before the war, they were wavering between East and West, looking now towards Asia, now towards Africa, in their uncertainty whether Russia or England was Germany’s real adversary. Mr. Temperley notes with some satisfaction in his “History of the Peace” that Germany showed less hostility to us than to some other peoples; and, in their report upon our revolution, Dr. Rašín and Dr. Soukup relate that the German Consul-General at Prague informed them forthwith (November 2) that the German Empire recognized the Czechoslovak State and had no thought of taking our German territory. I know that, in Russia, our men felt quite differently about the Germans than about the Austrians and Magyars. The Germans and we were at war, yet we respected each other, as the agreement at Bachmatch and other minor incidents prove. Our resentment of Austro-Hungarian oppression was more direct, more personal; and, for this reason, our political relationship to the new republican and democratic Germany may well be other than it was to the old Austria-Hungary and to Prussia.
For my own part I may say that, though I was working for our political independence even before the war, I never showed hostility to the Germans of Germany or even to the Germans in Austria. Then and afterwards I took a definite stand against Austrian Hapsburgism and Prussian Germanism, siding openly with the Allies during the war, but saying no word of insult to the Germans or to the Austrians as a nation. My bearing, as I have good ground to know, was recognized and respected even in German official circles. Nor was my policy affected by the knowledge that the Austrian military authorities and some circles in Germany wished to suppress my adherents by force and, above all, to have me arrested, even before the war, because they thought me dangerous.
My own mental training was by no means solely German. I sought Western culture because I found German literature and philosophy insufficient. Intellectually, I was rooted in the Classics, and in French, English, American and Russian literature; and if I was more deeply versed in them than most of my fellow-countrymen, I believe that, on the whole, my personal development corresponds to theirs. Mine was determined not by political prejudice but by critical comparison of German culture with that of other peoples, and by a desire for independence and synthesis.
