existed. Until then, none save students of Slavonic and a section of the Russian educated class had known anything about us. The peasants had heard only of Bulgars and Serbs as Orthodox peoples, and of the Poles as Catholics.
Sometimes, in controversial writings upon the revolution of October 28, it has been claimed that the Western Allies used or misused us as a means of compelling Austria to make a separate peace, and it has therefore been argued that ourwork abroad was, after all, not so very important. This argument is baseless. It is conclusively refuted by the fact that the Allies did not make a separate peace with Austria, and by their various recognitions of, negotiations with, and whole behaviour towards us. Wilson’s answer to Austria would alone suffice to dispose of it entirely. I was present when his answer was sent and know from experience how it originated, psychologically and politically. Wilson was totally incapable of the sort of cunning which is, by implication, ascribed to him; and we know how his answer disintegrated Austria and encouraged our people at home. The Austrian “capitulation,” of which Dr. Rašín spoke, sufficiently controverts a theory that so light-mindedly casts aspersions on the Allies. Their aims were lofty; and though there were among them individuals, groups and tendencies working for other ends, the Allies, despite all difficulties, carried through their democratic mission against reactionary absolutism. Among us also, the idea, the idealists, not the super-cunning, triumphed at the last.
I myself have dwelt upon the dangerous character of the negotiations of the Emperor Charles with the Allies through Prince Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma—if it is to these that the opponents of the Allies allude—and have shown that they were incompatible with the recognition which we had already received. I have shown, too, that they broke down in consequence of their own inherent impracticability; and that neither the French nor the Italian Foreign Minister was in agreement with them. I have dealt also with the endeavours of Austrian diplomacy to work upon pro-Austrian feeling abroad, even at the time of our revolution; and I am entitled to say that I have been thoroughly critical in my account of Allied policy during the war. Despite the reserve imposed upon me by the position I hold, I am persuaded that I have not departed from reality and truth.
Or, again, the opponents of the Allies may insist upon the point of detail that the Congress of Oppressed Hapsburg Peoples,
