lished deliberately and step by step, by laborious creative work, which had been planned with due regard to the political and psychological factors involved. This process of our gradual recognition by the Allies and our establishment by successive stages during the war provides much material which can be studied with advantage by all those who are concerned with the theories of sociology, law, and statesmanship.
It was clear that after these conversations the establishment of the Government and the State was only a purely formal matter. I indicated to Lord Robert Cecil that this step would soon be taken, and that we should do so at a moment when the circumstances seemed to make it desirable. Thereupon, even before proceeding to Paris, I instructed V. Nosek, who was in charge of the office of the National Council in London, to make all arrangements for securing legation premises, setting up a passport service, etc. This, of course, was to be done in consultation with the British Government.
Having negotiated the declaration and the British-Czechoslovak convention, I left for Paris with very definite plans as to what my further steps were to be. I had decided to co-operate with Professor Masaryk in rapidly constructing our State, in producing the greatest possible number of faits accomplis, in setting up all the external emblems and institutions of a State which, under the circumstances then prevailing, could be realized. The whole of my activity from the London negotiations to the period immediately preceding the Armistice was directed towards this end. I had in view the situation of Belgium and Serbia, States without territory, with only a small army, with a Government in exile, and burdened with difficulties of all kinds. It was my aim to secure for Czechoslovakia the same juridical position as that of these two States, so that there could be no withdrawal, whatever might happen in the Allied countries or in Central Europe. In this I was prompted not merely by the fact that from July onwards the Allies had crushed the German military front, while the Austrian front in Italy had collapsed in a similar manner, but also by an observation of how matters were developing within the Habsburg Empire. I felt that we must now be prepared every moment for all possibilities.
On leaving London I asked Lord Robert Cecil to notify officially to the other Allies the agreement which we had reached. I was anxious that, by so doing, the British Government should
