BOHEMIA AND THE ALLIES
This army, which will, it is hoped, amount to at least 120,000 men, is being organised by, and will swear allegiance to the Czecho-Slovak National Council, whose headquarters are in Paris and whose committee consists of Professor Masaryk, Major Milan Stefanik (the well-known French airman, a Slovak by birth and an astronomer by profession), and Dr. Edward Beneš, late lecturer at Prague University.
Who is the Lady?
On 18 December, in the House of Commons, Colonel Faber asked the Foreign Secretary “whether Herr von Kühlmann, the German Foreign Minister, is able to correspond with a lady of high lineage in England, under cover of a neutral dispatch bag; and, if so, whether any steps are taken to prevent such correspondence.” Lord Robert Cecil in his answer expressed “reluctance” to believe that any neutral Government would lend itself to such an abuse of diplomatic privilege. In view, however, of the persistence of such rumours, and of the fact that investigation proved that similar suspicions were not unfounded in the case of a well-known portrait painter now interned, we invite the Foreign Office to pursue its enquiries a little further. If it forbids Socialists to meet their enemy colleagues on neutral soil, it should see that persons of high lineage live under the same ban.
You Have Forged a Weapon: Use it
Taken together, the declarations of Mr. Lloyd George and of President Wilson make a firm basis for the constructive political work of the Alliance. They are clear and urgent; but, most significant of all, they have contrived to create a remarkable and unexpected unity of mind throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. Indeed, Mr. Lloyd George has performed something little short of a miracle in winning approval from such diverse persons as the French Premier, Mr. Philip Snowden, and the editors of the Humanité, the Time and the Temps. In enemy countries, though the press affects to treat his speeches as a mere footnote to Jingo Never-Endianism—we really ought to acclimatise the expressive French Jusqu’auboutisme to express our meaning—the Berliner Tageblatt voices a widespread opinion in saying that there was a new constructive note and moderate tone in it. The Italian press significantly stresses the references to Austria; the Corriere della Sera in particular speaking as follows:—“The speech is a political event destined to have a powerful influence on the international situation . . . it is an arm of offence and defence . . . created at a most opportune moment and placed at the service of the Liberal Alliance. . . . It may, perhaps, find a not unfavourable echo in Vienna. . . but London is loyally and entirely with Paris and Rome in the peace problem, and certainly can but consider as an imperfect sketch any conditions of peace relating to Austria-Hungary which have not had the previous appro-
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