A SOUTHERN SLAV SOCIALIST MANIFESTO
of no matter what State. Our desires have a moral basis far deeper than military force . . . in such modern ideas as democracy and the right of nations to dispose of their own fate.”
The sayings of Father Krek, whose recent death is so cruel a blow to the Jugoslav cause, are being widely quoted in the same sense. “He is a traitor who is against the liberation of our nation.” “The idea of our unity will conquer despite all and against all—because it must conquer. There are no forces which could check it.” At the grave of Krek, Father Korošec, the President of the Jugoslav Parliamentary Club, declared: “We, thy closest colleagues, will rally all our strength to realise the idea of a Jugoslav State. Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, we shall fight united for that great ideal.”
From a statement in Hrvatska Riječ of 31 October it appears that after the Italian débâcle the Austrian Premier made fresh overtures to the Southern Slavs, which were once more declined. Other newspapers comment on the complete absence of rejoicings in Croatia over the victories in Italy—victories which merely strengthen the German grip upon Austria and postpone the coming of peace. In Fiume the Croat students ostentatiously held aloof from a Magyar “procession of victory,” and were consequently set upon by the police.
A New Ally: The Bohemian Army
[The following article, published by M. René Pichon in L’Œuvre of 2 December, is, we believe, the first detailed public reference to one of the most remarkable movements of the war, the creation and recognition of the Bohemian Army as an independent factor on the side of the Allies. The consequences of such a step may be far-reaching.
In this connection it may be worth referring to a memorable meeting held on 16 September at the Carnegie Hall in New York by the Czech National Alliance. The then Mayor of New York, Mr. Mitchell, took the chair, and the chief speaker was Mr. Franklin-Bouillon, Chairman of the Inter-parliamentary Committee, who hailed the new Bohemian Army, and invited the Czechs and Slovaks of America to join its ranks:—]
“Last July, in referring to the Czechs of the Foreign Legion, I pointed out that there were not many of them under our flag, but that soon many more would come. To-day it is an accomplished fact. An impending Decree of the President of the Republic is to regulate the formation of the Czecho-Slovak Army, and we can now give details about what could then only be indicated in a veiled form.
“This organisation comes after two years of effort—a delay due solely to the complexity of the problem. It comes, too, at a good moment, to console us for a disappointment and to preserve us from an injustice. In our bitterness at the defection of the Russians, some of us might be tempted to bear a grudge against all that is Slav. A false and unjust generalisation. In Russia the Slav temperament has been depressed by centuries of servility, corrupted by a morbid mysticism and by Socialistic Utopias; in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia it survives firm and robust. Morally the Czechs are more
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