by the Central Powers, these efforts on the part of the German nationalists in Austria were a strong argument in our favour. The political schemes in Vienna to introduce German as the State language, to centralize Austria as a complete entity with the exclusion of an autonomous Galicia, to Germanize the administration in Bohemia, at the very moment when Wilson and others were beginning to discuss the self-determination of nations, strengthened our position abroad and showed that our propaganda against the Habsburg Empire was justified.
The second phase of our domestic policy from the end of 1916, however, caused us much alarm and anxiety at first, and serious political embarrassments later on. What we feared was that we should be disavowed, and in all the messages which we sent home we insisted that any step of this kind should be most carefully avoided.
When Koerber came into office and announced that he would govern with the Parliament, we realized that our internal policy would have serious troubles to contend with. Either each party would go its own way—in which case we feared that there would be manifestos of loyalty to the dynasty on the part of the Catholics and the Social Democrats, nor were we sure of the Agrarians and the Young Czechs—or else the parties would arrive at a joint compromise which would necessarily involve a basis of opportunist policy.
Nevertheless, we publicly welcomed the formation of the “League of Czech Deputies” and the “National Committee” on November 19, 1916. We interpreted this step as indicating that important internal events were in preparation. We drew attention to Koerber’s measures as regards Poland and Galicia, which were to be excluded from Cis-leithania, and thus by bringing about the isolation of the Czechs in Vienna would facilitate the coercive nationalistic policy. We emphasized the fact that the formation of the bodies referred to constituted our defensive measures against the Germans, and that by causing Vienna fresh internal difficulties they would help to weaken the Central Powers in a military respect also.
From December 1916 until the manifesto issued by the Czech authors in May 1918, the problems of Czech domestic policy caused us much concern. What caused us particular embarrassment in the Allied countries were the acts of opportunism among certain of our Parliamentary representatives, and more than once we had to explain that the Czech nation itself was opposed
