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Under these circumstances what I aimed at was rather that the French Government, apart from the other Allies, should carry out the terms of its own declaration. After the disappointing results of the attempt to obtain a joint Allied declaration for all the oppressed peoples, I decided to leave this scheme alone and to secure recognition at least for ourselves. With this end in view I therefore redoubled the preliminary activities in the secretariat of the National Council which were being made for the handing of the colours to our 21st regiment. It was the plan of the French Government that on this occasion the President of the Republic should deliver an important speech by which France would be definitely identified with the idea of a Czechoslovak State. I gratefully accepted the French plan which had been arranged and carried out in the same form with the Polish Army, but I could not help thinking that after the proceedings at the Versailles conference it was hardly enough for our purpose. Moreover, I had always given a slightly different interpretation to the promise which Clemenceau had made in April 1918. I therefore wanted something beyond a mere demonstration, however important it might be in a propagandist and political respect. My purpose was to secure a binding political and diplomatic charter as a responsible Government, which would give us a full and final recognition of national independence and sovereignty. Such a document as this would be a substitute for the joint Allied declaration which we had hitherto been unable to obtain.
The question as to what was to be included in the French manifesto formed the subject of long discussions at the Foreign Ministry with de Margerie, Berthelot, and Degrand, the result of which I summarized in a communication to the Ministry. In this document I asked for the following details to be included in the declaration:
(a) The recognition of our historical rights to a State within its historical frontiers, and a substantiation of our claim by reference to the action of our soldiers, our people, and our politicians against Austria-Hungary during the war.
