Edvard Beneš

“ Such is approximately the state of affairs in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia. The people, deprived of their most elementary rights and victuals, impoverished by a devastating war, martyred by brutal and cruel persecutions on the part of the police, military, and government, deprived of their leaders, their newspapers, books, and national songs, are given over to an ever-increasing and shameless Germanisation. Disorganised, abused, completely at the mercy of their tyrants, far from their natural Allies, and demoralised by false information, the people find themselves in a desperate situation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ We Czecho-Slovaks, who have borne so many bitter struggles and sufferings, to-day have full right to lead a complete and independent national existence. Our tenacity, our patience, our perseverance, and our incessant labours are the sure proofs that we will not fail in our mission. ”

“ It is a significant fact that today these three adversaries are considered the most malignant enemies of humanity: the history of the Czech nation shows that it was ever thus. If Europe to-day groans under the German-Austro-Magyar brutality, it must not be forgotten that the Czecho-Slovak nation has suffered under it for twelve hundred years. During these twelve centuries the Czechs were never the aggressors. ”

“ Hungary in the course of her historic evolution found herself in a totally different situation. The Turkish peril, the existence of national and somewhat independent sovereigns in Transylvania, and the necessity of the Habsburgs to treat with consideration the Hungarian feudal Estates, assured the Magyars a form of government much in their favour, which soon became traditional, and thus spared them the fate of Bohemia.
The Czechs, who had twice rebelled, were always a target for hostilities on the part of the Crown, and were reduced to impotence. ”

“ The sturdy vitality of a people that has survived persecution and oppression almost without precedent in European history needs no demonstration. The unification of Poland would deprive Austria and Germany of many more millions of oppressed Slavs who, like the Czechs, would help to safeguard the liberties of Europe. ”

“ Adventurers of all kinds came from every part of Europe to help the king in his war against Bohemia, and in place of the ancient Czech nobles a new aristocracy was created by the sovereign, who handed over to them the land of people suspected of heresy. This foreign aristocracy naturally showed itself very ready to fall in with the schemes of the Habsburgs, since its members received grants of land as a recompense for their docility; they made the feudal yoke weigh heavily upon the Czech nation, always using the defence of religion as a pretext for their oppression. ”

“ True, the note of the Allied Powers of 10th January 1917, in answer to President Wilson's message, stating the objects of the Quadruple Entente in this war, speaks first of the Czecho-Slovaks, and gives a guarantee of their liberation. But without waiting for this, we have already ranged ourselves on the side of the Allies—the nation of John Hus, the nation of Comenius, Kollar, Palacký, could not act otherwise.
Thus we do not come to France and England to implore Europe to save us from being crushed under the Pan-German yoke. Whatever we have done, we have accomplished as our duty. ”

“ In the course of this war we have observed with feelings of profound grief that the subversive propaganda conducted for years past by elements hostile to the State has succeeded in perverting the military honour and sense of duty of the Czech nation towards the State. This is a matter of common knowledge, and the enemies of the Czech people record it with the greatest precision. Certain troops recruited from the Czech countries failed to do their duty on the battlefields in spite of the glorious traditions of the ancient and famous Czech regiments. ”

“ Should Austria-Hungary, and her open and occult partisans, succeed in persuading the Allied Governments that the leopard can change his spots, there might still be a chance that the adoption of a formula like "the federalisation of Austria would save Germany from the full consequences of her crime by preserving in a new disguise the old Habsburg State which has been, is, and must remain a principal asset in German political calculations. ”

“ Until the fourteenth century the history of Bohemia is the history of wars against the Germans, while the history of the Southern Slavs records their struggles against the Turks. With the Czechs, the rôle of hereditary enemy was played by the Austro-Germans. Our earliest historical and literary documents, legends, customs, and traditions bear unmistakable traces of these struggles. Indeed, they colour our entire civilisation. ”

“ It is for these reasons that internally everything was in such a state of confusion and disorder, that the different nationalities, pitted one against another, only desired the destruction of this political and social organism, which was so obviously moribund, and which, by its structure, organisation, traditions, and system of government deserved nothing better than to be swept off the map of the world. ”

“ The free Slavs, in association and communication from the Baltic to the Adriatic, continually threatened by the Germans, will have every inducement to support each other. France and Italy, equally threatened by the Germans, will necessarily become their natural allies. Austria, broken up, will never again be able to furnish Germany, the formidable enemy of Great Britain, with 5,000,000 men as cannon-fodder. ”

“ It is in order to escape the sufferings of the past which again threaten them, to assure their peaceful progress in the future, to enable them to range themselves as an advanced and highly civilised nation on the side of the Allies, that the Czecho-Slovaks to-day make their appeal and ask for complete independence from Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin. ”

“ The intentional emphasis of news favourable to our enemies, but unfavourable to us, the praise of the political and economic conditions of our enemies, the disparagement of the conditions in our Monarchy, a hidden appeal for passive resistance to the necessities of war, and especially to the first two war loans, supplied the key to the news printed. ”

“ All political parties refused to swear loyalty to Austria. The people did not conceal their hostility towards the government, which several times provoked brutal repressions; the Press, in spite of the censorship, fought its uttermost against Austria in making known to the public by allusions and hints the true situation, and in cleverly bringing to light the contradictions and lies of the official information. ”

“ All these calculations presuppose the existence of Austria-Hungary. Turkey is too unstable to exist alone. The Germans have undertaken to take care of her. The road between Berlin and Constantinople had to be defended by faithful watch-dogs: this duty was to be confided to the Germans and Magyars of Austria-Hungary and to the Bulgarians in the Balkans. The customs union of Central Europe was destined to put the economic exploitation of these vast territories into the hands of Germany, and so render the Germans absolute masters of Central Europe. ”

“ Inhabiting the most western of the Slav territories, wedged deeply into the German block and surrounded by Magyars on the east, the position of the Czecho-Slovaks has made their history a history of perpetual struggle. There is not a single period in the history of this people which does not record a conflict with one or another of these three enemies. ”

“ They must resign themselves to defend the existence of a State which had ever oppressed them, to fight for an absolutist dynasty which had deprived them of moral and material wealth, to defend their enemies, and, as it were, assist at their own funeral. ”