Page:Edvard Beneš – Bohemia's case for independence.pdf/83

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CZECHO-SLOVAKS AND THE WAR, 1914
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mother of three little children; a workman in Prague; two students, and the sister of the editor of L'Indépendance Tchécoslovaque, Mlle Sychrava Prague. The trial commenced on November 13th, 1916, but was again adjourned pending further investigations. The police know that the Czecho-Slovak National Council is in touch with Bohemia, from where it obviously receives information. The tribunal, however, felt the flimsiness of the "proofs." The relations of Bohemia with the Council have been neither discovered nor disproved.

Among other trials we may mention that of the municipal councillor of Prague, M. Matějovský, and of fifteen municipal clerks, charged with circulating the Russian proclamation to the Czechs, and with secretly publishing a journal. All the accused were sentenced, in February 1915, to many years' imprisonment.

At the beginning of May 1915 six persons, among whom were two girls, were condemned to death in Kyjov, Moravia, for having circulated the manifesto of Grand Duke Nicholas. On the same charge sixty-nine persons from Brno were brought before the court-martial of Vienna, and fifteen of them were sentenced to death. The Governor executed some of them merely to spread terror among the population.

To sum up, there is nothing more eloquent than