Prague, to send at least a military mission there at short notice for the purposes of military organization. I appointed as its chief Lieutenant-Colonel O. Husák, whose battalion had distinguished itself in the final stage of the hostilities at Terron. Husák selected a number of our best officers and N.C.O.’s from France, supplemented them by a few Italian officers, and left for Prague towards the end of November. He was received there with enthusiasm, and at once started organizing our home army.
It was not until about Christmas that the transport of our regiments from France and Italy, after my repeated efforts in Paris and Rome, began to make any real progress. The regiments from France were sent to Bohemia and Moravia, while those from Italy occupied Slovakia.
(e) Masaryk’s Return to Prague as President. End of the Revolutionary Movement Abroad
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On November 20th President Masaryk left New York on his way back to Prague to take up the duties to which the liberated nation had called him. On November 29th he reached England, and spent a few days in London, where he was welcomed as the President of a new State. He took the opportunity of meeting a number of prominent statesmen, such as Mr. Balfour, Mr. Churchill, Lord Milner, Sir Eyre Crowe, Sir William Tyrrell, and others, and then left for Paris, where he arrived on December 7th. Here he visited MM. Poincaré, Clemenceau, Pichon, and Berthelot, as well as various foreign diplomats, such as Colonel House, Mr. Sharp, Trumbić, Vesnić, Venizelos, Take Jonescu, etc. He remained in Paris for a week. On December 8th he visited our troops at Darney, where they were already preparing to return home. This was at the time when on behalf of the Czechoslovak Government I had participated in the official visit of the French Government to Alsace-Lorraine. After our return to Paris we together went through all the necessary preliminaries to the Peace Conference, and agreed upon our whole procedure.
I recall a number of points which struck me during Masaryk’s visit to Paris on this occasion. Thus, he made no secret to me of the anxiety which he felt when he thought of the work awaiting him at home. He agreed that we had successfully over-
