first thing had been to secure recognition for our political programme as represented by the National Council. At the beginning the Allied Governments would recognize only the principle of legitimacy—and our movement was revolutionary. Thus, recognition came gradually and by no means easily. It began informally by the personal recognition of me, Dr. Beneš and Štefánik through intercourse or negotiation with us, or by events like the consent of the British Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, to take the chair at my lecture in London. Things took much the same course in the military sphere. In the early stages of the war difficulties arose from the international legal position. In the eyes of the Allies our prisoners were, internationally speaking, Austrians; and it was long before people in Allied countries could understand the difference between Czechs and Slovaks, on the one hand, and Austrians on the other. Even in Russia—and there most rigidly—this constitutional and international technicality was observed. It led to disagreeable incidents in many countries, for our own people could not understand it; and we felt we had made some headway when the several Allied States began to treat more leniently our prisoners and those of the other non-German and non-Magyar races of Austria-Hungary.
The French Prime Minister, M. Briand, was the first to recognize our national programme, expressly and officially, on February 8, 1916. His decision was made known in an official communiqué. In pursuance of this recognition the Allies included in their reply to President Wilson’s request for a statement of their war aims, a demand for the liberation of the Czechs and Slovaks from alien rule. This was in January 1917; and, once again, it was due to M. Briand’s good offices. But the year 1917 was rendered dangerous to us by the efforts of the Emperor Charles to save his Empire by means of a separate peace. With them I have already dealt. They failed, and were more than outweighed by the creation of our Legions in Russia, France and Italy and by our military agreements with France from December 1917 onwards. The summer of 1918 brought us final recognition by all the Allied and Associated Powers. The chronological table given in an appendix can, however, convey no idea of the amount of work, thought, anxiety and emotion which the process of recognition caused us, what wanderings through the whole world, what petitions and interviews in the various Ministries of Paris, London, Rome, Petrograd, Washington and Tokio, how many visits to leading personages, how many memoranda,
