(f) The Struggle for the Principle of Self-determination within the Habsburg Empire
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The report reached Prague shortly after the celebrations at the National Theatre in May, at a time when within Austria-Hungary the same development in the struggle against the Empire and for self-determination was being completed, as had just been successfully achieved in the Allied countries. It assumed forms which were more and more revolutionary in character, and which only in a few cases for tactical reasons were still thinly disguised. The parallel action and the direct co-operation of the revolutionary movement abroad, with the political action which was directed in the same spirit within the Empire, was now beginning to be carried into effect. The struggle for the principle of self-determination was thus started to its fullest extent within the Empire also.
The slogan of self-determination was first uttered by our politicians in. the proclamation of the “Czech League” on April 14, 1917. Here, evidently under the influence of the Russian revolution, they appealed for “the application of democracy, of Parliamentarianism, and the revision of the constitution on the lines of self-determination and the requirements of nations in the Habsburg Empire also.”
Under the influence of the Czech’s authors’ manifesto and of public opinion, which received it with enthusiasm, the proclamation of the Czech deputies in the Viennese Parliament on May 30th went even further. It appealed primarily for the principle of self-determination, from which it then deduced the need for a national Czechoslovak State. This was all the more important because analogous proclamations were made by the Poles, Jugoslavs, and Ruthenians, so that from this time onwards the action taken by these nations was uniform or parallel with our own. Allied public opinion interpreted this as a profound crisis, going to the very roots of the Habsburg Empire. The succeeding events tended only to strengthen this impression. Our propaganda was continually striving to hasten this crisis at home, while demonstrating in the Allied countries that the Habsburg Empire was moving towards its inevitable collapse. It was naturally our most
