# My War Memoirs/Chapter 1

MY WAR MEMOIRS
I
MY PREPARATIONS FOR WAR AND REVOLUTION
(a) My Political Preparations
1
The war surprised me, in one sense, and in another it did not. I had gone to Paris in 1905 at the age of twenty-one and had spent nearly a year there. Then I had stayed for several months in London and had returned to Paris for another year. In October 1907 I had gone for a year to the University of Berlin and devoted myself to a study of social conditions in Germany. Having returned to France (Paris and Dijon) for my law examinations, and having completed my studies there, I went back to Prague in September 1908.
I had gone abroad to study modern languages and prepare myself for a university professorship in this subject. My fondness for political matters, my bent for the study of social problems, and also material considerations, had caused me to turn to journalism, and from that to the study of law, political science, and sociology. I had occupied myself closely with philosophy while still at Prague in my first university year. As a young student who had been through hardships, who had had a difficult time during his studies, and who had been repelled by the political and social conditions at home, I was soon impressed by everything I saw in France and in Paris. I was greatly moved by the whole of the French and Parisian revolutionary tradition; I was carried away by the revolutionary and radical phraseology of the French Socialists, syndicalists, and other Left Wing parties; I was absorbed by the study of extremist movements, revolutionary syndicalism, French Socialism, anti-militarism, and anarchism, the French and Russian Revolutions with all their offshoots.
The endeavour to learn as much as I could abroad, and to acquire sufficient knowledge so that I could return home fully ​prepared for academic and public activity, urged me on to feverish labour to fathom rapidly the political, social, and cultural problems of France. From there I passed over to England, and subsequently also to Belgium, Italy, and Germany. The preparation of my thesis for a doctor’s degree at the Dijon Faculty of Law compelled me at the same time to make a detailed study of the conditions in my own country and in Austria.
My stay in Paris brought me also among the Russian revolutionaries who had taken part in the first Russian Revolution of 1905, and my contact with them made a deep impression upon me. In 1906 and 1907 I visited their meetings at Paris, becoming a member of their societies. I began to make a close study of Russia and of Russian literature, both classical and revolutionary. After my return to Prague I kept in touch with the revolutionary Russians.
I was influenced by a number of political questions then current, which later affected my attitude towards the war. In France there was revolutionary syndicalism, the struggle for the separation of the Church and State, the struggle against the three years’ military service, and anti-militarist propaganda. From these I drew the conclusion that on the whole France was pacifist. In England there was the discussion as to the economic future of England in case of war, the dispute between Liberals and Conservatives on the subject of Protection and the development of the German and English fleets. It was during my stay in London and Berlin that the most active discussion was taking place with regard to the development of the German fleet and the English policy of a “two-power standard.” In Germany they were even then calculating that by 1920 their fleet would be equal in size to that of Great Britain.
The deepest impressions in these matters, however, were those which I formed in Berlin. The military parade, which was arranged in the summer of 1908 and at which I was present, overwhelmed me. The development of industry and railways, of the Prussian military and naval strength, compared with what I had seen at Paris and London in this respect, the mechanization of all public life under the influence of Prussian discipline, the atmosphere of constraint and the prevailing influence and authority of the military, aristocratic, and bureaucratic caste, affected me painfully because at that time I was unable to arrive at any clear conclusion as to what it ​was to lead to. I felt instinctively that it must end disastrously, and the effect which it produced upon me as a member of a small and neighbouring nation was a disturbing one.
I attributed the conditions in Germany to the non-political and herdlike character of the German people, their inadequate training in democracy, the lack of a revolutionary spirit in German Socialism, and the proneness to empty mechanical doctrinairism which never fully conformed with the demands of life and was either a convenient pretext for not doing anything practical or else led to a blind and fanatical pursuit of an idée fixe.
Thus I reached the study of Pan-Germanism, its theory and practice. In a theoretical respect I was interested by Lagarde, Treitschke, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain (and through him by Gobineau), while on the practical side I turned to Rohrbach, Rüdiger, and various Pan-German pamphleteers. I wondered what were the effects of the propaganda carried on by Rohrbach’s group, which in hundreds of thousands of leaflets, booklets, and pamphlets popularized the Berlin-Bagdad scheme and demanded not only the development of the fleet, but also a large supply of aircraft.(2) In the pamphlets issued by Counsellor Martin during 1908 it was shown, for example, by diagrams, how, when, and within what time a German air fleet could land hundreds of thousands of troops near London, and how quickly it could transport similar forces to Constantinople, Bagdad, and the Persian Gulf. These matters both bewildered and provoked me, compelling me to reflect upon the political future of Germany, to make careful comparisons with what I had seen in England and France, and to occupy myself with the problems of war. Such, in general terms, is a synthesis of the external political impressions, with a direct or indirect bearing upon the war, which I brought back with me from my travels.
On the whole I became attached to France because of the tradition of the great revolution; the broad perspectives of its national history; its love for liberty of thought; for the fullness of its cultural life; for the abundance of its philosophical, scientific, literary, and artistic culture; for its traditional humanitarian, universal, and cosmopolitan tendency, which sought a genuine cult of humanity. I was also enormously attracted by the idealistic and revolutionary impulse underlying the social ​and socialistic thought and the practical movement of non-doctrinaire French Socialism.
England moved me profoundly by its impressive inner strength, which could be felt on all sides, by its harmony and order, by its development towards political and constitutional liberty, by its economic advance, by its endeavour in its national culture to form a harmonious human individuality, and by the strength of religious feeling and conscious religious life which even the average Englishman reveals. This practical experience of religious matters in England then led me to the study of philosophy and theory of knowledge, and also to an anti-positivist change of views on religion.
2
I returned from abroad strengthened in my original opposition to our political and social conditions. In comparison with England and France, and with Western Europe in general, Austria-Hungary, disorganized by its welter of nationalities, struck me as the prototype of a reactionary, aristocratic-bureaucratic State, resembling in many respects the reactionary, militaristic, and bureaucratic character of Germany, but without its administrative and financial order, without its inner strength and influence. I had felt repelled by Germany, but the Habsburg Empire repelled me more. The traditional anti-Austrian training of a Czech had caused all these feelings to take systematic shape from my youth onwards; I was instinctively a social and national malcontent when I left home. After some time, in 1907 and 1908, believing almost fanatically in the strength and influence of democratic principles, I expected that a change and a regeneration would result from universal suffrage in Austria. Nevertheless, I returned a convinced radical and revolutionary, even though my early training and the hardships of life had taught me at home before the war to suppress passions and sentiments, to master them by means of the intellect and to preserve a political calm and balance.
The long study of Socialism and social problems at home and abroad had strengthened the conviction in me that we were approaching a period when several fundamental problems concerning the structure of our society would be basically solved. The political struggle within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the fight for universal suffrage, the Bosnian annexa​tion crisis of 1908, the sway of absolutism in Bohemia and Croatia, convinced me that we were passing through a time of great political crisis, which would lead either smoothly or by cataclysms to fundamental changes.
In 1908 I had two further aims to see Russia and to secure a living at home by obtaining a teaching post. I also thought of qualifying for a university professorship, spending some time in special academic work. Then, after adequate political preparation and training,—I reckoned that I should have to devote at least another ten years to self-education and political preparation,—I would make an attempt to enter politics. Accordingly, between 1908 and 1914, I studied political economy, sociology, and philosophy, preparing for my professorship and university duties. In the autumn of 1908 Professor Masaryk, who had followed the journalistic work I had done abroad, asked me to call upon him. He suggested that I should qualify for a university post in philosophy and sociology, promised me support, and gave me a number of hints for further work.
About the same time Dr. Fořt, who was then a member of the Viennese Cabinet, also invited me to see him. He praised the work I had done abroad and invited me to join the Young Czech Party and to become one of its political workers. He pointed out the advantages which this would involve, the possibility of a comfortable existence and a career. I politely declined his offer. About the same time Dr. Šmeral, the editor of Právo Lidu, of which I had been a correspondent, and was still a contributor, asked me to pay him a visit. He was a leading figure in the party, and he indicated to me that if I would join the party and work for it he would look after my interests. Not wishing then to enter the domain of practical politics, I did not make any decision. Moreover, even at that time I maintained a certain reserve towards Dr. Šmeral, of whose views, which ​were strictly Marxist in theory, I did not approve. I continued, however, to be a contributor to Právo Lidu up to the beginning of the war, even after I had entered Masaryk’s party. I had always been on good terms with the Social Democratic Party, in which I had close friends and excellent opportunities for working.
In the Progressive Party, which I entered shortly afterwards, but in which, on the whole, I did little practical work, I belonged to a kind of moderate opposition. I had always been opposed to “diehard Realism,” which seemed to me to lack political and vital qualities, besides being rigid, doctrinaire, and sometimes petty. In its essence it was non-revolutionary and non-radical, despite the fact that it was uncompromising in the forms it assumed. I worked with the younger men and sought a closer co-operation with the radical elements in our public life, aiming at the formation of a large group with progressive tendencies in political and social matters.
(b) My Philosophical Preparations
3
My scientific and philosophical study during these years had confronted me with the necessity of adjusting the struggle within me to a definite philosophical attitude and system. This was what I had been striving after throughout my ten years of study and preparation. The four years of war supplemented in a practical manner what I had studied theoretically; they brought my theories into harmony with the realities of life.
When I joined the University I had already devoted some time to the study of Socialism and Masaryk’s Realism. From this I had retained what I was then capable of absorbing. In the case of Realism this consisted more of the negative side, such as the objection to exaggerated nationalism, to demagogy, to jingoism, to superficiality in all political, literary, and social questions, the objection to political and literary romanticizing. It had provided me also with the realistic method of working. As regards Socialism, I acquired, above all, a leaning towards ​positivism and materialism. My direct touch with Masaryk caused me to reflect upon the fundamentals of philosophic controversies. I was attracted by positivism, which rather led me away from Masaryk, who, however, continued to disturb and harass me by his destructive analysis of everything in positivism which I had regarded as philosophically sound.
My return to Prague, my preparations to take up a university post, and my work as a lecturer completed my philosophical development. Hacking my way through, so to speak, to settled views (Masaryk and his books helped me more than others), I gradually began to make these views hold good in metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and sociology. In the course of the war I transferred them from theory to practical politics. I always consciously practised politics in a scientific spirit, and if during and after the war I achieved any political successes, this was mainly due to the fact that I have always consistently applied my philosophy and my scientific method to political problems.
All these problems made me aware of the discrepancy between the culture and life of Western and Eastern Europe. It was a conflict with a noetic basis—the intellectualist West, the intuitivist and mystical East. I saw the two extremes clearly, and I formed a conclusion as to the proper relationship between them and as to their synthesis at which our nation in particular should aim.
From my earliest years the problem of religion had greatly attracted and disturbed me. Brought up as a strict Catholic, while still a boy I experienced—unconsciously and instinctively, perhaps—several phases of religious misgiving. School and university flung me into the opposite stream of religious negation, positivist opposition to religion and anti-clerical radicalism. My studies in France, England, and Germany—more particularly my experiences in England—had compelled me to seek new solutions. My internal struggle for a philosophic outlook, the study of Kant, Hume, Descartes, and Masaryk, had finally led me to adopt a positive attitude towards the problem of religion also. On this basis I had arrived at firm religious views accepting the belief in immanent teleology and in Providence as destiny.
On the philosophic side, therefore, I found myself on fairly firm ground in 1914. I felt myself sure in my philosophical and religious assumptions; I had my clarified ethical views, ​based on the principle of full respect for mankind, and I had worked out in quite a detailed manner the ideas of critical realism in sociology and politics.
4
Thus, when the war broke out, its political meaning was, on the whole, obvious to me, while it was morally clear what I could, would, and must do. I never hesitated either for reasons of personal conviction or of practical political opportunism. From the very beginning one idea presented itself to me, and that was the consciousness of duty, the knowledge that the great moment had come when everybody who could and would accomplish something, must and would be an instrument of Providence in great and small things.
As far as political practice was concerned, I considered the conditions in our country so dislocated, and the leading circles in Vienna sufficiently alive to their own interests, that even on July 26, 1914, I was convinced that a way would be found to adjust matters and avoid war. From the beginning of the conflict with Serbia I felt that Austria-Hungary, being internally weak and having no centrifugal force amid its diversity of nations, would pay a severe penalty even for a victorious war. I therefore wondered what penalty it would pay if it lost a war engaged in by a number of Great Powers, whose centrifugal forces would certainly be greater than ever before. The penalty would undoubtedly be the loss of its political existence.
It also seemed to me that the war would result in a great social upheaval equal to a social revolution. During my stay abroad I had followed the results of Edward VII’s diplomatic activity, and, at the same time, I had observed that French public opinion was, for the greater part, decidedly opposed to the propaganda of revenge. I believed in the possibility and even in the inevitability of an Anglo-German war which would be brought about mainly by economic competition, the German need for expansion, the German pressure upon Turkey and the Persian Gulf, and England’s concern about her colonies and her naval mastery. But I was unable to form any clear conception of a war which would be entered into by Austria-Hungary and Russia, since I judged that the ruling classes of both those States were aware of the danger of a social revolu​tion. At that time I was less well acquainted with their disputes about the Balkans and Balkan conditions.
That is why the war, for which Austria-Hungary was responsible in 1914, surprised me as an event of world politics, even though, in a political, philosophical, and moral respect I was prepared for it. I accordingly formulated the whole dilemma with which the Habsburg Empire was faced. Either it would come to an end through losing the war, or it would come to an end in a social upheaval and a revolution after the war. And it was in accordance with this alternative that our arrangements had to be made.
Such were the considerations which guided my action from the beginning of the conflict to its end. Now that the fateful moment had arrived I began, with a calm mind, determined to go to any length and to sacrifice everything, to carry out a revolution.
* ↑ Dr. Joseph Fořt (b. 1850), a Czech politician and a prominent leader of the National Party of Liberal Thought. For a time was a Cabinet minister in the Austrian Parliament. After the war he took no part in political life.
* ↑ Dr. B. Šmeral (b. 1880), one of the leaders of the Czech Social Democrats, who, during the war, tended to pursue a policy of opportunism. After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic his activities in the Social Democratic Party were in the direction of Communism.
* ↑ Právo Lidu (The People’s Rights), the central press organ of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party. Founded 1891 and has appeared daily since 1900.
* ↑ The Progressive (Realist) Party, founded 1900 from among the adherents of Professor Masaryk. It was recruited mainly from intellectual circles, and although not numerically strong it had a considerable influence on other parties.