anything from happening at home which might be detrimental to its peace efforts. Accordingly, there are a number of moves, especially those taken by Czernin, which must be explained in connection with the policy of the Czech delegates at Vienna in the spring and summer of 1917.
I have already explained in detail how we began our activities with the full knowledge and consent of the chief political personalities at home. All of them were familiar with the feelings and desires of the Czech nation at the outbreak of the war. Throughout the war, too, we were in communication with them. Our plan necessarily involved close co-operation with our politicians at home, and it was a condition for our success that we should not be disavowed by them in the sight of the Allies.
The Austro-Hungarian Government and the military command knew as well as we did that the feeling of the great bulk of the population was against Austria-Hungary. They therefore adopted terrorizing tactics, partly against the leading politicians, who were regarded as dangerous persons, partly against the more venturesome individuals or newspapers. Later on, these tactics were extended so as to include Czech books, Czech schools, and all aspects of the national culture and tradition in general. However, these facts are sufficiently well known, and I shall not dwell upon them here.
In our propaganda abroad we took full advantage of this situation. The official terrorism in Austria-Hungary served the interests of our cause. The first phase of our policy at home—political passivity accompanied by persecution of the bolder elements—provided our movement abroad with a proof of the revolutionary feeling of our nation, and we were able to confirm this by pointing to the wholesale surrendering of our troops to the Allies. So altogether, during the first two years of the war, our nation impressed itself favourably upon Allied opinion. The persecution of such politicians, journalists, and authors as Klofáč, Dušek, Machar, and Dyk, especially the trial and condemnation of Kramář and Rašín, supplied our propaganda with weapons which proved to be most troublesome to our opponents. We were also assisted very effectively in our work by the discussions and efforts in the political and economic circles of Austria during 1916, which aimed at bringing about a closer co-operation between Germany and the Habsburg Empire in political, and especially in economic, matters. In view of the fact that the Balkans and Poland were then dominated
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