strict and vigorous attack upon the treasonable sentiment in Bohemia. Let his majesty accept this as the firm persuasion of the supreme army command that radical movements will be made impossible only by the appointment of a military governor.”
The next document referring to the situation in Bohemia is dated September 25th, 1915, and is again addressed by the supreme army command to the emperor. It deals with the dissatisfaction throughout Austria; only references to the Bohemian troubles are here translated:
“The treasonable and anti-militaristic propaganda that has been carried on in Bohemia for decades without opposition resulted in spite of far-reaching preventive measures in complete failure of the old troops before the enemy . . . . . Reports of the still proceeding agitation in Bohemia and Moravia hostile to the state, the objectionable behavior of the 7th Landwehr Regiment of Pilsen, the 8th of Prague and the 29th of Budweis in the recent fighting in Galicia and Volhynia . . . led to the conviction that the present efforts of the government even with the help of war measures have for the most part resulted in failure.”
The documents cited give the point of view of the Austrian Army authorities; what they lack is details. Some of these details are supplied in recent statements made by the men who carried on the subterranean war of the Czech people against Austria. The principal Prague daily the “Národní Listy”, the organ of premier Kramář, says on December 1st:
“Everything was betrayed—movements of troops, transports of ammunition, strategical plans, economic position, the feeling at court, letters of the ministers, secret military orders, instructions of the governor, orders for arms, over heard telephone conversations, stock exchange conditions, even whole pages from the notebooks of Austrian ministers. And these things were sent in cipher across the frontier, sometimes even in the original, in the wires of umbrellas, in the bindings of books, in the handle of a walking stick, inside of buttons, or written in invisible ink on silk underwear of opera singers, or in the pistons of machines. Against the Austrian beast everything was permissible . . . . Treason grew and prevailed everywhere. Czech physicians began to undertake appendicitis operations on a wholesale scale, Czech soldiers grew sick and could not get well, hospitals were overflowing and the cliniques were jammed with cases of soldiers whose sickness could not be diagnosed: on the streets of Prague there were groups of “crippled” soldiers with one or two stocks whom the military surgeons could not cure; industrial establishments demanded the return of soldiers as indispensable workmen, whether they were needed or not. When the Autrian state proceeded to collect metals, it found in Bohemia less than anywhere else . . . . War loans were not subscribed, and when a man was compelled to buy bonds, he tried to resell them as soon as possible.”
Another account of the secret warfare of the Czechs was rendered by a former deputy and university professor Dr. Drtina in a speech delivered November 29:
“When Masaryk returned in August 1914 from Geneva, he watched the events and mobilized his people. Then he went to Rotterdam where he conceived his plans. In Berlin he “informed” State Secretary Zimmermann. After returning to Prague he was at a gathering in the flat of Dr. Boudek and already drew on the map the boundaries of the future Czechoslovak state with the well-known corridor to the sea. He made known documents and dispatches of the most confidential nature. Here arose the Czech Maffia. It managed to intercept the correspondence between Prince Thun (then governor of Bohemia) and Count Stuergkh, also between the minister of the interior Baron Heinold and Archduke Frederick the Bloody. The Maffia was extremely well informed about the acts of the cabinet, as well as about the directions of the police. Good Czech patriots took over exclusively all these tasks. In Vienna the poet Machar took part in this. Nobody had an idea what a dangerous work our people there had. One of these always carried a revolver on his person, in case he should be discovered. It reads like a novel to think of the diligence of the Austrian minister in Switzerland who had Masaryk watched and sent lenghty reports of it, all of of which fell into the hands of the Maffia . . . Masaryk was called Hradecký or Hospodský, Scheiner was known as Soukal, Šamal as Strkal, Dr. Kramář as Holz, Rašín as Sin . . .”
Perhaps later on some of the men who took an important and dangerous part in this secret war on Austria from within will tell their story. It will be surely of great interest.
UHRO-RUSIN DELEGATION IN PARIS.
Independetly of the movement that originated among Uhro-Rusin immigrants in America for the incorporation of their native land in the Czechoslovak Republic the same motives called out a similar movement in the Rusin districts of Hungary. When the delegates of the American Rusins, Julius G. Gardos and Gregory I Zsatkovich, arrived in Paris, bearing the results of the plebiscite, they met there a leader of their people from Hungary, former deputy Beskyd. According to a cable received in Pittsburgh they are workking in complete harmony and submitted a formal petition to the peace conference, asking for a union of their people with the Czechoslovaks. They feel certain that their petition will be granted. The Czechoslovaks follow with much interest their efforts and will be pleased to welcome their Rusin kinsmen as fellow-citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic.
