countries, it is recognition by the Government that counts. All the Allies felt the great importance of America and it was for this reason that Wilson’s final answer to Austria had so potent an effect.
The formulas of recognition were not merely unilateral promises, prudently worded. Some of them were regular bilateral treaties. All of them were preceded by negotiations between our National Council, or Provisional Government, and the Allied Governments. The recognition of the National Council—in the first instance only of my own person—and of our National programme, began unofficially through individual public men, such as the American Senator Kenyon who, on May 25, 1917, declared in Congress that the independence of the Czech nation must be a condition of peace. Similar individual declarations were made in the French Parliament, in England and in Russia. Then came the recognition of our rights by individual Ministers and, finally, by Governments. Some political men and lawyers were perturbed by the circumstances that our National Council, or Provisional Government, was established abroad, not on the territory which we claimed for the Czech State, and that our army had likewise been created and was operating outside our country. I answered by citing the analogy of the Serbian Government at Corfu; and, in the long run, the Allies made no bones about the matter.
The dates of the various recognitions and the conditions under which they were granted must also be borne in mind. France took the initiative at the beginning of 1916 and again in 1917; and though, as a Monarchy, England is more conservative, she willingly accepted our National Council and recognized our State rights. This is why I value so highly Mr. Asquith’s early decision to take the chair at my first lecture in London University; and the formal declaration upon which Mr. Balfour agreed with Dr. Beneš, involves very complete recognition. Monarchical Italy got into touch with me very early at Berne and maintained contact with Štéfánik and Beneš. If Sonnino’s and Orlando’s formulas of recognition were marked by some reserve on account of the Southern Slav question, the Italian Government gave ready support to the formation of our Legions, and we are indebted to it for the organization of our reserves after the conclusion of the Armistice.
Yet the negotiations with the Allied Governments for recognition were often long and difficult. There is, for instance, a great difference between recognizing a right to independence and direct recognition of the independence itself; and there is a
