the Socialist proclamation was disseminated among the people in leaflet form. Upon the views of the leading members of the National Committee the only evidence is a report written by Lammasch according to which Dr. Kramář stated, on his way to Geneva (October 22), that while he personally was monarchist, the majority of the Committee were republicans. But Kramář’s royalism was not Hapsburgian. At Geneva he, like all the members of the delegation, was anti-Austrian and anti-Hapsburg, though he still favoured a monarchy under a Russian dynasty. As Chairman of the National Committee, his view carried weight and it certainly influenced his party colleagues and perhaps some other members of the National Committee. Yet he, too, accepted the Republic under the impression of Dr. Beneš’s account of the situation abroad. This is how I interpret his public speech on his return from Geneva. General Štefánik was also inclined to favour a monarchical form of the State though he agreed, after some hesitation, to the proclamation of the Republic in the Washington Declaration of Independence.
The most radical of the draft Constitutions which were submitted to the National Committee at Prague in 1917 had foreshadowed a personal union with Austria, that is to say, self-government under one and the same monarch; but it must be observed that these drafts were written under Austrian pressure. It was not until October 14, 1918, that serious discussion of the Constitution and the form of the State began, on a juridical basis which Dr. Pantuček had worked out. His report upon this discussion is weighty because it shows that even before October 28 the leading members of Parliament had taken all political eventualities into account, and it is obvious that there was no longer any question of our remaining within the Hapsburg Monarchy but only of establishing a State entirely independent and republican in form.
The Policy of Vienna.
When describing in an earlier chapter the closing phases of my work in Washington I gave some account of the chief manifestations of Austrian policy. The history of this policy is of moment in judging our revolution in Prague, and I propose now to complete it in the light of documents subsequently received.
In Vienna it had not been forgotten that, at the opening sitting of the Austrian Reichsrat in 1917, the Czech Parliamentary Association had demanded the transformation of
