Edvard Beneš

“ A great man has died, a man whose name, when it began to penetrate into the various parts of the world, was pronounced by millions of people with great hope and by millions of others with fear and horror. A man has died who, during the difficult days of the world struggle and the slaughter of the battlefields, became the bearer of the ideals of humanity, the symbol of the moral conscience of mankind, and the incorporation of the ideals and longings regarding eternal peace. ”

“ The conduct of the Czecho-Slovak soldiers was the cause of terrible persecutions of the whole nation. During the whole time the war has raged, the Czecho-Slovaks have worked continuously, silent and martyred, but never faltering in their task. Isolated and dumb, they struggle for the triumph of the Entente without the consolation of encouragement. They know not the glory of sacrifice, only its bitterness.
It would he difficult to find in history a situation as tragic as that of the Czech people. ”

“ In these circumstances they would not wish to remain in Austria-Hungary for anything in the world.
Again, to satisfy the Slavs and to initiate any process of constitutional reform inevitably opens the road to the dissolution of the Monarchy. The Germans, the Magyars, and the ruling classes thoroughly understand the position. They know that the Slavs cannot and will not yield. They know also that to attempt to establish a real federation would inevitably lead the uncontrolled force of the Slavs to strip their enemies first of all their privileges and then ultimately to quit the Monarchy. ”

“ Germany and the Habsburg Problem
The political situation in Austria-Hungary is singularly critical. The monarchy is economically on the edge of the abyss; the working classes are reduced to absolute want; the lower middle class (officials, employees, etc., particularly) are starving; whilst the upper middle class, manufacturers and tradespeople, are ruined. From the intellectual point of view there is complete demoralisation: the nation is exhausted, its resistance broken; it is as incapable of moral elevation as of rebellion. ”

“ In the most painful days of the War when our people was most bent under the pressure of the central Powers, at a time when all parties at home used to prove to it that there were no hopes of the fulfilment of its bold dreams, when it suffered terribly from hunger and physical and moral exhaustion, it pronounced the name of Wilson, its greatest hope and consolation, and thus obtained the last stimulus to persevere in the fight. ”

“ But we have a wider conception of life. The fate of a nation who throughout its existence must fight without cessation against three formidable foes is indeed heartrending. We are sick of this vain struggle, we aim at higher things and ardently desire to continue in the traditions of our great ancestors; it is our heartfelt desire to throw all our energies into the great work for the advancement of civilisation and the amelioration of social conditions.
That is why to-day we appeal to all those who are interested in the work of the reconstruction of Europe, "Dismember Austria-Hungary!" ”

“ She seeks to impress upon the Austrian Germans that, in the interest of Deutschtum, it is their duty to make sacrifices in favour of the Austrian Slavs, that, to a certain extent, they must sacrifice themselves in the true sense of the word, and that they will render to Germany an infinitely greater service if they preserve their State, in which they will share their power with the other nations, than if they compromise everything by hurrying on the general ruin. ”

“ That is why the Austria-Germans have always been much more uncompromising towards the other nations in Austria-Hungary than the Germans of the Empire themselves, and also why they are now defending themselves against real federation and ready rather to separate from the Monarchy altogether. Thus it has been easy for the Germans and Magyars to make the ruling circles in Vienna understand that the plans of the Slavs—whether they aim at federation or at independence—mean the end of the Monarchy. ”

“ In the event of a European conflagration they could only hope for victory through German support, and victory would render them a mere link in the Pan-German chain of States stretching from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. In the event of defeat in a European war, they could not hope to resist the aspirations of their peoples for liberation, or, indeed, the demands of the victors for political guarantees against the recurrence of so foul a conspiracy against the tranquillity and equilibrium of Europe. ”

“ Despotisms of all kinds are disappearing and will disappear more and more from society. The power of the majority and the principle of the majority in general is the characteristic sign of modern society; the art of the statesman today consists in calling forth, supporting, and at the same time guiding this new force.
These are two great, and yet simple, principles of Wilson’s political philosophy and we meet with them all through his practical political work. ”

“ Two years previously the heart of every Czech beat high on hearing the announcement of the glorious victories of his brothers the Serbs, and the entire nation hastened with the greatest enthusiasm to bring help to the brotherly Yugo-Slav nation. And now the two governments of Vienna and Budapest throw us into a tragic conflict by sending our soldiers to Serbia, Slavs to kill Slavs for the benefit of the Germans and Magyars. ”

“ We have succeeded by assiduous labour in building our Czech house: though hindered continuously by the dynasty and the Germans, we have succeeded in making our country one of the richest territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, inasmuch as we practically feed and provide for all the other provinces. We have a right to be proud of our writers, men of letters and scientists of great reputation, worthy to be compared with those of any other civilised country. ”

“ That is what history will say.
Wilson provides us with a full picture of his personality in his writings: he had great intellectual power and a highly-gifted logical and deductive mind. According to the majority of critics he lacked the intuitive power which characterizes men of the highest genius, but on the other hand by his intellectual capacity he ranks amongst the greatest Americans who have ever lived. He was deeply humanitarian and possessed real religious feeling: humanity was a reality which he consistently lived out in his own life. ”

“ The Pan-German plan was therefore essentially founded on the crushing of Serbia, the humiliation of Italy, and the complete annihilation of the national aspirations and hopes of the oppressed nations of Austria-Hungary, above all of the Czecho-Slovaks. No more odious or cynical enterprise against human liberty was ever conceived. ”

“ For us, for Czechoslovakia, President Wilson is inseparably joined to the struggle for our freedom. In spite of the fact that it has an American colouring, the whole of his philosophy, his democratic ideals and his moral principles are and will remain near to us, for this philosophy was the ideological basis for our fight for freedom and it must be our foundation on which alone the whole of our State can stand in the future. ”

“ Austria, with her Slav population ever increasing, and her internal situation still more unstable, decided to pursue at all costs her dynastic and imperialistic policy in order to save the German and Magyar character of the Dual Monarchy. Thus Vienna saw herself forced to accept the hegemony of Prussia—Austria willingly became the vanguard of the German Drang nach Osten, and her government prepared and let loose the present catastrophe.
This, in essence, is our history and the prelude to the gigantic struggle of to-day. ”

“ It is a witness to the great moral strength of this great man that he managed to develop himself, instruct others, change his views, gain new knowledge of Europe, its oppressed peoples and their aims and advance from merely American to world interests. ”

“ As regards Italy, her fate would be no happier: Germany would exercise her hegemony in the Adriatic, as she wishes to possess the whole Eastern Adriatic shore and even Greece; the irredentist territory could never be restored to Italy; the great future which is awaiting Italy in the New Europe would never be realised. Serbia could never think of a union with the rest of her race; and, above all, all the oppressed nationalities of Central Europe in Austria-Hungary and in the Balkans, would continue to suffer under the yoke of Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest. ”

“ If Europe is to-day astonished and revolted at the disheartening sight which the coalition of the Central Empires gives us, we Czechs are in no way surprised. In truth, we feel some sorrow to find that Western Europe knows Vienna and Budapest so little, and that the sentimental legends about the old Emperor of Schönbrunn and the illusions about the chivalrous policy of the Magyars have been believed by the simple-minded public. ”

“ The Czech nation cannot but express its most ardent sympathy with noble and glorious France, which to-day is defending its independence and national soil, which has accomplished so much for the advancement of civilisation and the principles of humanity and liberty. ”

“ Knowing the Habsburgs, we know what awaits us if, after the war, Europe leaves us in the hands of our enemies. We rebelled as only one can rebel to-day, knowing that the fate reserved for us by the Prussians, the Austro-Magyars, and the Habsburgs will be that of our ancestors after the Battle of the White Mountain. ”

“ The individualistic philosophy was liberating the individual consciousness, and influencing directly the life and liberty of nations. The downfall of the Feudal System and the coming of democracy confirmed the right of citizens, and through them the rights of oppressed nationalities. In Bohemia the doctrines of the encyclopædists, of Voltaire, of Rousseau, and of Herder, soon became popular, and gave to a few Czech patriots, who had never lost hope in the future of their people, a means of reviving the nation, seemingly dead for more than a century. ”

“ The position of the Czech people is specially tragic during the present war, when they had to join the army of their enemies, who made them their cannon-fodder. They were destined to be sacrificed for the benefit of their oppressors, the cynical adorers of Prussian and Magyar violence; their best forces were to be employed for the realisation of the Pan-German Central Europe, the achievement of which failed in 1848, and which, almost realised to-day, constitutes for the Czecho-Slovaks a danger of intolerable sufferings. ”

“ When the day of punishment, which will certainly come, strikes the great criminals of this war, the Germans, Europe must not target their most faithful associates, the Magyars. Not only Austria must be dismembered, but else, and above all, Hungary, according to the principle of nationality. The Magyars and Germans must be separated and limited to the territory inhabited by them, and the Slavs delivered from their intolerable hegemony. ”

“ The Czech nation is convinced that such a humiliation as the tearing of a strip of territory from a nation so illustrious and heroic, so full of just national pride, would become a source of unending wars, and therefore of unending injuries to humanity and civilisation. ”