National Theatre, had been very effective. Even the Austrian-Italians were present. There was an evident analogy between this gathering, the Rome Congress in April, and the work of the Mid-European Union in America; nor were the Austrian reprisals which followed it a sign of strength. On July 13 our people at Prague set up a new Czechoslovak National Committee, a significant act which was in itself equivalent to a national manifestation, inasmuch as there had been violent opposition to the former National Committee. Though its programme was, juridically, somewhat vague it was satisfactory on the whole. The new Committee read aright the signs of the times and took its stand firmly on our claim to independence. Noteworthy, too, was the meeting at Lubljana, the Slovene capital, in August, and its resolution that all Slavs should work together for freedom.
Though I could not quite understand why a Socialist Council should have been set up at the beginning of September alongside of the new National Committee, the declarations of our members of Parliament on September 29, the speech of the Chairman of the Czech Association in Parliament on October 2, and the manifesto of the National Committee on October 19—in which our work abroad was, for the first time, expressly and publicly recognized at home—strengthened my conviction that the days of public pro-Austrianism among our people were past and gone. The question was rather how Austria-Hungary would be liquidated than whether she would be liquidated, for the Austrian-Germans as well as the Magyars had turned against the dynasty. True, it was to be expected that at the last moment Vienna would make—promises. Indeed, I knew that the expediency of granting us national autonomy, in one form or another, was being canvassed there. For this reason we forestalled Vienna by proclaiming our own National Council abroad as a Provisional Government. Beneš and I had often thought of this so as not to be caught napping when the time came. Now the time had come. On September 18 Beneš let me know what the position was in Paris, and proposed that the National Council should be transformed into a Provisional Government; and on September 26 he received my full assent. After negotiations to make sure of recognition by the Allied Governments, Beneš informed them on October 14 that the Provisional Government had been set up with its seat in Paris. I became President, Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Beneš was Secretary for Home and for Foreign Affairs, and Štefánik Secretary for War. Simulta-
