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question of Central Europe that enabled our propaganda to achieve such a success as it did. Equally important was also the courageous attitude taken by our countrymen at home who openly defied the Austrian Government and proclaimed their aims to be identical with those of their leaders abroad. Last, but not least, the wholesale voluntary surrenders of our regiments to the Allies and the bravery of our own troops fighting against Austria in Russia, France and Italy, supplied an unanswerable argument against all who entertained any doubt as to our true aspirations. In Great Britain itself all able bodied Czechs volunteered to serve with His Majesty’s forces and fought with the British on various battlefields.
The result of our military and political contribution towards Allied victory has been an increased interest and sympathy shown towards us by the public. Today we have many devoted friends in Great Britain in society circles, among members of Parliament, among University professors, scientists, authors, musicians and journalists. We shall never be able to realise quite fully how much we owe to the untiring labours of President Masaryk in this regard, who justly enjoys popularity and general respect in England.
Owing to lack of space we shall be able to refer only briefly to the development of public opinion in England towards our question during the war.
III. As early during the war as December 1914 a book apperead in London called »War and Democracy« (Macmillan & C) in which Mr. Seton Watson already developed the idea of the break-up of Austria and spoke of the revival of the famous mediaeval kingdom of Bohemia, advocating the inclusion of the Slovaks of Hungary in it.
At a lecture delivered at King’s College in May 1915, Mr. Seton Watson developed his idea of the »future of Bohemia« and concluded that »there will be room in the new Europe of which we dream for an independent Bohemia, industrious, progressive and peaceful a Bohemia which will have rescued its Slovak kinsmen from the intolerable yoke of Magyar oligarchy.«
The first occasion on which British sympathies with our struggle for freedom were manifested on a larger scale, was the quincentenary of John Hus’ martyr death in 1915. Extensive articles on John Hus appeared in all journals as well as an appel of various members of the Oxford University urging Czecho-Slovak independence. The »Times« wrote in a leading article on July 6th. 1915:
