were swallowed up. At last, even the Emperor Charles abandoned his throne. On the same day, November 11, Herr Erzberger, Marshal Foch and Admiral Wemyss signed the Armistice which saved Germany from the capture of her army and capitulation. The Austrian army was totally demoralized, especially on the Italian front, whereas the troops of Germany went home in fairly good order. Nor were these great events without their symbolical and ironical side. On October 20 Berlin University came out in favour of the new régime and went almost Social Democratic. The “Frankfurter Zeitung” was the first to demand the abdication of the Kaiser on October 24, the Social Democrats following suit four days later. The Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, Herr Ebert, became Chancellor, Herr Scheidemann proclaimed the Republic from the steps of the Reichstag, and the Social Democrats took over the Government.
Through all these events my interest lay mainly in the developments at home, and particularly in our revolution of October 28. The first accounts of it were confused and incomplete, and not entirely satisfactory reports reached me of the meeting between the delegation of our new National Committee and Dr. Beneš at Geneva. Our pro-Austrians comforted themselves with the hope that the Hapsburgs might still remain. But Dr. Beneš’s initial report on November 5 cleared up the position to some extent; and, at last, the abdication of the Emperor Charles justified, even in the eyes of our pro-Austrians, the policy we had followed abroad. The reports from Dr. Beneš urged me, however, to return home with all speed. Therefore I made ready to go. The news of the Slovak declaration at Turčansky St. Martin on October 30 was very welcome, though, on the other hand, the story that the Germans of Bohemia had begun a separatist movement and were trying to organize a German Bohemia made me uneasy. But when I heard that regions calling themselves a “Sudetenland” and afterwards a “German South Moravia” and even a “Bohemian Forest District” were being set up, my fears vanished. The very idea of such sub-division was a strong argument against German separatism. Nevertheless the question of the German Bohemians was always serious, and the Americans and the British insisted upon abstract definition of the “right to self-determination.” To the resolution of the Provisional Austrian-German Parliament on November 12, that “German Austria is a part of the German Republic” I paid special heed as, indeed, to the strange
