upheld the principle of nationality, of the rights of small nations, and of equality between nations, i.e., the only principles by which the Czech nation can attain the position due to it in the world. And in the case of this people, it is more than a vague generalisation to say that the Czechs were conscious of this fact. We are speaking here of a nation which practically has no illiterates amongst its members, and in which the average level of education and well-being is higher than that of Germany, taken as a whole, and equal to those of Holland or the Scandinavian countries. Every Czech is conscious of the interests and ideals of his nationality. No wonder, then, that from the day the war was declared the Czechs were put by the Austrian Government under “special observation” and watched and muzzled as no other nationality in Austria-Hungary has been. “Naturally so,” someone might say in defence of the Austrian authorities, “because the Czechs are known to be hostile to the Austrian State.” But, then, why do all the Austrian official and semi-official scribblers pour out the neverending flow of cant about “the glorious unity and cohesion” of which the Hapsburg Monarchy has given proof in the war? How do they dare to maintain that the Czechs “do not want to be liberated”? The war is for the Hapsburg Monarchy not merely external, it is also a war on its submerged nationalities. The Czechs do not complain. War it is between them and the Germans and Magyars. But then the grip of the octopus should not be called an accolade of love.
If attachment to Austria is the dominant feeling among the Czechs, why were not those whom the
