wished to exclude us from the peace negotiations, but now, against your will, you will find Czechs taking part in them, as representatives of the Czechoslovak brigades. With them you will have to negotiate upon the Czech question, not with us; and hence we decline to negotiate with you. This question will be solved elsewhere than in Austria. Here there are no factors competent to solve it.” And, in its proclamation of October 19, after the manifesto of the Emperor Charles, the National Committee in Prague identified itself with the declaration of the Czech Association, refused to discuss the Czech question in Austria and said: “The Czech question has ceased to be an Austro-Hungarian internal affair. It has become an international question and will be solved together with all world questions. Nor can it be solved save with the assent and in agreement with the internationally-recognized portion of the Czech nation beyond the frontiers of Bohemia.”
The great importance which Dr. Rašín and Dr. Soukup assigned to President Wilson’s answer to Austria-Hungary and to Andrássy’s acceptance of it is clear; and from Dr. Rašín’s account of the revolution in his “Maffia,” we see how anxiously he had awaited the complete capitulation of Austria. He saw it in Andrássy’s Note. Upon this capitulation the revolution followed immediately and, by it, the whole character of the revolution, especially its calm and bloodless course, was decided.
It has been argued that the revolution was somewhat belated and that it ought to have taken place immediately after the manifesto of the Emperor Charles on October 16, or after Wilson’s answer which was published at home on October 21. I myself expected some demonstration on the part of our people after the Declaration of Independence in America which, like Wilson’s answer, counteracted the Emperor’s manifesto. In fact the statement issued by our National Committee in Prague upon the Emperor’s manifesto was such a demonstration; and it seems to me now that the policy adopted by Dr. Rašín, in agreement with the whole National Committee, was right. The decision to await the complete capitulation of Austria corresponded to the disparity between Austrian military power and our own feeble forces at home. Had action been taken immediately after the Emperor’s manifesto and the upheaval in Vienna, we should have needed a violent revolt, and that was beyond our strength; and if negotiations had been carried on with Vienna for the transformation of the Bohemian Lands into a National State—even as a merely tactical move—obligations of some sort would have been incurred and a
