IX
(a) Italy and the Czechoslovak Question
51
After our success in connection with the Allied Note to President Wilson, I decided that the time had come to pay a visit to Italy. Our work at Paris with regard to political matters and the prisoners of war was making satisfactory progress. In London Masaryk’s influence and authority had advanced considerably, and our propaganda was spreading ever further afield. In Russia, where Štefánik was at work, the whole of our political and military movement was developing on hopeful lines. In America our colonists were unsparing in their efforts. Only in Italy was our movement still at its initial stage.
Masaryk himself had been in direct touch with Italy until 1915, and he had kept this up from London indirectly through a number of his friends. Štefánik had stopped in Rome on his way back from the Serbian front in the winter of 1915, and on this occasion he had been received by a number of Court functionaries, as well as by the French and Russian Ambassadors. Then, in the spring of 1916 he had been entrusted with a mission in matters relating to the Jugoslavs. Both his visits had been of considerable importance, leaving definite traces in Rome. But there had been no attempt at organization.
In Italy not much was known about us, although in some ways matters were more favourable there. The Italian public, anti-Austrian and anti-Habsburg in feeling, entertained sympathies towards any movement directed against Austria. The responsible statesmen were not a priori unfavourably disposed towards us, even though their attitude on the whole was reserved. Difficulties arose from the fact that the public
