course, included, if they will accept equality and not seek domination.” What the President unquestionably wanted to do was to assure the German people that their national state would be left intact; that there would be no attempt to disrupt Germany as a national state. Austria is not a national state; it is not a nation even in the political sense of the term; it has become a wholly artificial entity, without a solid foundation in the facts of international life. Nor could the President intend to guarantee to Germany the booty gained in previous wars, such as Alsace-Lorraine and Posen.
But in any event the signing of a peace protocol does not necessarily mean peace in the real sense of the term. A state of war may exist without an actual clash of arms, and without bloodshed. Austria-Hungary has been the scene of what in its effects was real warfare ever since the rise of the spirit of nationality. Because of this warfare, parliamentary life in Austria was impossible and the state brought to impotence and the very verge of bankruptcy. Indeed, this warfare without bloodshed led to the present bloody struggle; was one of its proximate causes. Therefore if there is to be really permanent peace, this bloodless warfare must be stopped, and it can only be stopped by complying with the demands of the Roumanians, Italians, Czechoslovaks and Jugoslavs, all of whom are anti-Austrian. Only a minority of Austrian peoples, the Germans and Magyars, care for the preservation of Austria, and even then only if they can maintain their hegemony.
Speaking for the Czechoslovaks,—I hope this will not be considered presumptuous—they will never again voluntarily submit to Austrian sovereignty and Hapsburg rule. The Czechoslovak people demand complete and absolute independence and will not cease their warfare upon the House of Hapsburg and Austria until their ideal, absolute independence, is realized. This is the position of the whole nation, as is best evidenced by recent declarations in the Austrian Parliament, by a recent manifesto of Czech authors and artists, and by repeated declarations of Czech workingmen. Permanent peace is possible only when nations are satisfied in their legitimate desires.
What We Have to Contend With.
A Letter to My Bohemian Friends, by René Pichon.
At the moment, when the fourth year of the great war is about to open, at the moment, too, when La Nation Tchèque takes a new departure in its untiring propaganda, it may perhaps be well to look back a little, to size up the present situation and to consider our hopes for the future. Shall we, my dear Czech friends, cast the balance together?
It has not been a failure; far from it, it is even a comforting balance. Your moral position in France, and I believe in all the Allied countries, is infinitely better than in 1914. The official world ignores you no longer. It has granted you by degrees a status which, if not completely satisfactory, protects at least your most essential interests. And above all, it has, in a solemn manner, in the note to President Wilson, included your name among the peoples who are to benefit by the restoration of national rights. The press which had ignored you for a long time begins to speak of you, and it speaks of you with some understanding; with two or three exceptions, what one would call fossils in geology, the survivals of an antediluvian state of affairs, it says in general what you are and why we should give you our support. And finally, as one reads fewer silly things about you, so is the conversation more intelligent; disregarding the masses of the people, those with some education have overcome the old habit of confounding you with the Gypsies, the Hungarians or even the Germans. When I first interested myself in you, a former navy officer asked me, whether the Czechs were Germans, and a young lady with excellent education desired to inform herself about the Czechs ,because she considered Gypsy music so interesting. At this time such misapprehensions are far more rare. Your cause has made great progress, and your leaders deserve to be congratulated on their enthusiasm and activity. But at the same time one must, like Caesar, hold that “nothing has been done, as long as something remains to be done.”
Translated from “La Nation Tchèque” , August 1, 1917.
