Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

“ His brother Vratislav set himself against this policy, and tried to make the province of Moravia a centre of opposition to the king. But Spitihnĕv invaded Moravia, forced Vratislav to fly to Hungary, and treated his wife with such cruelty that she died from the effects. In order to make his power yet more secure, the Duke persuaded his other brothers, Otto and Conrad, to abandon their claims to the special districts of Moravia, which their father had granted to them, and to come to the ducal court at Prague. ”

“ Strange as it sounds, in speaking of so turbulent a country, it is none the less true that, till this time, there had been no instance of a combined national resistance in Bohemia to a King who was the sole lawful claimant of the throne. There had been plenty of instances of setting up rival members of the royal family against each other; attempts by discontented nobles to call in a foreign King or Emperor to their help; and even something like a provincial insurrection of Moravia against Bohemia ”

“ Sobeslav, the next Duke of Bohemia, had just obtained the throne by the influence of his mother Svatava, who had persuaded the Bohemian nobles to ignore the claims of her eldest son, Otto. Otto at once appealed to Lothar, who asserted his right, as Emperor, to decide the succession to the Dukedom of Bohemia.
Such a claim would have been resented at any time; but Otto had specially offended Bohemian feeling, by consenting to hold the province of Moravia as a fief from the Emperor, instead of a dependency of the Duke of Bohemia. All the national feeling of independence at once burst into flame ”

“ Had Matthias been a shrewder politician, he would have abstained from giving artificial stimulus to the local jealousies of his subjects, and would have suffered them to grow into importance of their own accord. It soon appeared that, whatever reaction might be exerted by the king’s mischief-making policy, the rivalry between Moravia and Bohemia was still an important force in national politics. It is not easy to estimate the exact force of all the considerations which influenced the leaders of the rival provinces. ”

“ Up to this time the rulers of Bohemia had been called princes or dukes, as was also the case in regard to Moravia. Henry further rewarded Vratislav by making his brother Jaromir (Gebhart) chancellor of the realm, and provided that at the death of the Bishop of Moravia, the two bishoprics should be reunited. Finally he accepted four thousand pounds of silver as full payment for all the tribute that Bohemia should ever pay to the empire; but after that the king was to furnish three hundred men to accompany the emperor whenever he went to Rome for his coronation. ”

“ But this very distinct lack of appreciation of the Emperor's demands on the part of the Bohemian Estates let loose all the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict which, waged under the cloak of religion and with the blessings of Rome, set back civilization in Central Europe for many generations. For the Czech inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia, as for those of Teuton origin who sympathized with the liberal movement of the time, the battle of the White Mountain and its tragic sequel on that 21st of June was the death-knell of their hopes. ”

“ Towards the end of July (1618) the Imperial forces—about 12,000 men—coming from Moravia and Austria, crossed the Bohemian frontier at several points. Their leaders, Bouquoi and Dampierre, effected a junction at Německý Brod on September 9. The first news of the entry of the Austrian troops into the country caused a panic at Prague. The military reputation of the Imperial generals was well known in the country, while the Bohemian commanders—with the possible exception of Thurn—were little trusted by their soldiers. ”

“ It was from the east that Christianity completely and permanently penetrated into Moravia and Bohemia. In 862 the Moravian Prince Rostislav, who, though invested with sovereignty by the Germans had soon renewed the national feuds with them, sent a mission to the court of the Greek Emperor at Constantinople, asking him to send Christian teachers of the Slavonic race to Moravia.
The envoys thus addressed Michael, the then ruler of the Eastern empire: "Our people have rejected paganism and already observe Christian law. ”

“ The return of peace enabled the Empress Maria Theresa to carry out the plans she had previously formed of reorganizing the vast Habsburg dominions. Even during the reign of Charles VI, the Empress's father, these various racially and historically distinct countries were, to a great extent, governed according to their ancient laws and traditions. Beside the high officials of Prague, no longer indeed elected by the Estates, but appointed by the Austrian Government, Bohemia was administered by the "Bohemian secret court chancellery" (Böheimische Geheime Hof Kanzlei) . ”

“ When once a free Bohemian land emerges in the heart of Central Europe we shall know that the flood of German-Magyar aggression is receding, never to rise again. For the Powers which establish Bohemian independence will by that very act be united in the future against a possible recrudescence of German Imperialism. There is not a single State among the Allies whose interests clash with those of the Czech nation. To all of them the freedom of Bohemia will be a safeguard against a new German advance and a barometer of German pressure. ”

“ Thousands of recalcitrant Bohemian soldiers have been executed, and wholesale confiscations have been levied against the families of those who have been taken prisoners; yet still the desertions go on.
A people so devoted and resourceful can not be destroyed and should not be held in tutelage. When the war ends, there should be an independent republic of Bohemia. ”

“ An important landmark in the history of the movement for the independence of Bohemia is the decree regulating the status of the Czechoslovak army in France. Its great significance consists in this, that France, if not all the Allies, has officially proclaimed the Czechoslovak people for her ally and has given recognition to the Czechoslovak National Council as the revolutionary government of Bohemia. The decree is known in Bohemia, as the Vienna Neue Freie Presse published in it full. ”

“ The Bohemian question is not a mere question of nationality, and cannot be solved by granting a greater or less degree of home rule and autonomy; there are political considerations as well. Bohemia is struggling for independence, and the achievement of that independence is in the interests of the Allies—nay more, it is a necessity for them. ”

“ Břetislav also established a regular order of succession to the throne, to obviate the constant struggles among the members of the reigning family (1054) . With the consent of the nobles he decreed that the oldest member of the house of Přemysl was alone to be sovereign ruler of Bohemia, which was always to remain undivided. The younger princes of the reigning family were to receive lands in Moravia, which they were to rule under the supremacy of the head of the Přemyslide dynasty. ”

“ It has already been noted that Žerotin, the leader of the "Unity" in Moravia, who also exercised great influence over the Brethren in Bohemia, totally refused to join the movement against the house of Habsburg. It remains to allude to the hopeless situation of Bohemia in its relations to foreign countries. A country such as Bohemia, neither very large nor very rich, was at best unable to resist the entire power of that absolutist alliance between Spain, Austria and Rome which Fra Paoli Sarpi termed the diacatholicon. ”

“ Not only was the greater part of Moravia held down by Albert of Austria, but, in Bohemia itself, the strong fortress of Carlstein, and the important towns of Budweis (Budejóvice) , Pilsen (Plz̆en) , and Eger (Cheb) , still held out against the Utraquists. Moreover, the discontent with the power which Procop had gained by his victories, was working among the more moderate section of the Utraquists in favour of a settlement in which learned men should have more power than soldiers. ”

“ The manly independence and the solicitude for individual political rights always exhibited by the Bohemian people have rendered them the teachers of nations; and their principles and parliamentary constitution have gradually penetrated into every country under heaven.
"They protected and preserved the rights of men during long ages when those rights were elsewhere unknown or trampled down. Bohemia has been the birthplace and the shelter of the modern politics of freedom."
But Bohemia has also been for centuries the culture center of central 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. ”

“ Fortunately the leading statesmen of Britain and her Allies grasped the true situation, as has been clearly shown by their programme proclaiming the liberation of the non-German and non-Magyar nations of Austria-Hungary—in other words, the dismemberment of the Dual Monarchy. One of the nations to be liberated is the Czecho-Slovak, which, as I have tried to show, has the full right to independence. Bohemia is, indeed, in point of law, an independent state whose ancient rights are disputed and violated by the Germans and Magyars. ”

“ The only offense of the Bohemian king is that he is Slav, but that, with the jealousy of his power, the democratic institutions, and the wealth of his country, which contains the richest mines of silver in Europe, is sufficient. Great armies, German and Hungarian, are raised against him; finally he is treacherously slain in battle, his kingdom torn apart, and Bohemia is ravished and reduced almost to a "possession" or a fief of the Empire.
Yet the wound is not mortal, the nation is too strong ”

“ The Estates might make Protestant laws, and refuse to vote necessary taxes for his wars; their power must therefore be practically suppressed; the king must be allowed to re-model the Constitution, to appoint officials, to raise forces, and to levy taxes, without interference from any other authority. Nay, might not Prague rise, again, against his authority? Therefore the king must carry off the Bohemian crown to Vienna, and govern Bohemia by the advice of Austrian councillors. ”

“ Though the soil of Bohemia is still subject to the enemy, Bohemia has its own revolutionary government, recognized by foreign powers, as well as its own revolutionary army, both on the eastern and the western front.
Russia, the center of interest for all the allied nations, is also in a narrower sense the center of interest for the Bohemians. What will become of the 60,000 Czechoslovak soldiers in Russia, is a question of unflagging concern to all members of the Bohemian National Alliance. ”

“ Austria has never existed de jure for the Czechs; not one of the Czech national parties has renounced its claims, and even to-day the Czech parties in Bohemia are bringing forward the programme of the independence of the kingdom of Bohemia to set against the enterprise of a Pan-German Central Europe. ”

“ Besides, there are numerous German-speaking enclaves situated in purely Czech districts; on the other hand, the Czechs have shown a tendency to invade the purely German mining and manufacturing districts. Notwithstanding its rich natural resources and its great industrial development, Bohemia sends out a steady flow of emigrants, who either settle in the other provinces of the monarchy, in Germany and in Russia, or cross the Atlantic to America. ”

“ For many reasons, notably out of deference to the feelings of the Russian Government, a Czech Republic is quite impracticable, but in restoring the ancient Kingdom of Bohemia, the Czechs have no national dynasty to whom they can turn. A German prince is of course out of the question, and they may perhaps experience some difficulty in finding a suitable candidate for the new throne among the reigning families of the West. ”

“ The Omaha district of the Bohemian National Alliance| has sent a powerful appeal in behalf of Bohemia to all the representatives in Congress of the plains states. The appeal closes in these words: “Justice demands the establishment of a Czechoslovak State, a free and independent Bohemia; world peace demands it; the interests of this country demand it. The honor of our country and that of our Allies and the ideals of liberty and democracy on which our government rests and which we entered the war to secure and defend, likewise demand that Bohemia again be free and independent.” ”

“ And even as he tells it, his heart nurses the inward hope that the foreign tyrants who oppress him may one day be vanquished and annihilated.
That such were the wishes of the Czech people, the Great War has shown. They have proved by their deeds their love of freedom; and to-day Czechs are fighting bravely in every Allied army and in their own national units formed in Russia. May their Austrian oppressors be brought to the ground, and may Bohemia regain the freedom for which she has longed for three centuries! ”