had revealed Austria’s weakness; and Dr. Adler’s defence, an indictment in which he emphasized effectively her responsibility for the war, damaged her anew. We made it our care to spread documents like these far and wide in foreign countries.
Then came the Allied answer to Wilson, with its special mention of “the Czechoslovaks.” It was not surprising that the Catholic Party in Bohemia should hasten to reject it (as early as January 14); nor was it astonishing that the German and Austrian press should hail this rejection as an act of loyalty. But the Czech Association also repudiated it. I understood the difficult predicament in which our members of Parliament had been placed, and expected that they would be compelled to say something, particularly after the Clerical declaration. The only question was, How? I imagined what they might have said—but it turned out otherwise. True, the omission of my name weakened the effect of the disavowal, and this vagueness caused the press and the political public to take less notice of it; but Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, did us the best service in publishing only a short letter from three Members of Parliament whose names were unknown abroad. Nevertheless, the pro-Austrians abroad used the disavowal to the full, and it gave us not a little to do.
Our opponents rubbed their hands over a first manifesto in which the Czech Association and the National Committee had proclaimed, on November 19, 1916, their attachment to the dynasty and to its historic mission. The fact that both of these organizations took part in the coronation of the Emperor at Budapest on December 30, 1916, was likewise turned against us; and when the disavowal followed, it was skilfully linked up with the two other episodes. I explained the disavowal as an acknowledgment of the pardon granted to Dr. Kramář and his comrades, but it was unnecessary to have paid so high a price for it. As we heard abroad, Francis Joseph had thought the indictment of Kramář for high treason an act of weakness; and, by pardoning him, the Emperor Charles confirmed this view. Vienna would not have dared to take the lives of our public men whom she had imprisoned, and it seemed to us that our policy at home was concentrated too anxiously upon having them set free. I thought also that the disavowal might have been secured by the influence of the young Emperor, who was preparing for separate peace negotiations with France and the Entente, and held out to our people the prospect of an early peace. That was certainly
