Bohemia's case for independence/Appendix
APPENDIX
On the 10th of January 1917, the Allies' Governments sent to the President of the United States a reply to his Note of the 19th December 1916, in which the Allied Powers declare:—
"The civilised world knows that our war aims include primarily and of necessity the restoration of Belgium, of Serbia, and of Montenegro, with the compensation due to them; the evacuation of the invaded territories in France, Russia, and Rumania with fitting reparation; the reorganisation oi Europe guaranteed by a stable settlement, based upon the principle of nationality, on the right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of full security and free economic development, and also upon territorial agreements and international arrangements so framed as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjust attacks; the restitution of provinces or territories formerly torn from the Allies by force or contrary to the wishes of their inhabitants; the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians, and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination; the liberation of the people who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks, and the expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, which has proved itself so radically alien to Western civilisation.
By this Note the Allies have in principle accepted the programme of the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary.
In another place in this book we spoke of the famous surrender of the 28th Regiment of Prague, called "Children of Prague." The following is an Order of the Day issued by the Commandant-in-Chief and read to all regiments at the front and at the bases and camps in the interior:—
"Soldiers! On April 3rd, 1915, almost the whole of the 28th Regiment surrendered, without fighting, to a single enemy battalion! This disgraceful act has ruined the reputation for heroism and gallantry of this regiment, of which our whole Army was justly proud. The young reservists called up to complete the forces of the regiment have arrived from the country completely corrupted by the malicious propaganda of individuals who, by perverting the spirit of our military youth, have served the interests at our enemies.
"With the old soldiers, the spirit of loyalty and devotion to Austria has steadily increased and has won for their regiments and battalions esteem and glory. But since the young reservists after short instruction have rejoined their regiment, their bad influence upon the spirit of the regiment has at once become obvious.
"The infamous and disgraceful act of the 3rd of April 1915, not only destroys the reputation of this regiment, but necessitates its name being struck off the list of our Army Corps until new deeds of heroism retrieve its character.
"His Apostolic Majesty, our sublime military Commandant-in-Chief, has ordered by his decree of April 17th, 1915, the temporary dissolution of the 28th Regiment and the deposition of its banners in the Army Museum. Full of indignation and pain, you brave soldiers born in the same country, have to promise to expiate and efface by your blood the infamous and disgraceful act of that regiment. Our enemy, who does not hesitate to employ the most cowardly means to secure the success of his arms, must learn that there are still soldiers in this country devoted to their Emperor and King.
III. Magyar Testimony to the Conduct of Czecho-Slovak Soldiers.
Everybody knows the rôle played by Czecho-Slovak soldiers during this war.
Count Tisza himself admitted in the Hungarian Parliament that they were unreliable. "It is of no use," he said, "to dwell on the reasons why the Czechs cannot be left in the garrisons of Bohemia." As a matter of fact, the Czech soldiers have been sent to garrisons in Hungary in order to be separated from the Czech people and their revolutionary, anti-Austrian influence.
During the same discussion Count Windischgraetz stated that the Chief Staff dared use them only when mixed with Magyars and Germans. But even then they would not run the risk of despatching them to the first line. And yet all these precautions were insufficient, as is proved by the events which took place in Transylvania.
The following is a passage from a speech delivered by M. Urmanczy, deputy of the Magyar Independence Party, during the session of the Budapest Parliament on September 5th, 1916:—
"At the beginning of the Rumanian campaign, a Czech regiment occupied a very important position in the Toelgyes Pass. When during the night of August 27th the Rumanians delivered an attack, the gendarmerie tried to resist, while a detachment of Pioneers endeavoured to destroy the bridges. The Czechs, however, retired without the slightest resistance! This happened six to nine miles from the Rumanian frontier. A few days later, the Czechs mustered again at Marosheviz, a town situated some thirty miles from the frontier; there they seized all provisions and behaved as if in a conquered territory; then, after having plundered the country, they disappeared nobody knows where. That is a military farce, the costs of which are paid by us. I do not want to enter into details.
"The invasion of Transylvania is one of the most serious disasters, and the carelessness and mistakes of our government are colossal, but the sole responsibility rests on the Austrian diplomacy and command and the Magyar Government. I do not want to paint the situation darker than it really is. If I speak of it, it is because I wish my feeble voice to reach the Emperor of Germany. He has already taken over the command of the Austrian Army. If he would succeed, he must take a further step and place under his tutelage a group of six or eight irresponsible persons who, by the side of our old King, direct the country's affairs. This is necessary, the more so as we have in our army soldiers who in no case may be relied upon."
The Austrian Premier, Count Clam-Martinitz, has employed a curious stratagem to regain the Czechs for Austria. While his predecessors did not dare to speak in public of the acts of treason committed by the Czechs during the war, the new Austrian Premier, who in certain quarters was wrongly taken for a Czech, has at last made up his mind to speak out the truth, already known to the whole world. At the same time he has attempted to reinstate the bulk of the nation in the eyes of the world, thus hoping to leave a way open for Austrophile policy to those Czecho-Slovak politicians who have not as yet compromised themselves.
It was this hope that induced him to issue two curious documents which constitute the most authentic testimony to the attitude of the Czecho-Slovak nation during this war, and which are also a proof of the desire of Austria to conciliate after twenty-nine months of war a people without which the monarchy could not exist.The first of the two documents is a resolution proposed by Count Clam-Martinitz in the Electoral Committee of Large Landowners of Bohemia on December 6th, 1916, which he hoped would give him certain powers and prepare the ground for his mission. The second document is the verdict passed on the Czech deputy, Kramář.
The first document contains amongst other things the following:—
"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. Behind the front also this criminal agitation has had its fruits; moreover, part of the Czech Press, especially during the first months of the war, failed in loyalty to Austria.
"Nevertheless we may say with satisfaction that for some time there has been an improvement in this respect, and it would certainly be ungrateful not to recognise emphatically that other Czech soldiers have been fighting bravely in the ranks of our valiant army and have given their blood for their country, thus showing that the whole nation is not involved in this hostility to the Monarchy."
The tendency of this extraordinary manifesto, issued, it seems, with the Emperor's approval, is obvious: the Czechs have only to repent to obtain remission of their treason and the forgiveness of the new Emperor. In offering peace to the Allies on December 10th, 1916, the Emperor again showed his willingness to restore the status quo of the Czechs, conditionally on their becoming loyal to Austria.
On May 21st, 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Commandant-in-Chief, Archduke Frederick, ordered the Czech deputy, Charles Kramář, the leader of the Young Czechs, to be arrested. He was brought with his colleague, Deputy Rašín, and two other friends, Červinka and Zamazal, before the military court, on the charge of high treason. After more than six months' remand the trial was opened. To the surprise and indignation of all, Kramář and his three friends were condemned to death, though no incriminating proofs were produced. It caused a great scandal everywhere, Austria-Hungary not excepted. Kramář made an appeal, but the High Tribunal confirmed the sentence. Nevertheless Austria was afraid to execute the condemned, and, wishing to finish an affair which had produced so much indignation everywhere, she tried to clear it up by a manoeuvre which at the same time would intimidate the rebellious Czechs and bring them to their knees.
The Premier actually proposed to the Emperor to pardon the four Czechs sentenced to death, but also to make an example of them for the Czech nation. The sentence on Dr Kramář was commuted to fifteen years, that of Rašín to ten years, and that of the journalists Červinka and Zamazal to six years' penal servitude. In addition, the two deputies Kramář and Rašín were deprived of their Parliamentary mandates. Needless to say, this magnanimous act of the Emperor was not disinterested, but had an ulterior motive,
Count Clam-Martinitz composed an official communiqué, published on January 4th, 1917, which enumerated the motives of the sentence, stigmatised the horrid treason of the Czechs in the army and abroad, and ended by the resolution mentioned above, that the Czech nation is not entirely corrupt, and that its leaders may yet reinstate themselves in the eyes of their mother-country, Austria-Hungary.
Thus for the first time the monstrous judgment on Kramář was officially made known. The following is the text of the document:—
"The verdict of the Court of First Instance was that Dr Kramář was active against his own State before and after the outbreak of war, as the leader of the Pan-SIav propaganda and of the Russophil movement in Bohemia, by consciously co-operating with the enterprises which aimed at the destruction of the Monarchy. A widespread and organised revolutionary propaganda has been initiated in enemy as well as in neutral countries with the object of destroying our Monarchy by the severance of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia, and other lands inhabited by Slavs; the bringing about and increase of internal dangers in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; the preparation of revolts and civil wars in the interior, and the working by every possible means for the formation of a Czech State, independent of Austria-Hungary. The propaganda has been conducted, on the one hand, by Czechs residing abroad and those who escaped there after the outbreak of war (among whom are to be specially mentioned the Deputies Masaryk and Durich, and the former editor of Národní Listy, Pavlů, who as ensign deserted to the enemy’s ranks), and on the other hand by foreigners who before the war had occupied themselves with the so-called Czech question in a sense hostile to the Monarchy, but who, after the outbreak of war, proved themselves to be decided enemies of our Empire (Denis, Leger, Cheradame, Count Bobrinski, General Volodimorov, and others).
"Their means of propaganda were: the publication of newspapers which almost exclusively promulgated the idea of severance from the Empire (La Nation tchèque, L'Indépendance tchecoslovaque , Cechoslovak, Cechoslovan); the publication of declarations and manifestoes, of programmes and newspaper articles in other foreign papers; the foundation of societies and propaganda committees for the attainment of the above-mentioned object; the holding of meetings and congresses (in Prague,1908 and 1912; in Petrograd, 1909, and others); and finally, the organisation and equipment of Czech volunteer legions in Russia, France, and England, and their employment in the enemy armies. Furthermore, after the outbreak of war there appeared among a certain portion of the Czech inhabitants of the Monarchy a number of cases showing not only a state of mind inimical to the State, but acts which might seriously injure the successful prosecution of the war as far as economic and military affairs are concerned.
"The decision further considers as proven that long before the outbreak of war some Czech politicians, especially Kramář, had initiated and fostered a movement at congresses and on other occasions which, masquerading as Neoslavism, and, under the motto of Slav Reciprocity, developed from an apparently cultural movement into an actively treasonable one, in that it was preparing for the separation of the Czecho-Slovak countries from the Empire. According to the opinion of the military court this movement, of which the accused Kramář was one of the originators, instigators, and leaders—the accused Rašín took part in it only in a remote way—is the main cause of all the treasonable acts at home and abroad, behind the lines and at the front.
"The causal connection between these events and the accused—which did not cease even after the outbreak of war—is to be deduced from the following circumstances:—
"1. As far as the revolutionary propaganda abroad is concerned it is proven that the accused Kramář was in communication with the publishers, propagators, and editors of certain treasonable newspapers and publications, and especially with Brancianinov, Bobrinski, Denis, Masaryk, Pavlů, Propper, and others; that further he was a contributing editor of Novoje Zveno, which before and after the outbreak of war the dismembennent of the Monarchy was openly demanded, and in which paper Dr Kramář's name conspicuously appeared on the titlepage. It is especially to be mentioned that between the thoughts, aims, and expressions of these treasonable publications on the one hand, and the accused and the Národní Listy on the other, there is a suspicious similarity.
"2. Dr Kramář used the Národní Listy as the organ of his politics, and exercised over them a decisive influence, but Rašín as the co-editor was also actve in the same sense as Kramář, even though his activity did not reach the same dimensions, his sphere being principally economics and finance. Three articles, namely, those of August 4th, 1914, January 1st, 1916, and April 1916, give special proof of Kramář's activity in the Národní Listy. In them Dr Kramář manifests enthusiasm for the liberation of small nations to be accomplished in case of Allied victory in the world war, and for the development which will come to his nation awaking from sleep and rising from humiliation to a new life. The Czech nation will develop its strength and attain its unification and organisation only after the catastrophe to which this war must lead. The style of this paper was in other respects also hostile to the Monarchy for a certain period after the outbreak of war.
"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.
"3. A copy of the periodical, La Nation tchèque, published in France, contains several articles dealing in a sharp and detailed manner with the thoughts and aims of the treasonable propaganda above described. This periodical, which manifestly illustrates the programme of Kramář and his followers, was found in Kramář's coat-pocket when he was imprisoned, and his excuse that the periodical was uncut, and that he did not know its contents, is, as was proven, untrue. The publisher of the periodical, La Nation tchèque, is Professor Denis, Kramář's friend, then a regular contributor to the Národní Listy; the secretary of the Paris periodical is Kepl, then the Paris correspondent of the Národní Listy. Other foreign printed matter of a similar nature was also found in Kramář's house; among his papers, further, the Czech text of two articles from the London Times containing similar views was found.
"4. An important cause of suspicion for criminal proceedings against Kramář is also his secret conversation with the Italian Consul in a Prague hotel in April 1915, shortly before Italy's declaration of war.
"5. In a copy of a letter to the Viceroy, Prince Thun, found in Kramář's house, he, Kramář, expressly admitted that, always faithful to his political principles, he refrains from everything that might appear as approval of the war, and that his and the Národní Listy's conduct in regard to the war loan is guided by that conviction. According to the opinion of the Court, it is necessary to ascribe the painful phenomena which manifested themselves among a portion of the Czech population, and which placed considerable obstacles in the way of a successful conclusion of the war, to this activity of the accused. In this respect reference must be made especially to the distribution of treasonable Russian proclamations in Bohemia and Moravia; to the repeated manifestations of sympathy for the enemy; to the numerous but necessary criminal prosecutions for political offences; further, to the fact that Kramář, as the leader of the Czech deputies, is, in the first place, responsible for the refusal to take part in a manifestation of loyalty contemplated by the Czech deputies at the beginning of the war; and finally to the insignificant participation of the Czech population in the first two war loans as well as in the war collection of metal and the collections for the Red Cross. Actual cases, such as the organisation and the establishing of Czech volunteer legions in enemy countries, the dishonourable conduct of some Czech prisoners of war in enemy countries, who forgot their duty, the fact that in a certain portion of the army men surrendered repeatedly without being forced to do so, the misconduct of certain Czech regiments behind the lines and at the front, which was dangerous to the State and subversive of military discipline, which had the most disastrous effect on our operations, and which brought about the success of the enemy forces and had a demoralising effect on ours—the responsibility for all these falls on the shoulders of Kramář and Rašín as the result of years of agitation. According to what has been said, the activity of the accused Kramář and Rašín tended not only to bring about a forcible change in the territorial condition of the Empire, to increase internal dangers and foment revolts (Section 58c, 59b of Criminal Law), but their undermining activities caused serious injury to the power of military operations against the enemy, wherefore the Court found that, besides the criminal offence, an offence against the military power of the State was involved according to Section 327 of the Military Criminal Law.
"As far as the other two accused, Zamazal and Červinka, are concerned, the Court found that Zamazal, who had Russophil leanings and convictions inimical to the State, was, after the outbreak of war, occupied in spying out matters of military importance and conditions necessary to the defence of the State, as well as those regarding the operations of the Army. For that purpose, he collected news and and with expert knowledge, information regarding important military and strategic matters, and communicated them not only to individual persons, but also to newspapers, and especially to the Národní Listy. For similar purposes he undertook two trips to the war zone, until he was finally imprisoned on suspicion of espionage. Zamazal was in contact with the Národní Listy through the secretary of the paper, Vincenz Červinka, who, as has been proved, was, by means of a fiictitious address, corresponding via Rumania with individuals abroad who were guilty of high treason (Pavlů and others). According to the opinion of experts in military science, the circumstantial evidence—as, for example, the fact that Červinka in a letter advised Zamazal to collect the news with care—tends to prove that the activity of the two men in question served the interests of our enemy.
"The preceding proofs, taken from the record of the judgment, give the main features brought out in the course of proceedings regarding the whole organisation inimical to the State. Even though this picture is not a pleasing one, nevertheless the proceedings have shown, on the other hand, that only a relatively small portion of the Czech nation and its leaders was misled by the criminal agitation. It would therefore be erroneous to make the patriotic portion of the Czech nation responsible for the above-mentioned regrettable conditions. They vehemently condemn the errors of those referred to, the more so as at present an enlightened leadership of the Czech nation is exerting great efforts to bring the whole population back again to the Austrian State idea. It may be mentioned that the great majority of the Czech soldiers are fighting, as always, with great bravery, which is proved by their sanguinary losses and the numerous and well-merited high decorations they have received.
"Let him suffer a deserved punishment who is guilty. We must, however, refrain—as is only just—from indulging in general suspicion and condemnation."
