favour or the contrary. We never acted in a time-serving spirit by counting first on one side and then on the other, nor did we ever swerve from our basic line of action. And nevertheless our policy was not that of the gambler or the visionary, but it was a policy which deliberately took into account the actual facts of the case, which worked laboriously from day to day, which built up its successes step by step.
We might have made the same mistakes as Ferdinand of Bulgaria or Constantine of Greece. Under the influence of certain well-known tendencies amongst us we. might have “staked everything on the Russian card,” but we were careful not to commit such errors as these. Our philosophico-historical conception of the war, and our conception of politics in general, gave us a proper indication of what we were to do and how we were to do it. In this lay our strength and, to a large extent, the secret of our successes.
What we achieved in the war was not due to the Tsar’s declaration on our behalf in 1914, nor to the fact that our legionaries became involved in warfare with the Bolsheviks, nor to the fact that on October 18, 1918, President Wilson once and for all settled accounts with Austria-Hungary. What brought us victory was that from the very beginning we rightly surmised the probable development in Europe and throughout the world; that we rightly estimated the various factors involved, and by unremitting daily toil cultivated, influenced, and directed them in channels which contributed to our success; that we were able in good time, at least partially, to counteract the forces hostile to us. Altogether, our victory cannot be reduced to terms of simplicity by ascribing it to this or that isolated fact; it is a complex blend of numerous elements. It was Masaryk’s greatest merit that at the very outbreak of the war he was able to form a correct judgment of affairs, and to arrange his whole activity accordingly. A philosopher of democracy, of the social and national idea, he became the leader of our revolution and the organizer of our whole movement, not only because the development of events brought him to the forefront, but chiefly because his whole previous record enabled him during the war to act as an embodiment of our aims and endeavours, our ideals and wishes. Few nations have had the good fortune to be able at a decisive moment of their history to associate themselves unreservedly, with absolute confidence and certainty, with a leader who so unmistakably symbolized
