but that we must vindicate this right ourselves, win our independence anew and preserve it by our own strength. We needed to ask for nothing and we asked for nothing except the friendship and the help of all the Allies. It was, is, and always will be our duty to work strenuously and to be ready for self-sacrifice. This was not only a matter of principle; for, in practice, it meant that our National Council and our army stood on their own feet and were by no means mere political instruments of the Allies.
The Work at Home.
At home there was the same fighting spirit. Our revolt abroad would have been impossible if the people in general had not assented to it from the outset and throughout the war. It is true that, for the first three years, there was no unitary movement embracing all political leaders, parties and members of Parliament. Political leadership was paralysed by the Government—Klofáč, and afterwards Kramář and Rašín, were imprisoned and Stříbrný was mobilized—so that the nation was deprived of visible guidance by its political organizations. Nor, until the end of the war, was armed revolt at home contemplated by the principal parties. It could not be, and there was no need of it; but the whole people took their stand against Austria and showed their ripe sense and their determination in passive and, at the right moment, in active resistance. If our Allies expected an insurrection, and took us to task from time to time because it did not break out, they were wrong and unjust. It was enough that the mass of the nation declined to capitulate to political and military terrorism. Individuals sealed their resistance with their blood. The bulk of the people maintained discipline and, by work, kept themselves healthy and their spirit unbreakable. There were moments of depression (as I realized during the first four months of the war); some individuals and groups lost heart, though rather on account of uncertainty than from fear.
Our people seem to me to have shown remarkable organizing ability and political sense in developing cooperative societies for the supply of food, so that hunger should not weaken their resolution. The work was done chiefly in Bohemia and Moravia, and, to some extent, among the Czechs in Vienna where, however, supplies, especially of meat, were managed by the State. Those of our friends abroad who were, at times, tempted to think our people too passive, failed to understand the worth of this painstaking work in little things; and the action of charit-
