A Disavowal.
I did not and could not expect that our success in the Allied reply to President Wilson, a success won by intense effort on our part and by the exceptional friendliness of France, would bring about what I so greatly feared-that our members of Parliament at home might disavow us. The course of home affairs I had naturally followed with keen attention. Not only did we get the Austrian and Czech papers, and news by messenger from Prague and Vienna, but, as far as I could manage it, the principal reports made to the Allied Governments. I have already mentioned that people in Allied countries taxed us with supineness. Enemy propaganda constantly harped on the same string, not without effect. We made the most of the persecution of our people by the Austrians, though it is comprehensible that the arrest and condemnation of men like Dr. Kramář and Dr. Rašín could not have the same effect abroad as at home. The Allied peoples had their own losses and sufferings, especially in France, where nearly every family was mourning the death of one of its members. We utilized everything that we decently could, and there was no lack of material. For instance, the summing up of the Court against Dr. Kramář contained an eloquent description of our anti-Austrian work, and we took advantage of it. Thus the folly of Vienna and of the Austro-Hungarian Commander-in-Chief recoiled upon itself.
After I had left Prague there had been no great improvement in the political situation. Parties and persons were as divided as ever-a matter of less moment because there could be no public political life under the prevailing military pressure. Therefore I welcomed the attempt that was made towards the end of 1916 to unite Czech parties and Members of Parliament in a Czech Association and in an (incomplete) National Committee. When the Emperor Charles succeeded to Francis Joseph on November 21, 1916, this union was judicious and certainly necessary. Indeed, Francis Joseph’s death strengthened our position, for the opinion had long been prevalent that, on the death of the old Emperor, Austria would break up. I had often heard this opinion before the war, in America and elsewhere; and the death of the popular old Emperor was taken as an omen of the beginning of the end. The new Emperor was unknown, and what was said of him inspired few hopes. The assassination of Count Stürgkh, the Prime Minister, which had preceded the Emperor’s death,
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