of War nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had reckoned with any large measure of autonomy for the Czechoslovak Army.
Apart from this, at the time when I was discussing these matters, a precedent had been created with the Polish Army in France which was unfavourable to us. The Polish National Committee had accepted a proposal of the French Government to the effect that the organization of the Polish Army in France should be presided over by a special mixed “Commission militaire franco-polonaise,” directed by a French General. It was to comprise officers of both nationalities, and would be the leading body for organizing and administering the Polish Army, while at the same time it was to form a connecting link between the French Government and the Polish Committee.
The Ministry of War suggested a similar organization to me. My attitude was one of decisive opposition to such a proposal, and Dr. Sychrava, who saw the political danger of the plan, was also against it. We objected to the existence of any intermediary between the National Council and our army. I demanded that the army should be entirely ours, and that its political administration should be fully allotted to us as representatives of a sovereign nation, but that the French Government should have the right of supervision so as to satisfy itself that things were being done in accordance with the preliminary agreement which it had made with the National Council. The Ministry of War was to have full control in all technical matters and details of pure organization, but that, in this respect, the consent of the National Council was necessary for any measures which might at all affect the fundamental politico-military questions.
In the end this principle was accepted. The Ministry of War reluctantly abandoned the idea of a mixed Franco-Czechoslovak commission, since in this way an analogy with the Polish Army would have been produced, and it was feared that all further negotiations with us would be more complicated. In reality it soon proved that the contrary was the case, and that the direct contact of the Government and the army with the National Council simplified matters. It was, of course, true that this made our army less dependent on the Ministry.
As I have said, the rest of the problems were, of necessity, settled logically in accordance with this first and governing
