with us in Paris and acted in accordance with our suggestions. This was particularly the case during the second phase of our movement, when we were concerned not with mere propaganda, but with an actual policy in co-operation with Italy. During my second visit to Rome in September and October 1917, seeing that it was necessary to give our organization a wider scope, I established an office of the National Council with a more extensive sphere of influence. Its work was of a twofold character, being connected partly with the prisoners of war and partly with propaganda. A number of devoted workers were released from the camps for the former purpose, while the political and diplomatic work—in view of the delicacy of the situation in Italy—was, by a common agreement, just as in London, reserved for the members of the National Council and the secretariat in Paris. What we, especially Štefánik and myself, feared was that the influence of the serious Italian differences with the Jugoslavs, by which we also were affected, might be detrimental to our policy, and that things might happen which, not fitting in with our political plan and our tactics as a whole, might do harm to our national movement.
Our organization in Italy produced excellent results. Just as in London, our office there was recognized as a branch of the National Council, so that at the moment when a provisional Government was set up, it automatically became a Legation, of which Dr. Borský took charge in November 1918.
In Switzerland we had our permanent centres of activity, partly for maintaining communication with Prague, partly for propaganda, and for combating German-Austrian-Magyar espionage. Our people in Switzerland were permanently in touch with us, but the arrangements in this respect were not too rigid on account of the dangerous character of the surroundings in Switzerland, where thousands of Austro-German agents were at large. From the end of 1917 a regular Press Bureau was established on an entirely reorganized basis, and it was directed by Dr. Osuský until the beginning of the Peace Conference.
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In Russia, just as in France, the representatives of the individual associations endeavoured to get into touch with similar bodies in the other Allied States as soon as they had succeeded in organizing themselves on a firm basis. These attempts, however, met with little or no success until Masaryk
