The idea of establishing a Czechoslovak colony came closest after the end of the First World War, when the Paris Peace Conference with the defeated Germany was taking place. Here it was decided, among other things, that the German Empire would be stripped of its overseas territories, which included today's Togo, then known as Togoland. In 1919 Havlasa published a booklet Czech Overseas Colonies (Czech: "České kolonie zámořské") in which he identified Togo as the most suitable territory for colonisation. One of the reasons why this particular area was to become a Czechoslovak colony was the fact that the Togolese population in the former German colony in 1912 numbered slightly over a million and the area occupied roughly a third of Czechoslovakia (to give an idea, Czechoslovak area was 140,446 km² large at the time of its creation, while today's Togo has 56,789 km²), so it was judged that the Czechoslovak authorities would have no problem with administering the territory. This was to be achieved with the help of the experienced Czechoslovak legions returning from Siberia across the Pacific Ocean and on across the Atlantic, while Togo still had a partial colonial administration and order left over from the Germans, which was familiar to the Czechs, who had lived in the German area for several centuries. There were over 60,000 Czechoslovak legionnaires in transit at the time.