Hitherto we had obtained no binding agreement with France on the subject of an army. What we had was, in the first place, Briand’s very important declaration to Masaryk, and then the mission of Štefánik and Franklin-Bouillon. There had also been discussions and negotiations between the National Council and the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as Briand’s sanction for our scheme in connection with the prisoners of war. But as I have indicated, none of these things involved any definite political commitments. After the signature of the agreement between Albert Thomas and Masaryk, what was wanted was a definite undertaking on the part of the French Government with regard to the formation of a Czechoslovak Army, and a clear statement of how such an army would be regarded by the French Government from a political and diplomatic point of view.
Thus on June 20, 1917, the National Council began to negotiate on the subject of an army with the French Ministries of War and Foreign Affairs respectively. These negotiations concluded with a decree which was issued on December 16, 1916, the signing of the statutes of our army on February 7, 1918, the decisive letter of Pichon on June 28, 1918, and finally the recognition of an independent Czechoslovak State on October 15, 1918.
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The year 1917 and the beginning of 1918 formed a period of crises for France. The Russian revolution, resulting in the defection of her great Eastern ally, the military reverses in Nivelle’s offensive, the unsatisfactory internal conditions, the war-weariness and spread of defeatism, the encyclical of Pope Benedict on the subject of peace, the proceedings of the Socialists at Stockholm, the defeat of Italy at Caporetta, the peace of Brest-Litovsk, the preparations for a resolute German offensive after the relief of the Eastern Front—all this aroused misgivings in Government circles as regards the French war aims set forth in the note to President Wilson.
In February 1917 there began a series of secret attempts to bring about a separate peace with Austria-Hungary. During 1917 and up to the early part of 1918 the French Government regarded itself as faced by these alternatives: either defeat, involving the loss of the position which France had hitherto occupied in Europe, the loss of her political and cultural
