after October 24th, and they provided the world with a further indication that the end of the Habsburg Empire was at hand.
Wilson’s note of October 18th was published at Vienna on the evening of Sunday, October 20th. It was received with consternation in some quarters and resignation in others, while among the representatives of the subject peoples it caused enormous satisfaction. It provided the Magyars with an incentive for hastening their separation from Vienna, which was carried out two days later.
On the afternoon of October 21st the Austrian National Assembly met and passed resolutions which make it clear that the Austrian Germans themselves were gradually preparing for any eventuality. The Assembly, comprising the German deputies from the Austrian Alpine regions, demanded the creation of a German-Austrian State which was to incorporate the Sudetic Germans. This, of course, presupposed some kind of agreement with the other national States established on the territory of the former Empire.
These details were reported in the Allied countries on the following day, and were interpreted there merely as a proof of the advancing process of collapse. The events in Hungary in the eyes of Allied public opinion also constituted a severe blow to the existence of the Empire. When after the publication of Karl’s manifesto the Hungarians at once drew their own inferences from it, these developments were taken to mean that all bonds between the nations were gradually falling, and that the dynasty was being hurled to and fro by revolution without being able to brace itself together for any deliberate action. These signs of dissolution now became more and more frequent. Thus, on October 26th, we learned in Paris that four days earlier Dr. Stránský, referring to the results of Wilson’s note during the debate on Burian’s motion for establishing a permanent Parliamentary committee of twenty-six members to be in permanent touch with the Government, made the following statement: “We Czechs will not participate in the elections to the Committee . . . because the Entente has recognized our National Council in Paris as a Czechoslovak Government, and the Czechoslovak Army as the army of the Czechoslovak State. All this has been done with a view to the peace negotiations. We deputies cannot therefore anticipate the action of the Entente, and we are not entitled to act of our own accord.” Then there came the news that on October 23rd a commission
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