determination and proposing a League of Nations, he asked the belligerents to state their war aims. A striking passage in this Message insisted that his action had not been prompted by the peace feelers of the Central Powers; and it transpired subsequently that Berlin had been pressing him since the summer to make a peace move and that he had been unpleasantly surprised by German and Austrian action.
The Allies answered Wilson on January 12, 1917, in a joint Note that was a brilliant success for our cause, inasmuch as it included among the Allied conditions of peace “the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Roumanes and Czechoslovaks from foreign rule.” This answer made a stir in all our colonies and strengthened us greatly; and not only in our colonies but in the press and political circles of Allied countries, because we Czechs and Slovaks were especially mentioned by name. This, however, caused some discontent in the Southern Slav and Polish colonies, who thought our success disproportionately great.
I could see at once from the text of the Allied reply that the word “Czechoslovaks” had been inserted into a completed draft which had demanded only the liberation of the “Slavs” in general; and this turned out to have been the case. Dr. Beneš heard that the Allied reply had been drawn up. He conferred with M. Philippe Berthelot and others, but met with great difficulties because the Allies hesitated to bind themselves to break up Austria-Hungary entirely or to promise freedom to the Austro-Hungarian peoples. Verbally and in writing Beneš insisted that this promise should be given to strengthen the resistance of the oppressed Hapsburg races, and asked in particular that the Czechs and Slovaks should be expressly mentioned. Influential persons like M. Leygues, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Chamber, supported him. M. André Tardieu, in the “Temps,” and M. Jules Sauerwein, in the “Matin,” wrote in our favour on January 8; and the “Matin” reminded M. Briand of the promise he had given me a year before. The Allies had decided, after discussions between Paris, Rome and London, to speak only of “Slavs” in general so as not to give umbrage either to the Italians or to the Southern Slavs; but the French Foreign Office succeeded in fulfilling the desire of Beneš. There is an interesting point of inner history in the use of the word “Czechoslovaks.” Three proposals were made the liberation of “Bohemia,” of “the Czech People” and of “the Czechoslovaks.” The third was accepted after consultation between Beneš, Štefánik and Osuský.
