same as those of Lloyd George—to the inadequacy of mere autonomy for the Hapsburg peoples. Besides, my views were well known in England and we had vigilant friends there. President Wilson had also communicated confidentially to the Allies the memorandum which I addressed to him from Tokio. I was continually conferring with Allied Governments and statesmen, but kept the fact out of the press.
Upon my Yugoslav friends I had always urged the necessity of solving the urgent problem of centralization and self-government, that is to say, the question whether the Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary should enjoy some degree of autonomy or should be united to Serbia under one central Government. Unification, I pointed out, would naturally be the chief thing in the eyes of all the liberated Slav peoples and States. Hence the need to think of it betimes, and carefully, and to prepare both for the peace negotiations and for the early years of their new State. In giving this advice I assumed that the Southern Slav Committee abroad, or a considerable part of it, would go to Belgrade as early as practicable in order to come to an understanding with the Serbian political leaders.
The Poles.
With the Poles our relations were not less constant than with the Southern Slavs. In America I continued the work begun in Russia, where we had held joint Czech and Polish meetings and I had maintained lively intercourse with the Polish leaders, especially with Grabski. Paderewski and Dmowski were in the United States; and among the American Poles I remember the writer Czarnecki. Paderewski I had not seen personally before, though I had met Dmowski in England.
On September 15, 1918, we organized a gathering of the oppressed peoples of Austria-Hungary after the model of the Rome Congress. Paderewski represented the Poles, Dr. Hinkovitch the Southern Slavs, and Stoica the Roumanians. It was an immense gathering. The Carnegie Hall was crowded, not only with Slavs and Roumanians but also with Americans. Paderewski was well known in the United States, and, doubtless, ​many who had heard him as a pianist came also to hear him make a political speech. I had prepared a terse statement of our national and political programme; but Paderewski, to whom I gave precedence, put me out of my intended stride. Of the Polish national programme he said little, but of me much. He gave a sketch of my life and praised me to the skies. This surprised me the more because Paderewski was a Conservative by conviction and I should therefore have expected him to treat me with some reserve. He had nearly finished before I could think how to answer him. At the last moment, however, I decided that, like him, I would say little of my programme but would speak for Paderewski by explaining the relationship of politics to art. Incidentally I wished also to defend him against those of his fellow-countrymen who opposed his political leadership because he could " only play the piano.” Polish literature, particularly the writings of Mickiewicz and Krasiński, helped me to illustrate the bearing of poetry upon politics, and to reveal the artist Paderewski as a true political awakener of his people. Though non-political or, at least, not directly political, my speech made a considerable impression, as newspaper comment showed and as American politicians and journalists told me after the meeting. They had been curious to see how I should answer Paderewski and were greatly pleased. The incident helped to show that the most effective propaganda is not to be always harping upon one’s own programme, but to arouse and hold public interest. This, at any rate, was my main method, especially in society and in private talk.
With the Poles, and notably with Dmowski, we frequently discussed in detail the post-war relationship of our peoples. Dmowski himself favoured the closest relations and often advocated federation. We considered, too, the question of Silesia, for the incorporation of Polish Silesia in Poland was claimed even then in Polish circles, and Dmowski spoke of it, albeit with moderation. I proposed that, as a first step, we should agree upon the text of a Czech-Polish agreement or declaration which would help us to prove to the Allies and, above all, to the Americans, that we were friends, and would permit us at the same time to cope with extremists on both sides. I suggested to Dmowski that he himself should draft the declaration, while I drew up economic stipulations such as the railway through Teschen and a sufficient supply of coal. I pointed out that, against us, the Poles ought not to insist upon a purely racial and linguistic policy, seeing that they ​laid so much emphasis upon their historical, over and above their ethnographical, claims. In this overlapping of claims I descried a certain danger for the Poles. Both of us saw that, between us, the matter in dispute was comparatively insignificant, and that we must settle it without ill-feeling. But Dmowski did not draft the declaration I had suggested. Dissensions were caused by individuals among our own people, as well as among the Poles, and I had often to take action to prevent public controversy. The Poles complained of oppression in Austrian Silesia and cited the poet Bezruč in proof of it, while our people taxed the Poles with pro-Austrian and pro-German tendencies; and I stopped in the nick of time the publication of an attack upon Brückner, the Slavonic scholar of Berlin University who had shown pro-German leanings.
In Allied circles some degree of nervous irritation against the Poles was noticeable from time to time, and I was more than once obliged to give explanations of Polish policy. The Poles were accused of working with Germany as well as with Austria. From October 14, 1917, onwards, Germany and Austria had set up a Regency Council in Russian Poland. Between the two “liberators” this Regency Council was, one must admit, in a very tight place, for each “liberator” had its own Polish policy and, among the Poles, there were alleged to be pro-Austrian and pro-German tendencies. Austria and Germany had, indeed, one and the same purpose—to use Poland for their own ends. What those ends were can be seen from the fact that the protracted disputes which arose out of the occupation of Poland in 1915 were only settled on August 12, 1916, by an agreement that Poland should belong neither to Austria nor to Germany. But, being stronger than Austria, Germany secured the supreme control of Poland and the command of the Polish army. The Warsaw Government, or Regency Council, recognized this Austro-German agreement more or less officially; and thus a third tendency arose—that of the Regency, which sought to obtain compensation for Galicia and Poznania at the expense of Russia. This tendency derived strength from the anti-Russian feeling of the Poles. At the end of April 1918, the Regency submitted a more definite scheme to Austria and Germany. It was discussed long and fruitlessly because neither Germany nor Austria would say the final word. Thus it came about that, towards the end of September 1918, representatives of the Warsaw Regency visited the Emperor William at Spa and then ​went to Vienna. Of these, as of the earlier negotiations, I soon heard details; and, at the moment, the important thing was that Warsaw had taken up a position hostile to the Allies—a hostility expressed, moreover, in Polish disagreement with the Allied policy of intervention in Russia. The strengthening of Russia would have impeded the Warsaw policy of compensation which aimed at securing possession of Lithuania, White Russia and parts of the Ukraine.
Though this Warsaw policy was psychologically and historically comprehensible to me, my own view, as expressed in my general programme, was that Warsaw had been too hasty in giving up Galicia and Poznania to Austria and to Germany (as early as the summer of 1918 the Austrian Emperor had thought he would lose Galicia) and I descried a danger for Poland in the acquisition of so much Russian territory. These circumstances led to constant discussion of the Polish question with Allied politicians and statesmen, for the representatives of Russia repeatedly raised it We had relations, too, with the Little Russians of the Ukraine, Hungary and Galicia, including Sitchinsky who, some years earlier, had shot Count Andrew Potocki, the Lord-Lieutenant of Galicia. Sitchinsky lived in America and was an unexpectedly pleasant and sensible man. The Poles in America treated him very decently, albeit with comprehensible reserve; and I had to be extremely careful not to annoy them by my intercourse with him and the Little Russians.
Cordial, though less frequent, was our intercourse with the Russians. Since the Bolshevist Revolution, the position of M. Bakhmetieff, the Russian Ambassador, had been peculiar. The American Government recognized him, though not unreservedly, possibly because not a few influential American journalists and politicians were, in theory, favourably disposed towards Lenin and the Bolshevists. Their sympathies went out to the adversaries of Tsarism, but they were sympathies nevertheless. The peculiar relationship of the American Government to the Bolshevists was illustrated by the case of Professor Lomonosoff who had been sent to the United States by the Kerensky Government in 1917. After the Bolshevist Revolution he joined Lenin’s party and attempted to open relations with the American Government as an official representative of the Soviets. Towards the middle of June 1919, in a big meeting at New York, he declared himself a Bolshevist and ceased to be a member of the Russian Mission. Thereupon the American Government interned him.
​Baron Korff and Prince Lvoff were also among the Russians then living in America. I had met the latter in Petrograd; and shortly before leaving America I discussed with him the necessity of uniting Russians abroad on the basis of, at least, an outline of a common political programme. It was really painful to see how incapable of organizing themselves the Russians in foreign countries were. To me this incapacity seemed part and parcel of the general incompetence of the Russian intellectuals.
The Mid-European Peoples.
Cooperation with the Roumanians, which I had begun in Russia, was continued in America where, however, there were fewer Roumanian representatives. Dr. Lupu, a Roumanian member of Parliament, came, however, for a time. But I often met the representatives of the Lithuanians, the Letts and the Esthonians. All these peoples had colonies of their own in America, the Lithuanians especially. With them and with the Greeks, Armenians, Albanians and others I had conversations out of which a unifying organization arose—“The Mid-European Democratic Union.” I thought originally of founding a society of Americans to work for the small oppressed peoples. But, in this form, it could not be done, and the Mid-European Democratic Union was established instead. Against my wish, it chose me to be its President, an American Professor, Herbert A. Miller of Oberlin, being associated with me. The Union met pretty often to discuss all the ethnographical and political problems of the smaller mid-European peoples. As an instance of our method I may say that I used to bring the Poles and the Lithuanians, or the Greeks and the Albanians, together so that they might clear up their ideas beforehand and avoid serious disputes in the plenary sittings of the Union. The Italian Irredentists attended our meetings assiduously. One of my objects was to make the Union an agency for working out a plan for the Peace on lines which I had laid down in “The New Europe.” So well did the Union consolidate itself that President Wilson received a deputation of which I was the spokesman. It was a happy thought—-whose, I forget—that a public conference should have been arranged at Philadelphia where the various peoples put forward their programmes. On October 28, 1918, the conclusions of the Conference were signed in the memorable Independence Hall; and then, in the courtyard, I read out ​a joint declaration while the Bell of Independence was rung in accordance with historical precedent. The proceedings were thoroughly “American,” but they were sincerely meant and were successful.
The Union was an excellent means of propaganda, with the practical object of giving the public and the press information upon some or all of the peoples belonging to it. Eleven of them were represented at Philadelphia. Our object was also to put before the Americans a concrete idea of the zone of small nations in Central Europe upon the importance of which in the war and, indeed, in European history, I constantly insisted. By getting to know and informing each other reciprocally the representatives of the various peoples were to prepare themselves for the Peace Conference and, if possible, to enter it with a concerted plan. This was the ideal. In reality, there were not a few antagonisms and disagreements as when, for instance, the Poles seceded from the Union, alleging that they could not sit side by side with the Little Russians after the latter had taken action against them in Eastern Galicia, though some of the Poles assured us that this was not the real reason. Despite dissensions, the representatives of the other peoples stayed in the Union. For a time it was feared that the State Department might turn against Professor Miller, some of whose utterances had given offence. But I averted this danger and, even after my departure, the Union worked on for some time.
The Ruthenes.
As I had always reckoned with the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, I had not forgotten the Ruthene, or Little Russian territory in Hungary and what its fate might be when Hungary should collapse. The importance of this region is obvious on account of its proximity to the other Little Russian lands and to territories inhabited by Roumanians, Magyars and Czechoslovaks. Slovak writers, in particular, had long paid keen attention to the Little Russian part of Slovakia. As long as Russia was victorious it was a question whether she would not lay claim to Hungarian Ruthenia, especially as Eastern Galicia had been immediately occupied by Russian forces. At that time, however, Russia had no definite ideas on the subject since she thought that the Magyars might turn against Austria—a singular pro-Magyarism to which I have already referred. The Allies, on the other hand, did not wish the Russians to extend south of the Carpathians. (On this ​point Dr. Beneš will have something interesting to say when he describes the negotiations at the Peace Conference.) But, after the defeat of Russia, there arose the possibility that sub-Carpathian Ruthenia might wish to join our Republic. At first this was little more than a pious aspiration. In Russia and particularly in the Ukraine I had, however, been obliged to take account of it since the Ukrainian leaders had discussed with me the future of all the Little Russian regions outside Russia, and had raised no objection to the incorporation of sub-Carpathian Ruthenia in our State.
In America the Little Russian emigrants from sub-Carpathian Ruthenia are numerous; and, as they were acquainted with the Slovaks and the Czechs, I was soon in touch with them. They joined the Mid-European Union and were represented in it by Dr. Zatkovič, but it was Dr. Pačuta who first approached me on their behalf. He belonged to the pro-Russian school which was, to some extent, Orthodox. Dr. Zatkovič, on the other hand, spoke for the great majority of the Ruthenes who were devout, ecclesiastically-organized Uniates, that is to say, Roman Catholics with an Orthodox rite. Politically, few of them had any definite views. Their intellectuals had received a Magyar education; and, even among those who recognized themselves as Ruthene, or Little Russian, few could speak the language. Each spoke his own local dialect, and even the better educated of them found difficulty in expressing themselves grammatically, for they had no schools under the Magyar Government. They called themselves “Hungarian Ruthenes or, in English, “Uhro-Russins,” referred to their Church as the “Russin-Greek Catholic Church” and to their country as “Rusinia,” whereas Pačuta’s pro-Russian followers were known as “Carpatho-Russians.” The Ruthene Uniates, as Catholics, repudiated the Great Russian and Orthodox ideas, as well as those of the Ukrainians which they likewise regarded as Orthodox; and they were also opposed to the Little Russians of Galicia. Linguistically, as I have said, and as their newspapers showed, they were in the earliest stage of forming a written language, adhering to their dialect or, rather, dialects of which the spelling, unlike that of the Ukrainians, was more historical than phonetic.
In the debates of the Mid-European Union the Hungarian Ruthenes learned something of the political situation and of their eventual relationships to neighbouring peoples. They came into contact with Poles, Ukrainians, and Roumanians; and the Magyars, of whom they naturally knew more, kept up ​a lively agitation among them. Finally they themselves decided to join Czechoslovakia. They discussed their political future, albeit hypothetically, for the first time at a Congress they held at Homestead, on July 28, 1918. If complete independence should not be practicable, the idea then was that the Ruthenes of Hungary should join their brethren in Galicia and the Bukovina; should this be impossible they would demand autonomy, though under what State they did not say. But, five months later, on December 19th, they held a second Congress at Scranton, Pennsylvania, where they resolved to join the Czechoslovak Republic on a federal basis, as a State enjoying a wide measure of self-government; and the wording of their resolution shows that it was framed on an English model which had little in common with the conditions prevailing in Austria and Hungary. It demanded also that all the “originally” Ruthene or Carpatho-Russian regions of Hungary should be included in the Ruthene State. The various Ruthene organizations then took a referendum by parishes, with the result that a big majority voted in favour of joining Czechoslovakia. Dr. Žatkovič sent me memoranda on the subject; and I, for my part, drew his attention both to the main problems—economic, education and financial—which the liberation of the country would raise, and to the lack of officials, teachers and even priests able to speak its tongue. I explained to him very thoroughly the political importance of the Rutheneland and the difficulties which might arise from the vicinity of Poland, of the Galician and Roumanian Ukrainians and of the Magyars. But he and other leading Ruthenes were convinced that, all things well considered, it would be best for them to join our State. How the question of Carpathian Ruthenia was dealt with in Paris, and how the Ruthenes themselves acted at home, are matters that come within the period of the Peace Conference. I need only say that three national Councils were set up—at Přešov, Užhorod and Hust—which amalgamated after a time and proclaimed the final decision to join the Czechoslovak Republic on May 8, 1919, as “Sub-Carpathian Russia.”
As regards the language question, I approved of introducing Little Russian into the schools and public offices; for even if Little Russian be regarded merely as a Russian dialect, I think it right, for pedagogical reasons, that it should be used. In this I adopted the view of the Great Russians themselves, as expressed by the Petrograd Academy of Science and by eminent Russian authorities on education. True, I insisted ​that the Little Russian language must first be developed by popular writers on the basis of the local dialects, for I feared the growth of a jargon, or of an artificial amalgam of words bureaucratically put together. Nor did I see why the pro-Russian minority which professed Great Russian ideas should suffer educational disabilities. We have something similar among our own people—analogous not identical—in the use of Slovak as a written language.
Mr. Voska.
Before describing the closing stages of my work in the United States I must complete the account of our propaganda which had been organized there, from 1914 onwards, with the help of Mr. Voska. I have often mentioned it and have explained how, through him, I got into touch with the Allies at the beginning of the war. Towards the middle of September 1914 Voska went from Prague to London and thence back to New York, where he reported to my American friends, to Mr. Charles Crane particularly. He unified the action of the Czech press in America and helped to combine into one unit—the “Czech National Alliance”—the organizations which had been created in the various cities of the United States on the outbreak of war. At the same time he established relations with the American press and, soon afterwards, with the American Government itself. He built up a complete Intelligence Service. At an early stage, some of his acquaintances and friends managed to ascertain that the Embassies, Consulates and agents of the Central Powers were carrying on espionage and Secret Service work in America against the Allies; and, with the aid of Allied officials, Voska took counter-measures. Mr. Steed had recommended him to the correspondent of “The Times,” who, in his turn, recommended him to Captain Gaunt, the naval attaché to the British Embassy in Washington. Among the Czechs who helped him freely was Mr. Kopecký, an official of the Austro-Hungarian Consulate at New York and afterwards our first Consul in the United States.
German propaganda in America was conducted especially by Dr. Albert, the commercial attaché, who therefore came under our notice. How his portfolio was taken from him on the New York Elevated Railway is an amusing story that was told at the time. In various factories, and in munition works particularly, the Germans were organizing strikes; and plots were being hatched against the vessels which were carrying ​food, arms and ammunition to the Allies. Upon these vessels outbreaks of fire were to be caused by incendiary bombs and other means. German and Austrian officers, who had been prisoners of war in Russia, were passing through the United States on their way back to Germany, furnished with passports bought from Russian officers in the prisoners’ camps. There was a German-Irish plot against England and a secret understanding between Mexico and the Central Powers. All these things Voska’s organization discovered, and it identified the German agent who was arranging to place orders in the United States ostensibly for Sweden and Holland but really for the German army. Thus the Allies were enabled to confiscate whole cargoes of contraband. Voska himself found means to secure the withdrawal of the American regulation that forbade British merchantmen, armed against German submarines, to enter New York harbour. His Intelligence Service brought about the arrest of the American journalist Archibald who was carrying papers for the Germans; unmasked the enemy plans to poison the horses that were being bought in America for the Allies; traced the organization of a German plot in India; revealed the identity of the agents in France who, in the interest of Germany, were striving to bring about a premature peace, and ascertained what sums were being paid for the purpose by the German Embassy in Washington. One of these agents was Bolo Pasha, who was arrested in France on October 1, 1917, and shot on February 5, 1918. Voska’s organization also arranged for the capture of the forger Trebitsch-Lincoln, and obtained evidence that the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, was organizing a strike in American factories. In consequence, Dumba had to be recalled on September 29, 1915. Voska ascertained further that the German military attaché, von Papen, was intriguing not only in Canada but in the United States and in Mexico. Von Papen was therefore expelled from America. To these intrigues, particularly to those in Mexico, President Wilson referred in his Declaration of War upon Germany.
All this was done as early as 1915. How great was the political credit it gained for us in England and France as well as in America is proved by the fact that, at the end of 1915, Voska was authorized to issue Czechoslovak passports to which the Serbian, Russian and British authorities gave visas. A letter, dated September 15, 1918, which I received from the British naval attaché in America, attests the value which British official and military circles set upon his work; and ​it is with much gratification that I record the fact that in this Secret Service, comprising at least 80 persons, there was not a single traitor. Indeed, the same can be said of our whole work abroad.
In 1916 our Secret Service established relations with the Russian Secret Service, and thus got wind of many a German intrigue in Russia. Voska’s reports repeatedly drew attention to the Germanophil proclivities of the Russian Prime Minister, Stürmer. Not only was Voska’s work voluntary but he himself paid for the cost of his Secret Service. When, however, he informed me, in the autumn of 1916, that his means were exhausted, I thought it just that the expenses should be borne by the Allies because the service was carried on in their interest and mainly in that of England. Accordingly, I arranged for the expenses to be paid in London and for the financing of our Secret Service to be put down officially to the account of the British Secret Service.
When the United States entered the war in 1917 the American Government perfected its own Secret Service and lightened Voska’s task. In agreement with the French and British authorities he went then to Russia in order to organize a new service which was to supply information to Washington. He was recommended to all the American authorities in Russia whose help was thus secured for our propaganda there. One interesting detail was our discovery that a certain lady was in the service of Germany and was acting as intermediary for the supply of German funds to a number of Bolshevist leaders. These funds were sent through the German Embassy at Stockholm to Haparanda, where they were given to her. Kerensky, whose attention was drawn to her, had her arrested; but she was set free on the plea that she was supporting the Bolshevists from her own resources. This plea availed her only because Voska quashed official enquiries when it was found that a prominent American citizen was involved in the affair, for it was not in our interest to compromise America. This was not an isolated instance. Among American citizens and authorities in Europe there were several people of foreign origin who favoured the enemy.
Voska concluded his work in Russia at the beginning of September 1917. Later on, he went to Europe and conducted a Secret Service on behalf of the Allied countries. He was besides liaison officer between the American army and ours, and, in this capacity, secured for our army, especially in Italy, support from the American Red Cross and its auxiliary ​organizations in organizing our own Medical Corps. After the Armistice he was attached to the American Delegation in Paris which sent him, with Mr. Creel, to report upon Central Europe. By that time I was already President of the Republic and agreed that Prague should be the centre of this service.
As I have said, our Secret Service in America contributed largely to win for our cause, at an early stage, effective sympathies in official and, precisely, in the most authoritative quarters. Voska was in a position to report upon our work in Europe, and upon my plans, both to Colonel House and to the leading members of the American Government, including President Wilson himself.
The Breaking up of Austria-Hungary.
In America, as elsewhere, it was hard to convince people that it would be necessary to break up Austria-Hungary. Unlike Berlin, Vienna was not an object of immediate political enmity. As the French, the British and the Americans were fighting only against the Germans, there was not in the West the same direct hostility towards Austria as towards Germany. The Austrian front ran against Russia and Italy, yet even in those countries there were influential pro-Austrians. Austria was generally looked upon as a counterpoise to Germany, as a necessary organization of small peoples and odds and ends of peoples, and as a safeguard against “Balkanization.” Palacky’s original saying that if Austria had not existed she would have had to be invented, represented a view widespread among the Allies. The Allied Governments were influenced also by Austrian and Hungarian diplomatists; and in the Allied diplomatic services there were not a few pro-Austrians who had served in Vienna, some of them having family connexions with the Austrian and particularly with the Magyar aristocracy.
Besides, Austria had borne herself otherwise than Germany from the first. She had only declared war directly upon Serbia, Russia and Belgium, and had let the other States declare war upon her. Not even against Italy had she declared war. In this respect Germany was more definite and downright. True, the Austrian tactics presently proved disadvantageous and caused tension with Germany, as when, in February 1917, the Emperor Charles refused to break off relations with America at the behest of the Emperor William.
​Austrian and Hungarian propaganda, vigorous everywhere, could be organized without hindrance in America, since she long remained neutral. Just as the Magyars dominated the Slovaks, Ruthenes and other nationalities in Hungary, the Magyar colonies in America managed to influence, even during the war, the colonies of non-Magyar peoples in the United States. Many leaders of these non-Magyar colonies were under Magyar influence without knowing it. An effective Austrian and Magyar argument was that Austria-Hungary was a victim of Germany, by whom she had been compelled to make war against her will.
Memories of the revolution of 1848 and of the exile of Kossuth in Allied countries also stood the Magyars in good stead, while the Hapsburg Monarchy in general enjoyed the support of Roman Catholic propaganda. In America, as in France and Italy, the Catholics skilfully defended it as the greatest Catholic State. They worked behind a veil and through non-political agencies. Counter-propaganda had to be organized accordingly.
I have already referred to the policy of the Vatican at the beginning of the war; and though the Vatican cautiously modified its standpoint as the war went on, since it did not wish to be tied to the losing side, it supported Austria throughout. The relationship of the Vatican to Germany was less definite and uniform, notwithstanding the importance of the German Catholic minority and the superiority of German Catholic theology and ecclesiastical organization over those of Austria. The Catholic traditions of Austria were old, and the Austrian Catholic dynasty took precedence over the Protestant German dynasty. Gladly as the Vatican accepted the Emperor William’s compliments to it and to Catholicism, most Vatican politicians were opposed to Prusso-German hegemony and hoped that, in her own interest, Austria would be a strong bulwark against Germany. In any case, the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Gasparri, took this view and in 1918 deprecated the setting up of new States which, he thought, would be too weak to fend Germany off. He wished Poland alone to be liberated, albeit according to the Austrian plan. To some extent the Central Powers gained the goodwill of the Vatican by promising to support the restoration of a Papal State that should be independent of Italy; for, from the early days of the war, the Vatican had been unpleasantly conscious that its intercourse with Catholic States and organizations was not untrammelled. This question was aggravated ​when Italy entered the war, above all by the Treaty of London which excluded Papal representatives from the Peace Conference. Thereupon, with the support of Austria and Germany, a scheme was set on foot to secure for the Roman Curia a stretch of territory along the Tiber to the sea, so that Papal diplomatists might not be obliged to pass through Italy. This scheme was zealously ventilated in the press during 1916 and 1917.
The pro-Austrian views and temper which persisted in official Allied circles up to the spring of 1918 are most clearly revealed by President Wilson’s declarations. In his Message to Congress on January 8, 1918, which contained his Fourteen Points, his allusions to Austria-Hungary were still pro-Austrian. His tenth Point ran: “The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development”; and President Wilson invoked the British declaration of January 5, 1918, in which the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, had assured a Trade Union meeting that the destruction of Austria-Hungary was not a British war aim.
In his “Fourteen Points” President Wilson repeated more precisely what he had said on December 4, 1917, when explaining to Congress the significance of the American Declaration of War upon Austria-Hungary. Even then, in declaring war, the burden of his indictment was against Germany. Of Austria he said that her peoples, like those of the Balkans and of Turkey, must be freed from the shameless alien rule, the military and commercial autocracy of Prussia. He added: “We owe it to ourselves to declare that we do not wish to weaken or to transform the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. How it may wish to live politically or industrially is not our concern. We neither intend nor desire to dictate to it in anything. We wish only that the affairs of its peoples, in great things and small, may remain in their own hands.”
This speech expressed the view that Austria should be freed from Prussian overlordship— view which Professor Herron, one of Wilson’s confidential advisers, used to expound in Switzerland. As late as the autumn of 1918, Herron told an Austrian emissary, Dr. Lammasch, that America opposed Austria solely because Austria stood by Germany, but felt no hostility whatever against Austria herself. President Wilson’s view of the Austrian relationship to Germany is the only explanation of the significant fact that the United States ​did not declare war upon Austria-Hungary until December 4, 1917—seven months after the declaration of war upon Germany. But the statement in the book of Prince Sixtus of Parma, that it was my continual pressure which induced President Wilson to declare war on Austria-Hungary, requires correction. It is true that, through mutual acquaintances, I recommended President Wilson to take this step as the logical consequence of the war with Germany, but I doubt whether, at that moment, my recommendation can have sufficed. As far as my own information goes, Italy urged the United States to declare war on Austria after the Caporetto disaster, in order to strengthen the position of the Italian Government at home. The request was forwarded to President Wilson by Mr. Sharp, the American Ambassador in Paris.
In England, too, there was much friendliness towards Austria. Though Lord Palmerston had uttered his famous and very trenchant opinion of the Austrians in 1849 when he called them “brutes”; though Gladstone had declared in 1880 that nowhere in the world had Austria ever done good, while Lloyd George had called her a “ramshackle Empire” in the autumn of 1914, many influential Englishmen felt sympathy with Austria, or with Vienna and Budapest, or were of opinion that, good-for-nothing as she might be, Austria was still better than a lot of small peoples, since she prevented both the expansion of Germany and the “Balkanization” of Europe. How deeply rooted was this pro-Austrianism can best be seen from the fact that though the Italian Foreign Minister, Sonnino, demanded portions of Austria for Italy, he worked for the preservation of Austria-Hungary itself. This was at once an effect of the political Conservatism that feared the “Balkanization” of Central Europe, and, in Sonnino’s special case, the consequence of a policy antagonistic to the unification of the Southern Slavs.
Finally, Austria found defenders in the Socialists, the Marxists particularly. They, too, deprecated “Balkanization” and therefore thought Austria worth preserving, despite her backwardness. Besides, the German Marxists agreed with German policy in regard to Austria, although the founders of German Socialism, Lassalle and Marx, had roundly condemned her. Lassalle looked upon Austria as an embodiment of the principle of reaction, and as a consistent enemy of aspirations to freedom. In the interests of democracy, he said, Austria “must be torn to pieces, broken up, destroyed, pulverized, and her dust be scattered to the four winds.” And though ​Marx looked upon Russia as the home of reaction, he too denounced Austria.
It was in this pro-Austrian atmosphere that the Emperor Charles—with the help of his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Parma who, like his brother, was serving in the Belgian army opened the peace negotiations with the Allies to which I have already referred. Overtures were begun at the end of January 1917—though initial steps had been taken a month earlier—by the mother of Prince Sixtus, whom the Emperor Charles had sent to Switzerland, and they were afterwards continued by other persons in the Emperor’s confidence. Prince Sixtus himself went to see the Emperor at Vienna; and, in a letter dated March 24, 1917, which was intended for President Poincaré, the Emperor Charles promised to do all in his power to persuade Germany to give up Alsace-Lorraine. For himself he demanded that the Hapsburg Monarchy should be preserved within its existing frontiers. After the negotiations, Prince Sixtus saw President Poincaré five times in the course of 1917. M. Briand approved of the scheme, as did Mr. Lloyd George whom Prince Sixtus saw more than once. The Prince was received also by the King of England.
I need hardly go into details. Disputes and differences arose between the Emperor Charles and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Czernin, whose references to France at the Vienna Town Hall were anything but straightforward. He alleged that, before the new German offensive began, Clemenceau had sent a negotiator to him; whereupon Clemenceau answered “Count Czernin has lied.” The Austro-Hungarian Government went on lying and, finally, the Emperor Charles sought to defend himself by lying repeatedly to the German Emperor and by attacking Clemenceau—until the publication of a photographic facsimile of the Austrian Emperor’s letter put an end to the lying. Clemenceau drastically disposed of him and of Czernin in an exclamation which pertinently described the Austria of the Hapsburgs—” putrid consciences!” Mainly through the writings of M. Ribot and of a person in the confidence of Prince Sixtus these things are now sufficiently cleared up, and the mendacity and infinite clumsiness of the Hapsburgs adequately exposed. The significance of Prince Sixtus’s negotiations lay in the circumstance that the most influential persons on both sides were directly concerned in them. The Emperor of Austria himself wrote to the President of the French Republic; and Briand, Lloyd George and the King of England took part in them, as well as the French ​General Staff. Had the Revolution not broken out in Russia, Prince Sixtus would have negotiated also with the Tsar at the wish of the Emperor Charles.
The Viennese overtures began, so to speak, concentrically from several points. At first Count Czernin approached the Entente, ostensibly on his own initiative, through his friend Count Revertera, a former Austro-Hungarian Counsellor of Embassy, and other acquaintances. Revertera met Count Armand, the Chief of the French Intelligence Service, at Freiburg in Switzerland, the negotiations lasting from July 1917 until February 1918. Mr. Lloyd George was informed and approved of the suggested policy. In the spring of 1918 Dr. Beneš was in touch with Count Armand who, at that time, hoped for a revolution in Austria-Hungary and perhaps worked for it in the expectation that it would increase Austrian readiness for peace. The French General Staff, and even Marshal Foch, knew and approved of Count Armand’s negotiations. On the French side they had been authorized by Painlevé and Clemenceau. Meanwhile, conversations between Austria and the Allies were also carried on by the former Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London, Count Mensdorff, and General Smuts, who discussed peace in September and December 1918 and, according to some accounts, as late as January 1918. Dr. Seton-Watson suspects that Mensdorff’s proposals were communicated to the Allied Governments, and that Lloyd George’s pro-Austrian declaration, which President Wilson cited in January 1918, was prompted by them.
Before I left London for Russia in May 1917 I had heard of the negotiations begun by Prince Sixtus. They had been talked about in Berlin, whence some account of them had reached England. I did not hear nor did I need to hear the full story; it was enough for me to know that Austria was already in direct touch with the Allies. I could guess what Vienna wanted and was probably proposing. The details I learned later.
My own view of the overtures was that, from the outset, the Allies had thought it feasible to detach Austria from Germany. They would have been prepared to make peace with Austria but would have gone on fighting Germany until she was completely beaten. To this conclusion I was led in the winter of 1914 by reports from London, and it was confirmed everywhere by Allied official views about Austria. Austrian propaganda worked in the same sense, letting it be understood that Austria was acting under German compulsion ​and was at heart opposed to Germany. The Emperor Charles himself said this in so many words; and, after Francis Joseph’s death, the circumstance that Charles had not been responsible for the war strengthened his position in France and England. His continual protestations of readiness to make peace gained him Allied sympathies.
German military successes, Russian defeats and, subsequently, the Russian Revolution accentuated the idea of dividing Austria-Hungary from Germany. In 1916 we noticed suddenly that our Russian friend and fellow-worker, Svatkovsky, was harbouring conciliatory views about Austria to a disquieting degree; and, under the influence of the Stürmer régime, he advocated outspokenly an agreement with Austria and, if necessary, even with Germany. Not a few influential French journalists who had previously supported us against Austria thought likewise. Hence I concluded that his view was shared in official circles and I kept my eyes open. The fact that the French Ambassador in Petrograd, M. Paléologue, submitted to Sazonof on January 1, 1915, a detailed scheme (to which I have already referred) shows that the idea of turning Germany against Austria had been fairly widespread in France from the first. In fairness to Paléologue it must be added that he described the scheme as personal, not official. Therefore I treat it only as a symptom. In addition to the old French liking for Austria, and particularly for Vienna, the military tendency came into play—to weaken and vanquish the Germans militarily by means of a separate peace with Austria. The unfavourable military situation of the Allies also played a part. It explains why Briand, who, in February 1916, had accepted our programme which culminated in the destruction of Austria-Hungary, gave ear a year later to the proposals of Prince Sixtus. Nor was Briand alone. A number of important men, such as MM. de Freycinet, Jules and Paul Cambon and William Martin, Chief of the Ceremonial Department of the French Presidency, were of the same mind as Briand and Prince Sixtus, that is to say, the Emperor Charles. The standpoint of the French General Staff and of Foch seems to confirm my view; for, after the failure of General Nivelle’s offensive in the spring of 1917, the General Staff took up the idea seriously. What Clemenceau thought I do not know. When I first came into touch with official Paris, I heard he was unfavourable to us. In America I was told that he had wished to negotiate with Austria in the spring of 1918 and had opened communications with her, apparently through a well​known journalist, but that he had been frightened by Viennese clumsiness. However this may have been, it was precisely from Clemenceau that we received notable help.
Our people were often put out by these pro-Austrian tendencies. But is it not true that we ourselves had long given countenance to the very policy which the French and the other pro-Austrians now recommended? Who was it, beginning with Palacký’s original view that if Austria did not exist she would have to be invented, who proclaimed pro-Austrianism among us and the doctrine that Austria was a bulwark against Germany? And, up to the year 1917, what was the bearing of official Prague? Like us, the French had to unlearn and to change their outlook; and some of them changed it thoroughly—Chéradame, for instance, with whom we were in touch. Before the war he had urged the preservation of Austria against Germany. During the war, he recognized that Austria could no longer withstand the German Empire. The negotiations opened by the Emperor Charles were foredoomed to failure, and the fact that they took place as they did is merely an instructive sign of the extent to which official quarters on both sides were groping in the dark. After all, the Allies had bound themselves by the Treaty of London to get for Italy considerable territorial concessions at the cost of Austria. They had done the same with Roumania in regard to Transylvania; and they had promised Serbia, as a minimum, Bosnia-Herzegovina and free access to the sea. How much of Austria-Hungary would then have been left? True, Austria—-the Emperor Charles in particular—was prepared to make over the whole of Galicia to the projected Polish Kingdom under German control; and it is a further sign of official bewilderment that the French General Staff should have supported a scheme to give Prussian Silesia or Bavaria to Austria by way of compensation.
To the concrete difficulties arising out of the earlier engagements I attributed the caution with which the French Prime Minister, M. Ribot, approached the Austrian proposals. He declined to negotiate without Italy. Though the Emperor Charles and his representatives affirmed that the Italian Commander-in-Chief, General Cadorna, and the King of Italy had offered Austria peace about the time when Prince Sixtus became active, I doubt the truth of these statements in this form. Some Austrian negotiators sought to add weight to their offers by asserting that, on behalf of post-Tsarist Russia, Prince Lvoff had approached Austria, but their statements ​no longer impressed France and England. In Paris it was reported, on the other hand, that Count Czernin had offered peace to Russia; and while I was in Russia I learned, in August 1917, that a Dutch correspondent had brought the Russian Foreign Minister, Tereshtchenko, a confidential message to the effect that Austria was prepared to make a separate peace. As far as my information goes, Tereshtchenko did not reject this overture. At that time, however, the Russian Government had neither the strength nor the courage to follow it up.
How chaotic were the Allied negotiations with the Emperor Charles may be judged by the following facts. In mid-December 1917, when Austria was negotiating with the Allies through Count Revertera, Count Mensdorff and Prince Sixtus, the French Government recognized our National Council as the Head of the Czechoslovak army established in France; and the decree authorizing the establishment of our army was promulgated on January 7, 1918, a day before the announcement of President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” and two days after Lloyd George’s pro-Austrian speech. Nor should it be forgotten that, twelve months earlier, the Allies had, at the instance of the French Prime Minister, M. Briand, demanded our liberation in their reply to President Wilson.
On the other hand it was no surprise to me that Austria and the Emperor Charles should have behaved as they did. By 1917 Austria was already aware of her own weakness. Therefore she put forward her hollow anti-German proposals. As early as April 1917 Count Czernin drew up-at the command of the Emperor Charles after his meeting with the Emperor William at Homburg—the famous report for the Emperor William and the German High Command on the position of Austria. Of this report the Allies soon got wind and it naturally diminished the effect of the Austrian peace overtures. But after Clemenceau had dealt so vigorously with Czernin, Germany and the Emperor William let it be known that the Emperor Charles had gone to Canossa. Ludendorff—a somewhat untrustworthy authority as regards facts and their critical interpretation—asserts that the Austrian Emperor acted with the knowledge of Germany. Certainly, at the time when Prince Sixtus was negotiating, Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, was not unwilling to cede at least a part of Alsace-Lorraine to France.
For us it was, indeed, important that Clemenceau should have dealt so sharply with Vienna at the beginning of 1918. ​By revealing what the Emperor Charles and Czernin had done and by convicting the Austrians of double-dealing, he furthered our cause and facilitated the anti-Austrian work which I took in hand as soon as I reached America. There, despite Clemenceau’s disclosures, strong pro-Austrian tendencies still prevailed in the official world and among the general public, and they gave us not a little to do. Nevertheless our propaganda went well throughout the United States. The argument that our State had never lost its historical rights and had as good a claim as Hungary to existence was politically effective. On this point we could invoke President Wilson’s book, “The State,” in our support. Further demonstrations of the electoral privileges of the nobility, of the anti-democratic institutions of Austria-Hungary, and of the fact that the Germans and the Magyars, a minority, oppressed the majority of the Hapsburg peoples, never failed to make a deep impression. Not less telling were the reports of Austrian and Magyar cruelties against our own and other peoples. We took full advantage, too, of the openings given by German and Magyar falsehoods. For instance, a Magyar propagandist declared in a pacifist meeting that the Hungarian Parliament had protested in 1870 against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. I caught him out by proving that it was the Bohemian Diet which had protested, while the Hungarian Parliament, under the leadership of Andrássy, had kept Austria-Hungary neutral and had helped Prussia. I showed, too, that the same Andrássy had then gone hand in hand with Bismarck and that the Magyars had, in reality, laid the foundations of the Triple Alliance and of its policy. I was often obliged to use this argument against Magyar propaganda which, like the Austrian, cast all the blame for the war upon Germany. Our demonstrations that Austria-Hungary was very largely responsible for the war were very effective, and our hands were strengthened by the participation of all the other Austro-Hungarian peoples—except the Magyars and the Germans—in our work. We stood up for them, and they for us.
We sought, above all, to impart to the Americans some knowledge of our political history and of our civilization. They had heard of the Czechs, and of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, but found it hard to understand that the Slovaks were comprised in our race. We had also to convince the Americans that we meant to be free and were fighting for freedom. Again and again we were told that the Czech leaders at home were not in opposition to Austria, and the disavowal which we had ​received in January 1917 was constantly thrown in our teeth, since it seemed to confirm President Wilson’s view. We replied that the disavowal had obviously been extorted by pressure, and pointed to the subsequent declarations at home. Weight was added to this argument in December 1917 when the Germans raised the question of Czech loyalty in the Austrian Parliament. Their action served to prove that our people were really in revolt. Similarly, we were able to utilize on behalf of the Slovaks the manifesto at Liptovsky St. Nicholas on May 1, 1918, although the text which reached us in America was obviously incomplete or had been falsified by the Magyar censorship. To the objection that the Emperor Charles and his Government had made promises to the Austrian peoples, and to us Czechs in particular, our answer was that they were insincere and inspired by weakness. We showed that the Austrian Minister, Seidler, and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, Count Czernin (the latter at Brest-Litovsk), had stood out against President Wilson’s demand for the self-determination of peoples. In the autumn of 1917 the Emperor Charles had thought of being crowned King of Bohemia. The Lord-Lieutenant of Bohemia, Count Coudenhove, had supported the project but the Vienna Government had rejected it. Moreover, Czernin had sent a brusque reply to Wilson’s peace terms—a reply with which we dealt very sharply. But all our arguments would have served us little had not our political position been changed for the better by the recognition of our National Council in Allied countries, thanks to the formation of our Legions in three of them. And, in America, we were helped most of all by the way in which the march of our men through Siberia echoed round the world.
The “Anabasis.”
Of that march, the famous “Anabasis,” I need only to say enough to make it comprehensible and to complete my account of our work abroad.
I was in Japan at the time of the fateful incident at Tchelyabinsk. According to the report which reached me, a German prisoner wounded one of our men at Tchelyabinsk on April 14, 1918, and was killed on the spot. The local Bolshevists sided with the German and Magyar prisoners, and in the end our troops took possession of the town. The affair was a consequence of earlier differences that had arisen between the local Soviets, Moscow and our army, which was on its way ​to Vladivostok by rail. On April 21, Maxa and Čermák, the representatives of the Branch of our National Council in Russia, were arrested at Moscow.
Of these events and their sequel I learned only in America. Towards the end of May our detachments agreed at Tchelyabinsk to march through to Vladivostok as a military force; and on May 25th the fight, the armed warlike “Anabasis,” began. The first vague reports of successes against the Bolshevists came at the end of May, particularly the news of the capture of Pensa on May 29. Then followed the tidings that other towns on the Volga, like Samara and Kazan, and places in Siberia and on the Trans-Siberian railway had been captured.
The effect in America was astonishing and almost incredible—all at once the Czechs and Czechoslovaks were known to everybody. Interest in our army in Russia and Siberia became general and its advance aroused enthusiasm. As often happens in such cases, the less the knowledge the greater the enthusiasm; but the enthusiasm of the American public was real. Political circles, too, were affected by it. Our control of the railway and our occupation of Vladivostok had the glamour of a fairytale, which stood out the more brightly against the dark background of German successes in France. Even sober-minded political and military men ascribed great military importance to our command of the railway. Ludendorff induced the German Government to protest to the Bolshevists, alleging that the march of our men had prevented the German prisoners from returning home to strengthen the German army. And in America the political effect was all the greater because the “Anabasis” was making a similar impression in Europe. Certainly it influenced the political decisions of the American Government. Thanks to the direct cable, news from Siberia reached the United States sooner than Europe, and the echoes in America were louder. By the beginning of August 1918 our legions were popular in America as they were, somewhat later, in Europe, though the attention of European political and military circles was more closely concentrated on the main theatre of war.
​As must happen in any war, it was not long before tidings less favourable came to hand—at first in the form of reports that all was not quite in order among our men. From August onwards the towns taken on the Volga had to be evacuated. To have taken them at all was, doubtless, a strategic mistake, for it was hard to hold a front so extended. Then the propaganda of the Bolshevists and of our other political enemies began to make itself felt, and hostile accounts of the moral condition of the army were spread. These impressed me less than the way in which Allied officers, returning from Russia and Siberia, spoke of the decline of our military discipline. Little publicity was given to these stories but, of course, they did us harm, though by far the greater part of public opinion and official circles continued to support us.
After I had sought the help of the American Government for our lads, President Wilson and the American Red Cross took action and a military relief expedition was sent to Siberia. On August 8, 1918, America and Japan agreed that each should send a few thousand men to Vladivostok “to render the Czechoslovaks such assistance and help as might be possible against the armed Austrian and German prisoners of war who are attacking them.” From the funds at his personal disposal, President Wilson granted a credit of 7,000,000 dollars. The money was entrusted to a special committee—one of its members being a Czechoslovak—which was formed ad hoc. Moreover, a number of eminent men, whose names I gratefully record, lent us a hand. Mr. V. C. McCormick spent not a little time in working for our Legions and urged the President to grant the credit. Mr. Vauclain likewise espoused our cause; and, as regards the army in Siberia, both of Mr. Lansing’s Under-Secretaries of State, Messrs. Polk and Long, gave us assistance, while Mr. Landfield, a special assistant in the State Department, ​who was deeply interested in all Russian matters, was devoted General Goethals, the builder of the Panama Canal, who was Chairman of the Buying Department of the American army, and General March, the Chief of General Staff, also lent their aid, as did Colonel Sheldon, whom the General Staff appointed to be liaison officer with our military attaché, Colonel Hurban. Nor should Captain Blankenhorn, one of the first officers with whom I came into touch, be forgotten. This bare list of names suffices to show how the Siberian Anabasis had carried our cause into the highest and most authoritative official circles. The American Red Cross intended, indeed, to let us have material and supplies to the value of 12,000,000 dollars; but its help, and the relief work as a whole, turned out to be less effective than we expected because the difficulty of communications with Siberia and of shipping supplies from America was so great as to make practical assistance almost impossible. Besides, the American military expedition to Siberia changed its plans and took no part in the fighting against the Bolshevists—out of regard for Japanese susceptibilities and in consequence of other complications. Nor were my efforts to adapt myself to the views of the Allied and Associated Governments and of their military authorities attended by much success; the Governments were not agreed among themselves, and their narrow and inadequate political and military plans were too different from my own view of what the Russian situation demanded.
This situation obliged us to keep up a service of information upon events in Siberia. Thanks to my knowledge of Russia and of our people, and to the reports brought to me by messengers, we were able to inform the Governments, the press and a number of public men. For instance, when false accounts were given of the adventurer Semyenoff and of his relationship to our army, I submitted to the Government and to the President a memorandum (written by Colonel Hurban) that showed him in his true light. Though some of our own people had taken a quite unnecessary interest in him, the course of events proved the accuracy of our memorandum, which the American General Churchill presently confirmed entirely. Thus our authority was again strengthened.
This is not the place fully to examine the question whether we or the Bolshevists were to blame for the fighting in Russia and Siberia. The opinion of the French officer, Captain Sadoul, who afterwards joined the Bolshevists, seems to me to cover the whole matter. As early as February and March ​1918 and, later on, when the fighting began, Sadoul saw quite clearly that the Bolshevist Government in Moscow misjudged the position and unjustly attributed reactionary tendencies to our army—an accusation that was neither true nor sincerely made, particularly on the part of Trotsky who, in March 1918, was still looking for Allied help against Germany. Sundry local Soviets, and individuals lacking in political judgment, stupidly made matters worse. To our agreement with the Soviets on March 26, 1918, I have referred. In accordance with it Stalin then ordered the local commissary at Penza—in the name of the Moscow Soviet—to grant our men free passage to Vladivostok; but, two days later, on March 28, our men intercepted telegrams from the Omsk Soviet demanding that our troops be disarmed and transported to Archangel. Ultimately Moscow gave way. Our men had loyally assented to the partial disarmament which Moscow had demanded on the plea that their weapons were Russian property. They understood the difficult position of the Moscow authorities after the peace of Brest-Litovsk which bound Russia not to tolerate the existence of armed anti-German forces on Russian soil. But, at the same time, they felt keenly that Moscow was not keeping faith. It was perfidious on the part of the Bolshevists to propose to the Germans, as they did in June 1918, that the German prisoners should be armed against our troops in Siberia; and it must be said that the Germans were more honourable, for they declined the suggestion. On the other hand, it is true that Moscow was influenced by the treacherous conduct of some Czechs who had joined the Bolshevists. In order to counteract biased reports, I sent Tchitcherin towards the end of June an explanatory telegram in this sense which was published in the American and European press. Our campaign in Siberia was not an anti-Bolshevist undertaking nor was it inspired by any interventionist policy. It was forced upon us by the obligation of self-defence. Equally false is it to ascribe to us any, no matter how unintentional, responsibility for the murder of the Tsar and of his family by the Bolshevists at Ekaterinburg on July 16, 1918. The first official report of the murder issued at Moscow stated, for instance, that the local Soviet had ordered the Tsar to be shot lest he escape or be carried off by the Czechoslovaks. The truth is that our troops entered Ekaterinburg only on July 25 and, what is more to the point, they never had the slightest intention of liberating the Tsar. The unfortunate man had been abandoned by his own reactionaries, who had even thought of having him ​“removed,” by murder if necessary. The Bolshevists did what the Monarchists had thought of doing. History is full of such ironies.
On leaving Russia I had given strict orders that there should be no departure from the principle of non-intervention, but I had expressly dwelt upon the duty of self-defence in case of attack from any quarter, Russian or other. The passage in my proclamation of March 7, 1918, ran: “As long as you are in Russia maintain, as hitherto, strict neutrality in regard to Russian party dissensions. Only those Slavs and those parties who openly side with the enemy are our enemies.” In speaking of “Slavs” I had in mind the possibility of complications not only with the Russians but with the Ukrainians and Poles. To this effect I left written instructions with Secretary Klecanda. But from Washington it was impossible to give the army political, let alone military orders. The Branch of our National Council in Russia and the various military units had to decide things for themselves according to circumstances, and I could only trust their judgment and goodwill—a trust not misplaced. Our men themselves felt that they lacked political leadership, as was shown by a telegram—signed by Gaida and Pateidl—asking for a trustworthy political leader. It reached me in Washington towards the middle of June. There was no such leader on the spot, and leadership from Washington was impossible.
I cannot and do not wish to defend all that was done, politically and strategically, in our army after my departure. I perceived that there was some lack of cohesion, political wavering, outbreaks of an adventurous spirit and, often, fits of bewilderment in various units; and I deplored that our command in Siberia should not have recognized forthwith the incapacity of Koltchak and of his pro-German surroundings. But, on the other hand, I must say that the Bolshevists were not straightforward. Our men believed them to be under German and particularly under Austrian and Magyar control, and thought that to fight them was really to fight against Germany and Austria. All reports spoke of the part which German and Magyar prisoners took in the Bolshevist attacks upon us. Moreover, the policy of the Allies in Siberia was anything but clear. For example, the French Commander, Guinet, sought to hold a front on the Volga in the expectation that a mythical Allied army would turn up at Vologda; and our own fellows imagined that the formation of a Czech-Russian front on the Volga would mean a renewal of the war against Germany and Austria.
​Yet, on the whole, things turned out well, better than our enemies, better even than our fairer critics pretend. As regards discipline, the prolonged inactivity of our army, its dispersal through Siberia from the Urals to Vladivostok and the general nervousness in Russia must be taken into account; while the military shortcomings of an improvised army are self-evident. Nor should the lack of unity and the indecision of the Allies and afterwards of America in regard to Russia be forgotten. It was, for example, the French Military Mission which recommended our Branch National Council to send our troops to France not only by way of Vladivostok but also from Murmansk and Archangel—a course that would seriously have weakened its cohesion and its strength. Among men who had long borne material privations with good humour, and had suffered morally by separation from their homes and families, some relaxation of discipline was only to be expected. Yet, despite all this and notwithstanding many disappointments, the army was not demoralized. Some of its units passed through severe crises, as is proved by the suicide of Colonel Švec—a tragedy that had a wholesome effect. Nor must the spirit of our army in Siberia be judged solely by its military activity. Alongside of their military duties our men did industrial and economic work. In August 1918 they organized Working Associations and, somewhat later, a Chamber of Commerce, a Savings Bank, a regular bank and a well-developed military postal service. These things—not only the glamour of an heroic Anabasis—must be borne in mind when we speak of our army in Russia and Siberia. It was no mere nine days’ wonder. And it ought not to be forgotten that in Siberia even the Germans of Bohemia began to join our army. They were formed into labour contingents.
Finally we must remember the remarkably good order in which our men returned home from their journey round the world and, above all, the fact that by their discipline and their behaviour at the various stopping-places they made known the name of Czechoslovakia to peoples who had never heard it before. In this regard delightful reports reached me from the American and other Captains of their transports. Without discipline, this could not have been. Then, organizing skill and ability were shown in the whole technique of the transport question. Few people can imagine how fine a technical achievement was this return from the Far East round the greater part of the world. For its triumphant accomplishment in so short a time—the first transport sailed ​from Vladivostok on December 9, 1919, the General Staff reached Prague on June 17, 1920, and the evacuation was completed on November 80, 1920—we have to thank the friendliness of the Allies who lent us ships, and Dr. Beneš to whom belongs the credit for the successful conduct of the negotiations.
My plan had been to get the army to France in 1918 and to bring it into action there in 1919. It never reached France, but we had an army and it made itself felt. That was the main thing. The Anabasis proves that I was right to insist upon having a large army. Small non-military or political units, such as our people in Russia and the Russian Government itself desired, would have been swamped in Russia and would have been dissolved in Bolshevist acid. Historians and politicians may be left to speculate upon what would have happened had we succeeded in getting the army to France on the eve of peace. Much virtue in “if.” In any case I should have managed to turn it politically to good account.
A Summary.
What I have said hitherto of the formation of our army abroad, and of its political and international significance, may be condensed as follows:—
When the war began, a spontaneous anti-Austrian movement to join the Allied armies arose in all the Czech colonies abroad. Czechs who had been naturalized in belligerent countries were naturally liable to military service; the others joined as volunteers.
At first, France accepted our men only as recruits for the Foreign Legion. This they disliked. They wished either to gain admission to the regular army or to form an independent unit. But the number of Czechs in France was small and, at the outset, negligible. Not until volunteers reached France from Russia and America could a separate Czech division be created. Yet France was the first country to see what our Legions meant and to foster their formation both on her own soil and in Russia. As the French had to deal with a large number of volunteers from Alsace and Lorraine, they showed more enterprise in our case as well.
In Russia conditions were different. Our colonies there were larger and a separate unit was therefore conceivable. Thus arose the “Družina,” albeit as part of the Russian army. The idea of forming an independent Czech force only took ​shape when a considerable proportion of our prisoners of war expressed a wish to join the “Družina.”
In Italy there were no Czech colonies, merely a few individuals or groups in some cities. Nothing could be done to form a Czech Legion until the numbers of our prisoners grew. Successful efforts were then made, though somewhat later than elsewhere.
In London our colony was small, but at a very early stage it began to work efficiently for the admission of its members into the British army. With the help of Mr. Steed it was not long before Kopecký got permission for Czechs to enlist. In America, where our people were most numerous, it was impossible to form a military contingent as long as the United States remained neutral. Therefore many of our people joined the Canadian army and organized themselves as Czech volunteer companies—a difficult matter because the American Government enjoined strict neutrality upon its citizens. After the American declaration of war in April 1917, Štefánik recruited men for our Legion in France, with the assent of the Government, though I hardly expected much from his efforts because thousands of our young fellows went direct into the American army.
Even in December 1914 before leaving Prague I had sought to create the nucleus of an army abroad. Through Mr. Voska, who delivered the message in London, I asked Russia to welcome our prisoners and deserters from the Austrian army. Most of our prisoners were in Russia; and there, with infinite difficulty, we ended by creating a real army; and from Russia we sent a small contingent to France.
The growth of our Legions raised not only the question of the relationship of the Czechoslovak force to the army of the country on whose territory the Legions were formed but the further question of the relation of our troops, and of the troops of other States, to our National Council as the leading political organ of our struggle for freedom. These questions arose in Russia, France, Italy, America and England, since the British and American forces might, at any moment, find themselves alongside of our men on the field of battle in France—as actually happened. In the case of America, the problem was complicated by the circumstance that the Czechoslovak recruits from America, some of them naturalized American citizens, were serving in our ranks. Hence it had to be dealt with internationally in all Allied countries, and even in Japan and China, as early as the winter of 1917. It was only in Soviet ​Russia that the position became uncertain, since Russia was neutral after the peace of Brest-Litovsk and all international arrangements with her were of doubtful value.
Everywhere the same solution was adopted-Allied Governments assented to the formation of our units on Allied soil, and to the recruiting of volunteers among prisoners of war and non-prisoners alike; and, at the same time, they recognized our National Council as the political organ of our movement and consequently as the Supreme Command of our army. In other words, while forming a part of the Allied forces, our army was autonomous and subject to the authority of the National Council. I was Commander-in-Chief, or “Dictator,” as our men in Russia proclaimed me. But I was not the military leader. My relationship to the Legions was like that of a sovereign to his army which is led by its commanders and officers. These commanders were, in point of fact, French, Italian and Russian generals.
This recognition of the National Council as the Supreme Authority entailed recognition of the unity of our army as a whole, that is to say, of all the Legions in the various Allied countries; and, since our army in Russia became part of the French army when the Russians withdrew from the struggle, the French Commander-in-Chief held the High Command, and he appointed General Janin to command all our Legions. As I have said, General Janin had belonged to the French Military Mission in Russia. He had learned Russian, knew Russian military conditions and had seen our men. On behalf of the National Council, he directed, at the beginning of 1918, the recruiting of our men in the French camps to which our prisoners of war had found their way from Serbia through Italy; and, on his way to Siberia to take over his command, he stayed with me in Washington where we agreed upon what our army should do in given circumstances. He discharged his hard task with uprightness and prudence. In practice, it was not possible for him to act fully as the effective commander-in-chief of the whole army, since our Russian Legions were in Siberia, and the contingent which had been sent from Russia to France had been united with the original volunteers from France and America. Moreover, the Legion in Italy, which was much larger than the Legion in France, remained separate except in the case of a small detachment, a battalion I believe, which was sent to France in order to demonstrate the unity of the army.
Since our army was created somewhat late in the war, the ​first thing had been to secure recognition for our political programme as represented by the National Council. At the beginning the Allied Governments would recognize only the principle of legitimacy—and our movement was revolutionary. Thus, recognition came gradually and by no means easily. It began informally by the personal recognition of me, Dr. Beneš and Štefánik through intercourse or negotiation with us, or by events like the consent of the British Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, to take the chair at my lecture in London. Things took much the same course in the military sphere. In the early stages of the war difficulties arose from the international legal position. In the eyes of the Allies our prisoners were, internationally speaking, Austrians; and it was long before people in Allied countries could understand the difference between Czechs and Slovaks, on the one hand, and Austrians on the other. Even in Russia—and there most rigidly—this constitutional and international technicality was observed. It led to disagreeable incidents in many countries, for our own people could not understand it; and we felt we had made some headway when the several Allied States began to treat more leniently our prisoners and those of the other non-German and non-Magyar races of Austria-Hungary.
The French Prime Minister, M. Briand, was the first to recognize our national programme, expressly and officially, on February 8, 1916. His decision was made known in an official communiqué. In pursuance of this recognition the Allies included in their reply to President Wilson’s request for a statement of their war aims, a demand for the liberation of the Czechs and Slovaks from alien rule. This was in January 1917; and, once again, it was due to M. Briand’s good offices. But the year 1917 was rendered dangerous to us by the efforts of the Emperor Charles to save his Empire by means of a separate peace. With them I have already dealt. They failed, and were more than outweighed by the creation of our Legions in Russia, France and Italy and by our military agreements with France from December 1917 onwards. The summer of 1918 brought us final recognition by all the Allied and Associated Powers. The chronological table given in an appendix can, however, convey no idea of the amount of work, thought, anxiety and emotion which the process of recognition caused us, what wanderings through the whole world, what petitions and interviews in the various Ministries of Paris, London, Rome, Petrograd, Washington and Tokio, how many visits to leading personages, how many memoranda, ​telegrams, letters, lectures and articles, how much help from Allied Ambassadors and from our political friends! But without our propaganda abroad, without our diplomatic work and the blood of our Legions we should not have achieved our independence. How our Legions and the part they took in the common struggle were appreciated may be seen from the official declaration made by Mr. Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, on August 9, 1918:—
DECLARATION.
Since the beginning of the war the Czechoslovak nation has resisted the common enemy by every means in its power. The Czechoslovaks have constituted a considerable army, fighting on three different battlefields and attempting, in Russia and Siberia, to arrest the Germanic invasion.
In consideration of its efforts to achieve independence, Great Britain regards the Czechoslovaks as an Allied nation and recognizes the unity of the three Czechoslovak armies as an Allied and belligerent army waging regular warfare against Austria-Hungary and Germany.
Great Britain also recognizes the right of the Czechoslovak National Council, as the supreme organ of the Czechoslovak national interests, and as the present trustee of the future Czechoslovak Government, to exercise supreme authority over this Allied and belligerent army.
On the basis of this declaration Dr. Beneš negotiated and signed, in the name of the National Council, our first Treaty with Great Britain on September 8, 1918; and, after the end of the war, the President of the French Republic tersely defined the political significance of our Legions in his opening speech to the Paris Peace Conference by saying: “In Siberia, France and Italy, the Czechoslovaks have conquered their right to independence.” The fighting strength of our forces in those three countries was approximately―
| In Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 092,000 men |
| In France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 012,000 men„ |
| In Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 024,000 men„ |
| Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . | 128,000 men„ |
If to this number of combatants be added the 54,000 reserves who were organized in Italy after the Armistice, the grand total is 182,000. These figures correspond to the data collected up to February 1928. As far as I can estimate, we actually lost 4,500 men in Russia and Siberia, France and Italy the price in human life which we paid for the recognition of our independence. These rough figures give, I think, an ​idea of our military work and its political importance. The size and the quality of the Legions explain why the Allied Governments and armies recognized them and us, and why they looked upon our movement with respect and goodwill. Moreover, the Legions retained and will retain their value at home; for if we reckon the families, relations and friends of the individual legionaries, we find that there are at least a million people directly interested in them. Thus they remain a considerable and significant source of political strength in our State.
The Decisive Hour.
How crucial for us were the end of 1917 and the events of 1918 appears from the foregoing summary. The year 1918 was, indeed, decisive for all the belligerents and for the war itself which, economically and strategically, was won in the course of that summer; the expectation that it would last into 1919 was not fulfilled.
After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Russia and the peace with Roumania in 1918 it was clear that Germany would attempt to use the forces thus released for a decisive blow in the West before America could increase the number of her troops in France. At first, it appears, the Germans assumed that America would be unable to send any troops at all, “verifying” their assumption by experiments in their own waters. When they found out their mistake they tried all the harder to bring about a decision in the spring of 1918. Doubtless they perceived that many prominent generals in France were anxiously awaiting the arrival of American reinforcements; and from England reports reached them of a growing pacifist movement and of the readiness of leading public men to bring the war to an end. In numbers, the German army was quite equal to the Allied forces. Thus the offensive began; and, in order to enhance its effect, Paris was bombarded with long-range guns from March 28 onwards. Though they gained ground and made large numbers of prisoners—reaching a point only 85 kilometres from Paris and making some people (not M. Poincaré) wonder whether the seat of the French Government ought not to be moved—the Germans failed to force a decision.
The Allies, for their part, managed at last to unify their supreme command under Foch, who began a counter-offensive in July. On August 8 the Germans were heavily defeated near Amiens and their final overthrow was assured. Their ​armies withdrew steadily before the victors. They had opened hostilities on August 4, 1914, in Belgium and France. Four years and four days later, on August 8, 1918, they began to retreat, a beaten host. Despite some talk of treason, the more critical Germans now begin to doubt the military capacity of Ludendorff, and to admit that the offensive of 1918 was foredoomed to failure.
From June onwards the successes of the Italian army and the overthrow of the Bulgarians helped to weaken the offensive spirit of the Germans; while, by the autumn (October 24—November 8) Austria was thoroughly worsted and her army demoralized. The Bulgarian disaster had an especially demoralizing effect upon Austria since she had begun the war in the Balkans for the Balkans, and defeat in the Balkans hastened the Allied triumph. Both in Austria and Germany disintegration was apparent in the field and on the “home front”; and both Powers were compelled to sue for an armistice and peace. Yet, untrustworthy as ever, Austria-Hungary made peace proposals to the Allied belligerents on September 14, without the consent of Germany, and asked that Allied delegates, empowered to discuss all questions, might be sent to a neutral country. Clemenceau answered the Austro-Hungarian offer in the French Senate on September 19 by saying that no negotiations were possible between right and wrong, while the Foreign Minister, M. Pichon, transmitted Clemenceau’s speech to Vienna through the Swiss Minister. President Wilson likewise rejected the offer, declaring that, inasmuch as the United States had frequently expressed its views on peace in the clearest terms, it could accept no proposal for a Conference. Even more negative than the substance of this reply was its form-sixty-six words in all—a cutting and by no means unintentional terseness. Indeed, the German and Austrian press thought the American answer contemptuous.
Bulgaria capitulated finally on September 21 and concluded an armistice with the Allies on September 29, the very day on which the German military command requested the Government to sue for an armistice and peace. The Allied Governments, too, were weary, especially the French; and in England the pacifist movement was growing. Readiness for peace was general. We, for our part, were prepared for peace negotiations and our people at home had realized the situation. The gathering of all the oppressed Austrian peoples at Prague in mid-May 1918, on the occasion of the jubilee festival of our ​National Theatre, had been very effective. Even the Austrian-Italians were present. There was an evident analogy between this gathering, the Rome Congress in April, and the work of the Mid-European Union in America; nor were the Austrian reprisals which followed it a sign of strength. On July 13 our people at Prague set up a new Czechoslovak National Committee, a significant act which was in itself equivalent to a national manifestation, inasmuch as there had been violent opposition to the former National Committee. Though its programme was, juridically, somewhat vague it was satisfactory on the whole. The new Committee read aright the signs of the times and took its stand firmly on our claim to independence. Noteworthy, too, was the meeting at Lubljana, the Slovene capital, in August, and its resolution that all Slavs should work together for freedom.
Though I could not quite understand why a Socialist Council should have been set up at the beginning of September alongside of the new National Committee, the declarations of our members of Parliament on September 29, the speech of the Chairman of the Czech Association in Parliament on October 2, and the manifesto of the National Committee on October 19—in which our work abroad was, for the first time, expressly and publicly recognized at home—strengthened my conviction that the days of public pro-Austrianism among our people were past and gone. The question was rather how Austria-Hungary would be liquidated than whether she would be liquidated, for the Austrian-Germans as well as the Magyars had turned against the dynasty. True, it was to be expected that at the last moment Vienna would make—promises. Indeed, I knew that the expediency of granting us national autonomy, in one form or another, was being canvassed there. For this reason we forestalled Vienna by proclaiming our own National Council abroad as a Provisional Government. Beneš and I had often thought of this so as not to be caught napping when the time came. Now the time had come. On September 18 Beneš let me know what the position was in Paris, and proposed that the National Council should be transformed into a Provisional Government; and on September 26 he received my full assent. After negotiations to make sure of recognition by the Allied Governments, Beneš informed them on October 14 that the Provisional Government had been set up with its seat in Paris. I became President, Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Beneš was Secretary for Home and for Foreign Affairs, and Štefánik Secretary for War. Simulta​neously, Dr. Osuský was appointed Minister in London, Dr. Sychrava in Paris, Dr. Borksý in Rome, Pergler in Washington and Pavlu in Russia. The French Foreign Minister, M. Pichon, recognized the Provisional Government next day and the other Allied Governments soon afterwards. Thus we were independent and free de facto and de jure. The Emperor Charles’s manifesto came too late.
It came too late also in another respect. Though Vienna had continually sought to influence pro-Austrian circles in Allied countries and in Switzerland, Holland and Sweden, and though some French politicians would have been disposed to recompense Austria had she, even at the twelfth hour, turned her back upon Germany decisively, Austria feared Germany and the Austrian Germans. Therefore she hesitated. Consequently the Emperor’s manifesto, the Cabinet of Dr. Lammasch, and Count Andrássy’s acceptance of President Wilson’s new Austrian programme were all belated. “Toujours en retard.”
The Last Hours of Austria.
German and Austrian writers, military as well as political, agree that President Wilson’s answer on October 18 to Austria’s offer of peace, sealed her fate and settled likewise the question of our freedom. Both personally and as the representative of the United States, Wilson had become a great moral and political figure in Europe. His words carried the greater weight because America had entered the war without territorial ambitions; and the American army was a decisive factor in the Allied forces. As I have said, the German military command requested the German Government on September 29 to offer the Allies an armistice and peace. The German generals had grasped the position and acted promptly in order to forestall a capitulation of their troops. On October 5 the German Government asked President Wilson for an armistice; and following suit, Austria and Turkey sent a similar request on the same day. On October 8 Germany received a preliminary answer in the form of a question as to the real meaning of her proposal which was finally declined on October 14. But it was not until October 18 that President Wilson answered Austria-Hungary who, in her offer, had expressly accepted Wilson’s Fourteen Points and his other declarations, particularly his speeches of February 12 and September 27. In the former of these speeches President Wilson had reported ​to Congress upon the exceptions taken to his Fourteen Points, and to the War Aims Speech of Lloyd George, by the German Chancellor (Count Hertling) and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister (Count Czernin); and had boiled down his programme to four principles. On September 27 he had enunciated five principles for the conclusion of peace and as many in regard to the organization of the League of Nations.
People in Vienna believed that Austria-Hungary could gain President Wilson’s goodwill by appearing submissive. They had failed to understand his curt rejection of their peace offer in September; and since America left the offer of October 5 so long unanswered, the greatest excitement prevailed in Vienna and in pro-Austrian circles generally. Enquiries into the reason for the delay were even made in Washington through indirect channels. When the answer came at last it was a surprise.
Simultaneously I heard that the Emperor Charles was preparing a manifesto in which he would promise to transform Austria—not Hungary—into a federal State. He was drowning man clutching at a straw. Nevertheless his idea was dangerous, and it was necessary to forestall the effect which the manifesto might have in quarters that still retained considerable sympathy with Austria. Therefore I issued at that moment the Declaration of Independence which I had long had in mind. Logically, the Declaration was a consequence of the establishment of our Provisional Government which had been notified to the Allies on October 14; and it was cast in a form calculated to remind the Americans of their own Declaration of Independence. It had also a tactical value; for by the time the Emperor Charles’s manifesto was published, the colours of the free Czechoslovak State were already flying from the house where I lived as President of our Provisional Government.
In the Declaration of Independence I rejected the Emperor Charles’s belated effort to transform Austria into a sham Federation, and outlined the fundamental principles on which the Provisional Government would build our new State. I submitted the first draft of it to a number of friends, among them Judge Brandeis and Mr. Ira Bennett, the Editor of the “Washington Post,” whose criticisms of substance and form were reviewed by a small committee which put the finishing legal and formal touches to it. Of this committee Mr. Calffee, the well-known legal authority, was a member. It was a good instance of harmonious cooperation and, at the same time, ​the first act of State on a grand scale to be accomplished under my leadership.
I handed an advance copy of the Declaration to the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, so as to secure the approval of the American Government and also in order to remind President Wilson of our standpoint on the eve of his reply to Austria-Hungary. This had the desired effect. The Declaration was a great success not only in the press and with public opinion but in Government circles and especially at the White House. President Wilson wrote me that the Declaration had moved him deeply, as we should see from his reply to Austria-Hungary. Indeed, his reply was in harmony with our Declaration of the same date. In it President Wilson stated emphatically that the United States had changed its view of Austria-Hungary and of the relationship between Austria-Hungary and America, a change indicated by the recognition of the Czechoslovak National Council as the de facto Government of the Czechoslovak nation. Likewise the United States recognized the national aims of the Yugoslavs. Hence the President could not accept any mere autonomy of these peoples as a basis of peace, as he had thought feasible when formulating his Fourteen Points in January. Not he but these peoples themselves must be judges of the means by which the Austro-Hungarian Government should fulfil their wishes and satisfy their conceptions of their own rights and destinies.
There can be few examples in diplomatic literature of so manly and honourable a retractation of an earlier view; and for this very reason its effect was so great. President Wilson never concealed the fact that his opinions had changed during the war. For example, Colonel House informed the German Ambassador, Count Bernstorff, in January 1917, that the President not only did not agree with the war aims set forth by the Allies but thought them impossible. Yet, four months later, on April 6, he resolved to declare war upon Germany and was led to revise his European policy.
This revision was gradual. Mr. Lansing’s declaration on May 29, 1918, merely accepted the resolutions of the Rome Congress of the Oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples, and assured us and the Southern Slavs of the sympathies of the United States. The declaration had been preceded by a speech of the American Ambassador in Rome, Mr. Page, who referred warmly to us when presenting colours to our Italian Legion in Rome. The late American Ambassador in Paris, Mr. Sharp, also worked in our favour. I had some discussion ​with Mr. Lansing about his declaration; and my criticism of it, and interviews with other members of the Government, led to the statement (explanatory of his May declaration) which Lansing issued on June 28. The Serbian Minister, I ought to add, also presented a memorandum to Lansing upon the May declaration. In his explanatory statement Lansing insisted that the previous expression of sympathy with us and with the Southern Slavs signified the desire of the United States for complete liberation of all Slavs from Austrian and German rule. This was a great step forward, really our first big success in America, where official circles, notwithstanding their goodwill towards us, were not a little embarrassed by our problem since there was no international precedent to serve as a guide in solving it.
After our recognition as an Allied and belligerent nation by the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Balfour, on August 9, we had been granted clearer and more definite recognition in America on September 3. Lansing and I agreed upon it; and, in pursuance of our agreement, I handed him on August 31 a lengthy memorandum setting forth the necessity of our being recognized by the Allies. At that time the negotiations for the relief of our army in Siberia were going on, and Lansing drew up his declaration in this sense, taking Mr. Balfour’s declaration as a model. The American document recognized that a state of war existed between us and the German and Austrian Empires; it acknowledged our National Council as the de facto Czechoslovak Government which was waging regular warfare and had full power to direct the political and military affairs of the Czechoslovak nation. Mr. Lansing kindly showed me the document before it was published. I expressed my gratitude to him and thanked President Wilson in writing for his political high-mindedness, justice and wisdom. Wilson’s answer convinced me of the great change and of the improvement in the views of the White House upon Austria-Hungary.
The fourth and decisive act of recognition came on October 18 in the acceptance of our Declaration of Independence. The subsequent course of events in Austria and in Hungary proved to President Wilson and to other American statesmen that my view of Austrian conditions, and my judgment both of the internal collapse of Austria and Hungary and of the whole course of the war, had been accurate; and this proof impressed them. I myself was more than satisfied that events showed me to have been right. Thus the confidence ​of American statesmen was strengthened not only in me but in our cause, and valuable foundations were laid for the impending peace negotiations.
My Relations with President Wilson.
In public discussion of President Wilson’s reply to Austria-Hungary the question has often been raised why it was that Wilson departed so quickly from his pro-Austrian standpoint; and all sorts of legends were spread in America about my relations to him. I will therefore state briefly the principal facts.
My personal relations with President Wilson began somewhat late. Though I reached Washington on May 9, 1918, I saw him for the first time on June 19, Mr. Charles Crane having brought me an invitation to meet him. In all my propaganda work abroad, I sought to influence statesmen in the first instance by public declarations, articles and interviews; and before I met the President I saw a number of people whom he was wont to meet and who had a certain influence with him. Discussion with men whose minds have thus been prepared is, naturally, more fruitful and takes less time.
At the beginning of the war President Wilson was made aware of our movement abroad by his Ministers, whom Mr. Voska informed. Unless I am mistaken, Voska also saw the President in person. In 1915 Wilson received a copy of the memorandum—containing a full account of our aims—which I had drawn up for Sir Edward Grey; and when General Štefánik went to America in 1917, he supplied the President and American official quarters, with information. Moreover, Wilson heard of our efforts and of our work from me and through Mr. Charles Crane; and I telegraphed to him from Kieff, at the end of January, an exhaustive analysis of his Fourteen Points. It was substantially identical with what I wrote in “The New Europe.” In addition, President Wilson received from Tokio in April 1918 the memorandum in which I expressed my views on Russia and on relations with the Bolshevists. Finally it must be said that the Siberian Anabasis of our troops had attracted his attention and had awakened his goodwill.
After reaching Washington in May, I was soon in regular touch with those members of the President’s Cabinet (and with their secretaries) who had to deal directly or indirectly with matters concerning us. The principal of these were​besides Mr. Lansing—Messrs. Baker, Philips, Polk, Long, Lane and Houston. Mr. Richard Crane was secretary to Mr. Lansing and with him, as with his father, my relations were constant. Nor must I forget either the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, who helped us everywhere and in every way, even with the President; or Colonel House, the influential adviser and confidential friend of the President, with whom I discussed very thoroughly the problems of war and peace. And over and above this personal intercourse, I supplied Mr. Lansing and other Ministers, as occasion arose, with memoranda or notes upon the weightiest questions at issue and expressed my views upon them.
My own relations to the President were purely matter-of-fact. Throughout our movement, I relied upon the justice of our cause and the force of my arguments. I believed and believe that upright, educated people can be taught and convinced by argument. Therefore, in oral discussion with the President and in my memoranda and notes, I trusted solely to argument and to the weight of carefully verified facts, linking them with the President’s own declarations and writings. What he had written upon “The State” and the development of the American Congress, I had known before the war; and as I read his speeches carefully, I was able to cite passages from them in support of my contentions. Thus I was able, step by step, to persuade the President and Mr. Lansing to accept our programme. But this was by no means the result of my personal influence alone. The work and propaganda of our people won us public goodwill—and Austria-Hungary lost it. The change in the situation could be seen from the fact that the head of the Near Eastern section in the State Department, Mr. Putney, a well-known writer on legal questions, had upheld our view of the Austrian problem in the memoranda which he wrote for Mr. Lansing about the time I reached America. Mr. Putney was acquainted with our anti-Austrian literature and was in touch with my secretary, Mr. Pergler. The subsequent drift away from pro-Austrianism was revealed in the degree of recognition which the United States gradually accorded us.
It was upon Austria and the Hapsburgs that my conversations with President Wilson presently turned, Clemenceau’s revelations of the Austrian peace manœuvres supplying a welcome opportunity. I pointed out the sorry behaviour of the Emperor Charles towards his German Ally, saying that, soon after the war began, Germany had saved Austria from ​the Russians, for a time at least; and, later on, had driven the Russians eastwards and had cleared the whole border from Finland to the Ukraine. Willy-nilly, Germany had also been obliged to help Austria against Italy. The Hapsburgs had nevertheless stabbed Germany in the back. President Wilson admitted that the Hapsburgs had behaved dishonourably, though he disliked the subjection of Austria to the overlordship of Prussia-Germany. In our view of Prussian Tsarism, as I called it, we agreed fully; and, in his answer of October 28 to the German Note of October 20, the President dwelt very effectively upon this view. While we were discussing it, we touched upon the old idea of the European Allies that Austria might be detached from Germany, a plan really based upon the assumption that Austria would betray her ally. This aspect of the Hapsburg character had marked influence upon Wilson and other statesmen. In addition, I drew the President’s attention to the responsibility of Austria in provoking the war, and he recognized that Austria had not been driven into war by Germany.
When the peace offers began and the question of arranging an armistice arose, I expressed to the President my conviction that the war ought to be continued until the Allies had compelled the German army to lay down its arms and that, if necessary, they should enter Berlin. I argued that this course would not cost more lives than would be lost by an indecisive peace. I admitted that the decision of the German command to ask for peace showed that the war had already been won strategically; but, as I knew how strongly the masses of the German people believed in the invincibility of the Prussian-German army and its commanders, I feared that German public opinion in general would not be convinced that Germany and Austria had been strategically defeated. I reminded the President that he had sent his friend Colonel House to Europe in order to discuss with the Allied leaders how a lasting, not a fleeting, peace could be secured, as the President himself had rightly said a year before in a speech to workmen at Buffalo; and I recalled to his mind the way in which he had justified to Congress the American declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, though he did not at that moment think of destroying her. He had demanded the destruction of Prussian militarism which, in my opinion, could best be achieved if Marshal Foch were to lead the Allied armies across the Rhine.
President Wilson was perhaps a stronger pacifist than I, ​and he certainly knew the mood of the American people and had to take it into account. When I saw the spontaneous celebration of the Armistice in New York—started by a premature report—I understood the President’s views, which Colonel House represented in Paris before the President arrived there. But, even now, especially after the peace and its sequel, I think my view was right.
On points of detail I may say that President Wilson wished the Danzig question to be settled more or less in the way in which it was settled, and that he was not in favour of giving Danzig to Poland. To this I objected that any kind of condominium would create more friction between the Germans and the Poles than the definite attribution of Danzig to Poland, and would keep alive German discontent with the corridor between Germany and the enclave of East Prussia. The President was well-disposed both towards the Poles and the Yugoslavs; and, from several things he said, I got the impression that he did not agree with the Treaty of London on the basis of which Italy had entered the war. I heard afterwards from Paris, when the Italo-Yugoslav conflict became acute, that he knew nothing of this Treaty; but, on the other hand, it was stated on American authority that he had known of it and had forgotten it. I well remember having discussed the Treaty of London with Mr. Lansing, who certainly knew of it. It would assuredly be an interesting and instructive proof of the lack of American interest in European affairs if this Secret Treaty, which the Bolshevists had trumpeted throughout the world and American newspapers had published, really attracted so little attention in the most official American quarter. I know, however, that the Italo-Yugoslav controversy—which turned on the Treaty of London—was brought before the President and the State department by Yugoslav protests while I was in Washington.
When the question was raised in official circles and in the press whether President Wilson in person should take part in the peace negotiations in Europe, I advised him not to do so or, at least, not to remain in Europe after the opening of the Peace Conference. Knowing Wilson’s character and his enthusiasm for the League of Nations as the chief point in a peace settlement, knowing also the personal qualities of the European peace negotiators, I feared that each side would be disappointed with the other. The war had lasted so long and had put so severe a strain upon the minds and nerves of all the men who would meet at the Peace Conference, that ​disillusionment might easily be aggravated by personal weaknesses. Thus, I thought, the high authority which President Wilson had gradually won in Europe might be lessened or entirely lost. But he, who was conscious of the great importance of the Peace Conference, wished personally to uphold his own and American ideals during its work. He believed that the mission of America was to lead mankind towards unity and that he could do it.
In our talk we touched upon the question why he had not formed a Coalition Cabinet when war was declared, as the Governments of the Western Allies had done in Europe, but had chosen his Ministers solely from the Democratic Party. I asked him in particular whether it would not be well to take representatives of the Republican Party with him to the peace negotiations in Paris. He thought that, in Paris, differences would arise between the members of the two parties, and confessed that he had no talent for coalition or compromise. “I tell you frankly”—this was how he put it—“I am descended from Scottish Presbyterians and am therefore somewhat stubborn.” My own explanation was different. In America, as elsewhere, the war had set up a sort of dictatorship and had given decisive power to individual statesmen, even though, under Wilson, the contact between the President and Congress had become closer than it was before. I had watched this development the more keenly because I knew Wilson’s views about the centralization of Congress—the growth of which, in my view, greatly strengthened the constitutional position of the President, whereas the American Constitution gives the President a position corresponding too closely to the English monarchical model. And, while I agree that President Wilson was, to some extent, oversensitive and intolerant of criticism, it did not seem to me that he had been partial in his choice of military and naval commanders. On the contrary, he gave a number of appointments to Republicans, and showed in this respect a notable sense of realities.
Our people at home recognized spontaneously and well the significance of Wilson’s stand against Austria. The buildings, streets, squares and institutions which have been named after him throughout Czechoslovakia are a visible proof of our gratitude. To portray his character as man and statesman would be for me an easy task. I heard much of him from people who stood close to him; I read his speeches with great care and let his ideas and the style of his mind sink into me. I observed the warmth with which he was at first received in ​Allied countries and the way it afterwards cooled off. The Germans, too, took him up and then turned against him. From the outset I saw in him a conscious, straightforward exponent of Lincoln’s conception of democracy and of American spiritual and political ideals in general. How he looked upon the fateful part which America was called upon to play, I have already indicated; and, if he had known more of Europe and European difficulties, he would have given more practical expression to those ideals. Between the “Allies” and America—whom he termed only an “Associated” Power—he distinguished consistently; but the continental character of the United States misled him into dealing too abstractly with the politics of Europe. Even his great watchword of the “self-determination of peoples” was far too general to serve as a guiding principle in Europe; and he was to some extent to blame if his idea of the League of Nations was not fully understood. It was a magnificent and a just conception, above all in its postulate that the League should form an essential part of the Peace Settlement. On the whole, my impression is that, for an American, Wilson was theoretical rather than practical, and that his thought was more deductive than inductive. If, as rumour had it, he preferred to correspond with his Ministers instead of conferring with them, typing his decisions and suggestions with his own hands—he was evidently of a somewhat retiring disposition—I cannot blame him for it, since it indicated a calm and matter-of-fact judgment of political affairs. This, I think, he showed in his treatment of Germany and in his decision to declare war upon her. Though he did not overlook details he would not allow them to excite him; and when enough of them had accumulated, he declared war very firmly. The American people followed him. Quite as firmly did he conduct the war; and it was for this reason that the Germans turned so sharply against him. Ludendorff was under no illusion about the gravity of Wilson’s replies to the German proposals for an armistice and peace; and, in my view, it is unjust to contend, as Roosevelt and others did, that he ought to have declared war earlier.
Wilson was and remains one of the greatest pioneers of modern democracy. In his very first political campaign for the governorship of New Jersey he proclaimed his faith and belief in the people as the basis of democracy, in opposition to aristocracy and monarchism. Nations are regenerated from below, not from above; and monarchism and aristocracy lead always and everywhere to decline. This the world war ​proved on the grandest scale; for, in it, three great monarchies with their aristocracies went down in the conflict with democratic nations.
President Wilson and Professor Herron.
My account of President Wilson’s change of mind in regard to Austria-Hungary would be incomplete without some reference to another quarter from which he received information—Professor Herron, to whom I have already alluded. Herron’s ideas may be gleaned from his writings. He is one of those American idealists for whom democracy is not merely a political but a living and moral programme. Unless I err, Professor Herron had not known President Wilson personally in America or, at least, had seen little of him. The two men were brought together by Herron’s writings, which Wilson recognized as accurate and to the point. Herron had been living in Europe before the war. When it broke out he settled in Switzerland where, from the autumn of 1917 to the end of 1918, he carried on negotiations with a number of Austrian and German politicians as Wilson’s unofficial representative.
While I was in Switzerland I read the writings of Professor Herron—of whom I had known something before the war—and watched his literary and journalistic work; and then, through Dr. Osuský, a curious chance brought me into direct touch with him. As I have said, Osuský was a young Slovak who had come to Europe from America in 1916. He had wished to do something as soon as the war began, and felt he must come to Europe since America was then neutral. As submarines prevented ordinary vessels from sailing, he managed, in July 1916, to sail on a cargo-boat laden with munitions. When he came to me in London I thought he could help in our propaganda, and agreed that he should join Dr. Beneš and learn French. The Slovak League in America had given him certain instructions; but, as they had been drawn up at a distance and in ignorance of actual conditions, they could scarcely be binding upon him. In 1917 he thought of joining the army. In July of that year he went, however, for a while to Switzerland where, he believed, anti-Austrian propaganda could be carried on more effectively than in Paris, inasmuch as letters from Austria and Hungary reached Switzerland more regularly than France. When, in October 1917, the news reached Paris that the Hungarians, Count Károlyi and Dr. Jászi, would attend a Peace Conference which was being ​arranged at Berne in November, Osuský went definitely to Switzerland. As an American citizen, he came into touch with the American Legation at Berne; and, on hearing that a number of intermediaries were in the habit of visiting Professor Herron, he presented himself to him, and their common interests soon led them to work together. Osuský knew Magyar as well as German, and thus became indispensable to Herron and to the American Legation. He rendered a service to the Legation and to several newspapers by convicting a Hungarian interpreter and correspondent of falsifying news from Hungary, just as he had already helped Seton-Watson to expose the Hungarian correspondent of the “Morning Post.” He was soon in a position to furnish the American Legation and Herron with reports that were sent to the State Department in Washington, and some of them to President Wilson direct. Thanks to his knowledge of the affairs and public men of Hungary, he was able to correct inaccuracies into which Károlyi and Jászi fell at that time—for, in the excitement of the war, and trusting, perhaps, to French and English ignorance, even the best Hungarians were guilty of erroneous statements—with the result that pro-Magyar newspapers which the Magyars wished to influence recognized and condemned Magyar insincerity. Dr. Osuský will, I hope, publish a full account of what he did and of his personal relationships. Naturally he kept me informed, and I can therefore say something of the matter. From other quarters, too, I heard the names of the people with whom Professor Herron was in touch, and he himself made no secret of the matter. His Austrian, Magyar and German visitors interested me principally. Among them were Professor Lammasch (both he and Herron have published accounts of their negotiations); the Viennese industrialist, Julius Meinl; Professor Singer of the Viennese “Zeit,” and Dr. Hertz; Professor Jaffe and Dr. De Fiori, both of whom came from Munich (De Fiori’s negotiations, which were ostensibly carried on in the interest of the Bavarian Court, have recently been mentioned in the German press); Herr Haussmann, a German member of Parliament who was connected with Prince Max of Baden; Professor Quidde, Herr Scheidemann, Count Károlyi, Dr. Jászi and others. A former Dutch official, Baron de Jong van Beck en Donc, of whose propagandist work and relations with Austria I heard repeatedly, served on occasion as intermediary; and Professor Herron was visited also by Southern Slavs like Dr. Trumbitch.
​In Washington I heard something of Professor Herron’s reports. For me the important thing was that President Wilson sent on parts of them to Mr. Balfour; and that, later, with the assent of the President, Herron sent most of his documents direct to Mr. Balfour who communicated them to a small official circle. Not only did Professor Herron understand and appreciate the significance of our Legions, not only did he observe how, on this account, the Allied Governments recognized our National Council and gradually adopted our anti-Austrian programme, but he became convinced that our movement for freedom was genuine, and estimated accordingly the importance of our people’s task in the reconstruction of Europe and of Eastern Europe in particular. He saw how artificial and, indeed, impossible Austria-Hungary was, and he rightly discerned a specifically Hapsburg insincerity in what Dr. Lammasch, Dr. Hertz and others told him for the benefit of President Wilson. He understood that the Emperor Charles and his agents wished to use the President and America for their own ends.
For instance, Lammasch described the Emperor Charles to Herron, at the beginning of February 1918, as an opponent of Prussian and Magyar domination, and wished President Wilson to express satisfaction that Count Czernin’s speech of January 24 should have revealed Austrian readiness for a policy of reconciliation with the Hapsburg peoples. When this had been done, Lammasch suggested, the Emperor Charles would write to the Pope a letter, which would be published, promising to grant autonomy, in principle, to the Austrian races. These roundabout suggestions displeased Herron, who demanded that the Emperor himself should come forward honestly and take in hand the transformation of his Empire. Only on this condition could the President and America accept and support the plan.
The trick was transparent. The Emperor was to promise to the Pope, not to his own peoples, a system of autonomy, and was to do even that only “in principle.” His chief care was for his own prestige. President Wilson was to welcome Czernin’s speech in which, according to Lammasch, the Emperor himself felt his ideas had been inadequately expressed, though it was alleged to have been made at the Emperor’s direct wish. The same care for prestige came out again in the Emperor’s letter of February 17 to President Wilson, in which he asked the President to send a special personal envoy to him. As may be seen from the President’s negative answer ​of March 5, this request made a bad impression on him; and when, on October 14, Lammasch promised the transformation of Austria into a federal State, neither Herron nor Wilson would listen. A few weeks earlier, in September 1918, Dr. Hertz gave Herron a more detailed programme. He promised that Austria would detach herself from Germany and become democratic, and that Austria-Hungary would be changed into a federation of self-governing States. He did not say clearly how the Czechs, Poles and Southern Slavs were to be organized as States alongside of the Germans and the Magyars. The Slovaks were to be kept apart from the Czechs, the argument being that Slovakia would presently join the Czechs “by herself.” Poland was to be linked with Austria in a dynastic union, that is to say, Russian Poland and Polish Galicia. Posen, or Prussian Poland, was to remain German. Transylvania would get autonomy. The Southern Tyrol would go to Italy-after a plébiscite; and Trieste would form a Free State in economic alliance with Austria-Hungary. The Ruthene, or Little Russian, part of Galicia would be given to the Ukraine. Finally, Serbia would be allowed “on certain conditions” voluntarily to join the Austro-Hungarian Southern Slav State.
In this fashion Vienna still dreamt of expansion even at the end of September 1918; and Dr. Hertz ingenuously said that an Austria thus aggrandized would be democratic and anti-German! It sounds like a farce when, in speaking of the voluntary adhesion of Serbia to the new Southern Slav State, Dr. Hertz added: “In no circumstances must pressure be applied.” I am ready to admit that Dr. Hertz said on behalf of Austria everything that it was possible for an Austrian to say. In words, Vienna and Budapest paid homage to Wilson’s ideas, but in reality they wished to continue and even to strengthen their rule over us and over other peoples. Herron saw through the sort of autonomy that was promised, and let President Wilson know what he thought at every important stage, never hiding his conviction that America could not make terms with Austria. He reiterated this view emphatically when Mr. Lansing informed us officially, in the name of the President, that the United States had recognized our National Council and its policy; and, after the Austrian peace manifesto of September 14, which Clemenceau answered so drastically, Herron sent a note to Washington no whit less vigorous than Clemenceau’s own opinion. On the same day Washington sent the laconic reply to which I have referred; ​and President Wilson’s final answer to Austria-Hungary was written in the same spirit.
Yet it was not I or Professor Herron who prejudiced the President against Austria. American democratic ideas turned his mind not only against Prussian Germanism but also against German Hapsburgism. The war was a moral question as well as a question of power, strategy and politics. True, Vienna was incapable of comprehending a moral issue and took no account of it. Thus it came to pass that American democracy, and democracy in general, buried the Hapsburg Monarchy and the Hapsburgs with it.
Incipit Vita Nova.
After President Wilson’s answer to Austria-Hungary and our Declaration of Independence on October 18, a new situation had to be faced. It gave us no little work. Austria, false to the last, left Germany in the lurch and begged Wilson for a separate peace on October 27; she accepted the humiliating condition he made in regard to us, but sought to interpret it to her own advantage. On this point I sent Secretary Lansing a Note—the last—to expose the cunning of Austrian policy; and Professor Herron advised the President direct to have nothing more to do with Austria since she was already a political corpse. For all eventualities I sought recognition from Belgium and Greece, after having received that of the other Allies, and took the necessary steps at their Legations in Washington on November 18. The recognition came from Athens on November 22 and from Brussels on November 28.
During the last fortnight of October and the first fortnight of November 1918, public attention was absorbed, in America as in Europe, by the rapid sequence of the scenes in the world-historic drama of which the last act had begun with the Russian revolution. Austria-Hungary collapsed and Prussian Germany was overthrown. On October 21 a revolution broke out in Vienna and also in Hungary. Count Tisza was murdered on October 31. Independent Austrian, Czechoslovak, Yugoslav and Magyar States arose out of the Austro-Hungarian ruin. In Germany the revolution began on October 28 with a mutiny in the fleet; at the beginning of November, Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, Munich and Berlin revolted. The Reichstag changed the Constitution and Parliamentarized the country, Ludendorff resigned, the Emperor William and the Crown Prince abdicated the Kaiser fleeing to Holland-and all German dynasties ​were swallowed up. At last, even the Emperor Charles abandoned his throne. On the same day, November 11, Herr Erzberger, Marshal Foch and Admiral Wemyss signed the Armistice which saved Germany from the capture of her army and capitulation. The Austrian army was totally demoralized, especially on the Italian front, whereas the troops of Germany went home in fairly good order. Nor were these great events without their symbolical and ironical side. On October 20 Berlin University came out in favour of the new régime and went almost Social Democratic. The “Frankfurter Zeitung” was the first to demand the abdication of the Kaiser on October 24, the Social Democrats following suit four days later. The Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Herr Ebert, became Chancellor, Herr Scheidemann proclaimed the Republic from the steps of the Reichstag, and the Social Democrats took over the Government.
Through all these events my interest lay mainly in the developments at home, and particularly in our revolution of October 28. The first accounts of it were confused and incomplete, and not entirely satisfactory reports reached me of the meeting between the delegation of our new National Committee and Dr. Beneš at Geneva. Our pro-Austrians comforted themselves with the hope that the Hapsburgs might still remain. But Dr. Beneš’s initial report on November 5 cleared up the position to some extent; and, at last, the abdication of the Emperor Charles justified, even in the eyes of our pro-Austrians, the policy we had followed abroad. The reports from Dr. Beneš urged me, however, to return home with all speed. Therefore I made ready to go. The news of the Slovak declaration at Turčansky St. Martin on October 30 was very welcome, though, on the other hand, the story that the Germans of Bohemia had begun a separatist movement and were trying to organize a German Bohemia made me uneasy. But when I heard that regions calling themselves a “Sudetenland” and afterwards a “German South Moravia” and even a “Bohemian Forest District” were being set up, my fears vanished. The very idea of such sub-division was a strong argument against German separatism. Nevertheless the question of the German Bohemians was always serious, and the Americans and the British insisted upon abstract definition of the “right to self-determination.” To the resolution of the Provisional Austrian-German Parliament on November 12, that “German Austria is a part of the German Republic” I paid special heed as, indeed, to the strange ​rumours from Switzerland in regard to our Prague delegation. I heard that Vienna was negotiating with its members and wished to negotiate with me. Therefore I sent from London a special envoy to Switzerland to get trustworthy information of Austrian intentions.
In Washington I had heard that the Emperor Charles had made his last offer to President Wilson in agreement with the Vatican. True, the general situation made it seem improbable that the Vatican would run risks for the sake of Austria; and though the Emperor Charles and those about him sought solace during dark hours in their relations with the Pope, Vatican policy had in reality already become circumspect. According to later reports, the Emperor Charles sent Andrássy’s Note to the Pope at the same time as he sent it to Wilson, expecting doubtless that His Holiness would do something for him; but whether there were any preliminary negotiations I have been unable to ascertain.
As soon as the Republic had been proclaimed at Prague and I had been elected President on November 14, I sent an Army Order to our troops in France, Italy, Russia and Serbia, informing them of the establishment of our State and defining the task of the army. It announced that the Legions in France and Italy would shortly return home, and commanded those in Russia and Siberia to stand by the Allies. Our Branch National Council in Russia was dissolved on November 14, since the National Council itself had become the Provisional Government which the Allies had recognized. General Štefánik, as Minister for War, became the chief administrative military authority for our forces in Siberia.
On November 15 I paid my last visit to President Wilson in order to thank him heartily and to assure him of the gratitude of our whole nation. Of all our political friends and well-wishers I took a warm farewell, especially of M. Jusserand and his wife and of his colleagues; and I naturally said good-bye to Secretary Lansing, to the other principal members of the Government and to the chief officials. The preparations for the Peace Conference were practically complete, and Mr. Lansing informed me that he had drafted, for his own use, a peace programme which, in general character, resembled our own.
The newspapers, a long list of them, sought interviews with the new President. Obviously, propaganda was not yet at an end! The American Government granted me a credit after my election to the Presidency. Alongside of ideal ​motives and feelings, a State debt is sometimes an effective background for political relations; and I negotiated with American financiers on the subject of eventual loans, signing an agreement for a first loan of 10,000,000 dollars before I sailed.
At noon on November 20 our boat, the “Carmania,” steamed out of New York harbour. On leaving the Vanderbilt Hotel I was surprised to find a detachment of American sailors awaiting me. They had been sent to render me my first military honours as President—those military honours that were henceforth to be paid as I came and went, everywhere and always, compelling me again and again to realize that I had ceased to be a private individual.
* ↑ Ludevit Štúr (1815–1856), a Slovak Protestant leader and writer who organized the Slovak Protestants as a party in 1844, and helped to establish Slovak as a literary language.
* ↑ Svetozar Hurban-Vajanský (1847–1916), a Russophil Slovak poet and writer who had been influenced by the works of Štúr.
* ↑ A prominent Hungarian nobleman of Socialist views. He became Prime Minister of Hungary after the fall of the Hapsburgs.
* ↑ Here I may cite the “American Creed” which won a public competition in 1916–1917. President Wilson and a number of prominent politicians and writers supported the competition of which the winner was Mr. William Tyler Page, a descendant of President Tyler. Its text is made up of various apt phrases taken from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and speeches of prominent statesmen. It runs:— “American Credo.” I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people by the people for the people; whose real power derives from the assent of the governed; in democracy within the Republic; in the nation sovereign among many sovereign States; in a unity complete, single and indivisible; founded on the principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots have sacrificed their lives and their possessions.Therefore I believe it my duty to love my country; to uphold its Constitution; to obey its laws; to honour its flag; and to defend it against all foes.
* ↑ To show the American view of our Siberian “Anabasis” I may quote a passage from a letter written by the late Mr. F. K. Lane, who was then Home Secretary in President Wilson’s Administration: “. . . Isn’t this a great world? And its biggest romance is not even the fact that Woodrow Wilson rules it, but the march of the Czechoslovaks across 5,000 miles of Russian Asia—an army on foreign soil, without a Government, without a span of territory, that is recognized as a nation. This, I think, appeals to my imagination as nothing else in the war has done since the days when King Albert of Belgium held out at Liége.” (“The Letters of F. K. Lane,” 1922, page 293.) In the name of England Mr. Lloyd George wrote on September 11, 1918:— To the President of the Czechoslovak National Council, Paris. On behalf of the British War Cabinet I send you our heartiest congratulations on the striking successes won by the Czechoslovak forces against armies of German and Austrian troops in Siberia. The story of the adventures and triumphs of this small army is, indeed, one of the greatest epics of history. It has filled us all with admiration for the courage, persistence and self-control of your countrymen and shows what can be done to triumph over time, distance and lack of material sources by those holding the spirit of freedom in their hearts. Your nation has rendered inestimable service to Russia and to the Allies in their struggle to free the world from despotism; we shall never forget it. Lloyd George.