Thomas Čapek

“ You form the finest portion of her empire, and you are treated as a mere province to be used as an instrument of passions to which you are strangers. You have rational customs and a national language; you pride yourself on your ancient and illustrious origin. Assume once more your position as a nation. Choose a king for yourselves, who shall reign for you alone, who shall dwell in your midst and be surrounded by your citizens and your soldiers.”—Napoleon’s proclamation found no echo among the people for whom it was intended. ”

“ The dread of the Germans was the dominant theme of Czech history As late as the dawn of the nineteenth century, faint hearted men in Bohemia freely gave expression to their fears that the Czech race had lost the never ceasing battle with Germanism and that the same fate awaited it which had met the Slav Obodrites, the Polabians north of them—denationalization. ”

“ Is it really true that the Slavs are loyal? Is it not rather a loyalty wrung from them at the point of the bayonet? Besides, how can they protest against a war which was neither of their choosing nor of their making, when the military rule has made protests impossible? One must respect and even admire the French and the Germans when they declare that they are fighting for the existence of the fatherland. ”

“ The Czech nation, Palacký subsequently maintained, survived not because of help from Austria, but because of its own will and determination to live. He deplored his delusion that he had phantasied about Austria. He emphasized that he had lost faith in the preservation of the empire in which the absolutism of the monarch, as it existed prior to 1848, had given place to the absolutism of a favored race. One day, though it may be too late, he said, the dynasty and the monarchy will realize how really indispensable to the safety of the state the Czechs were. ”

“ The residence of the sovereign and the seat of the government and the capital—not of the empire, mind you, but of the Archduchy of Lower Austria. The capital of Hungary is Budapest; the centre of attraction of the Poles is Cracow; the heart of the Bohemians is Prague. What has been the attitude of Vienna toward the non-German peoples and their national needs? The good-natured Viennese has for decades seen the Slavs caricatured on the stage, or in the humorous journals, as hopeless simpletons, while the Bohemian Wenzel was chosen by common consent as the quintessence of stupidity. ”

“ If the Vienna Neue Freie Presse and other Austrian journals chose to represent―or rather misrepresent―them to the world as scheming pan-Slav agitators, as narrow minded nationalists, in whose country it was unsafe for a foreign tourist to travel, as incorrigible trouble makers who, more than any other people in Austria, were responsible for the existence in the empire of racial struggles, the belief eventually gained ground that they were Pan-Slavs, chauvinists, trouble-breeders. ”

“ To the last Havlíček remained steadfast to the cause he had championed—the liberation from bondage of his nation. Havlíček’s colors were red and white (Bohemian national colors) , and neither threats nor favors could swerve him from his chosen path: [11] “They banished you from the fatherland,” wrote Pinkas to Havlíček, “but they transformed the fatherland itself into a fortress and a jail. We live here the most unhappy lives conceivable. Not a ray of light enters our intellectual prison to brighten it.” ”

“ Moreover, should the Bohemian-Germans be allowed to rend in twain the ancient Bohemian Kingdom, where would the security, the protection against invasion, be on the part of the Czechoslovak Republic? Look at the diamond shaped range of mountains forming a natural barrier on three sides and walling in the country. Then judge for yourself whether the Czechoslovak people could long maintain themselves against a neighbor lusting for conquest, if deprived of the natural protection which these mountains offer? ”

“ For decades they have worked for solidarity among the Slavs, so much so that their endeavors in this direction have earned for them the title of the Apostles of Pan-Slavism. Is it reasonable to suppose that they would suddenly turn traitors to one of the most cherished traditions of their race and shout enthusiastically for a war which, if successful for the two Kaisers, would mean their certain obliteration? If Germany should win, the eventual absorption by her of Austria would be probable, if not inevitable. ”

“ And shortly before his retirement from public life, he addressed to Vienna those memorable words, which sent a thrill of pride through every Czech heart: “We were before Austria and we shall exist after her.”
Such, then, was the mental evolution of the man who defined his early political program by saying that, “If Austria ceased to exist, we should have to create an Austria.”
The Frankfort Parliament of 1848, pursuing the dream of a Greater Germany, invited Austria to elect deputies. The Austrian Germans, always eager for a closer union with Germany, accepted this invitation ”

“ I am a Bohemian of Slavic origin, and all I possess and command I place wholly and forever at the service of my own country. It is true that my nation is small, but from the very beginning it has possessed its own historical individuality. Its princes on occasions have acted in common with German princes, but the people have never regarded themselves as Germans, nor have others, during all these centuries, included them amongst them. ”

“ Does the Czechoslovak of today possess the qualities which one usually attributes to successful state builders? “Our nation”, wrote Charles Velemínský, a Czech pedagogue who visited the United States, “has ever been idealistic, sacrificing all for its ideals. Idealism must be our most precious offering to America. Without ideals even practical America is unthinkable.” ”

“ If there is one thing deeply rooted in the minds of the Bohemian people it is the belief, or rather the conviction, that the Hapsburgs, beginning with Ferdinand II, and ending with Francis Josef, the present sovereign, one and all planned the Germanization of the nation. Vienna newspapers make much of the fact that Bohemia has advanced under the rule of Francis Josef as under no other Hapsburg—and they seek to convey the impression that this remarkable renascence should be credited to his reign. ”

“ A close observer of the Austrian shadows is justified in thinking that the Bohemian people, so long suppressed, stand on the threshold of a new destiny. This destiny points to the restoration of their ancient freedom. If the Allies win—and every loyal son of the Land of Hus fervently wishes that their arms might prevail, notwithstanding the fact that Bohemian soldiers are constrained to fight for the cause of the two Kaisers—Bohemia is certain to re-enter the family of self-governing European nations. ”

“ For Austria to pursue further its policy of Teutonism is madness. If the monarchy wishes to live it must be neither German, for there is no room in Europe for two Germanic Empires side by side, nor wholly Slavonic, like Russia. Her manifest destiny is, or rather has been, to form a bridge between Germany and Russia, between the Slavs and Teutons, between the west and the east. For Germany to go to war to fight the Slavic peril is conceivable, even justifiable ”

“ Years ago T. G. Masaryk, a prominent Bohemian deputy, delivered a scathing denunciation in parliament, in which he took the government to task for its anti-Slavic policy. “Extirpate, Germanize, that is and has been the favorite policy of the government for decades,” said Masaryk. “Extirpate whom? The Slavs, of course, and first among them the Bohemians. A nation as vigorous and virile as our Bohemian nation is bound, if persecuted, to seek and find new outlets for its surplus energy. ”

“ If the Canadian Government had treated its citizens of French origin in the same rough-shod manner as Vienna has treated the Bohemians, or Budapest the Slovaks, Serbs, or Rumuns, she would have made rebels of every one of them, instead of loyal citizens. The Swiss Republic is the home of three races, French, German, and Italian, and yet we hear of no racial friction among them. And when and where did the national, state, or city government in the United States interfere when this or that people of foreign origin desired to build a school or establish a clubhouse? ”