the ideals of the age and their great political, social, economic, and moral struggles, the ideals of the future, the traditions of his nation, and its immediate desires, and who at the same time was able so effectively to draw up a programme of his political and spiritual intentions. For this reason the leader of our victorious revolution was styled the nation’s liberator, and it is by this name that he will be known in our history.
The circumstances were thus favourable to us. Our time had come, and it was only a question of what we ourselves would do. It can safely be asserted that our nation fulfilled its duty during the war. Abroad, the vast majority of our people, either of their own accord or in answer to our call, entered our armies. We were waging a war, and for this purpose we had to have troops. For this reason we started organizing a large national army at the first possible opportunity; for this reason we attached so much importance to it, and we exerted all our energies to securing its sanction and recognition.
The military share of victory is generally estimated by the numerical strength of the troops engaged in hostilities, and by the number of losses which they sustained. If on this basis we compare the millions of French, English, and Italian casualties, or the hundreds of thousands of lives lost by Serbia, Belgium, and Rumania, with our own losses sustained in the Allied ranks, we see that our positive military participation, assessed from this point of view and irrespective of our passive resistance at home, was not considerable. At the same time, our action in Siberia was certainly of great importance to the Allies. And the mere fact that we had three armies, that there were about 150,000 men who of their own accord were willing to sacrifice their lives for their ideals, must be regarded as having very significant implications.
I have intentionally omitted to discuss to what extent each of the Allies individually contributed to the success of our struggle. I have limited myself to giving an account of what each of them did for us and how they did it. In our struggle for liberty each of the Allies occupied its particular position in accordance with its views and interests. They did not present us with our liberty as a gift, but let me add that we ourselves would never have won our liberty by our own strength and labour. It was a joint achievement. Every Czechoslovak is under an obligation always to bear this in mind.
