René Pichon

“ There are very few higher officers among the Czechs. In the Austrian Army the highest posts were for the most part closed, in practice, to the Slavs, as in Germany to the Jews. Thus the Czech troops at present lack leaders; but good ones will soon be formed.
“In return for this collaboration in our defence the Czechs ask us nothing! There has been no bargain between them and the Allied Powers. They claim no pledge which might embarrass us. They only claim the right to shed their blood for the cause which they feel to be just and to coincide with their destinies as a people. ”

“ It comes, too, at a good moment, to console us for a disappointment and to preserve us from an injustice. In our bitterness at the defection of the Russians, some of us might be tempted to bear a grudge against all that is Slav. A false and unjust generalisation. In Russia the Slav temperament has been depressed by centuries of servility, corrupted by a morbid mysticism and by Socialistic Utopias; in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia it survives firm and robust. Morally the Czechs are more like the Serbs than the Russians ”

“ This does not mean that we ought to forget, later on, what they do for us; but such an attitude on their part is at once the most, generous and the most happily inspired. Like the philosopher who proved motion by walking, the Czech nation proves its existence by action and struggle. ”