selves. Masaryk had reached Chicago on May 5th, and his arrival had become known throughout America on account of the enthusiastic welcome which was extended to him by the American Czechs and Slovaks. From that moment he began a systematic activity on behalf of our political aims, and he collaborated with the representatives of the nations who, like ourselves, were counteracting the efforts of the pro-Austrians and the pro-Magyars. In his Making of a State, Masaryk has given a detailed account of this activity, and, in particular, he explains the whole basis of the Austrophile tendencies in America.
If I again consider what happened in the first four months of 1918 as regards Austro-Hungarian affairs—Lloyd George’s final attempt at negotiations with Austria-Hungary on March 10th, Karl’s attempt at peace negotiations with President Wilson in February and March 1918, which on April 21st, after the Clemenceau-Czernin conflict, was abandoned as the result of Burian’s orders—I again arrive at my former conclusion: the Allies had realized that secret negotiations would lead to nothing in 1918. On the other hand the conclusion of peace in the East, and the final desperate offensive of Germany in the West, had impressed upon the Allies two facts which were essential to a proper understanding of the war: Russia, whose intrusion into Central Europe they feared, and whose possible expansion had hitherto formed the argument of many for preserving the Habsburg Empire, had now collapsed; on the other hand Germany had acquired a mastery over the whole of Central and South-Eastern Europe. At length it was fully understood what we had meant when we had said that Austria-Hungary no longer constituted that counterpoise against Germany in Central and Southern Europe which, according to French conceptions, she should still have been in the last century, but she was, on the contrary, a link and an auxiliary factor for German expansion towards the south and the east. It is impossible to exaggerate the significance and the scope of these facts in their bearing upon the change which Allied policy underwent in this question.
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On May 10, 1918, I sent our political circles in Prague the following brief political report, which gives a clear idea of our
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