clined to go more closely into it. He mentioned also the experiences of Dr. Scheiner, who, as early as February 1914, had visited Petrograd, where he had discussed with Sazanov and other leading politicians Russia’s attitude to the Czech question in case of war. Dr. Scheiner’s account of this showed that Russia took a very unfavourable view of our cause. This was now complicated by the disputes between the Allies and the Jugoslavs with regard to the unification of the latter. At that particular moment these disputes were at their height, and in Russia there was a decided tendency to favour the annexation of Dalmatia by Italy and the unification of the remaining orthodox Jugoslavs with Serbia, the rest of them to be handed over to a diminished Austria-Hungary.
Svatkovsky was in touch with the Poles, the Jugoslavs, the Italians, and us. He was also in touch with Russian and Allied official circles, and on various occasions he confirmed the truth of the above details which he now mentioned to me once more. In particular he told me that Italy would certainly enter the war in about six weeks’ time. I conveyed this valuable piece of news, which was to encourage all our people to further opposition and activity, to Prague and also to Vienna for Machar.
Professor Masaryk also gave me the text of his proposed manifesto with which he intended to inaugurate his struggle against Vienna and Budapest. He said that he wanted us to go through it at a meeting of the “Maffia,” and by the next courier we should let him have our approval of it or else propose any changes which we might think necessary. In this connection he emphasized the following points:
(a) At all costs our action must be taken openly and it must be of a revolutionary character. Otherwise we should not derive from the war any kind of political success for our national cause.
(b) He wanted to take action in agreement with the politicians at home, and only when they had given him their express consent. This was important because our movement abroad must under no circumstances be disavowed by the politicians at home.
(c) In no case did he ever want our responsible political circles to be misled into disavowing our action abroad. Silence would answer the purpose in such a case.(10)
