sun. A section of the Russophils desired, indeed, a degree of autonomy within the Russian Federation, with a Grand Duke of sorts as Viceroy or Imperial Lieutenant in Prague. Now I had made a lifelong study of Russia and of the Slav peoples individually and, in the light of it, I could not look to Tsarist Russia for salvation. On the contrary, I expected a repetition of the Russo-Japanese war. Therefore I favoured vigorous action abroad, not in Russia alone but also in the other Allied countries, so as to gain for us the goodwill and the help of all. I insisted that, like me, Dr. Kramář should get away, so that we could share the work abroad; but he, I was told (for I had no chance of approaching him personally), was determined to stay at home since he expected that the Russians would themselves settle the Czechoslovak question once for all. The lessons of the Russo-Japanese war made me fear, however, that Russia would not win and that a new revolution would break out among her people. Then, I apprehended, our own people would lose heart if salvation by Russia had been generally awaited and Russia should prove powerless to help us.
The evolution of modern Russia and of the Russian army I had watched very closely. I had last visited Russia in 1910, when I had got good information of the state of the army. The decay and demoralization which had been so frightfully revealed in the Japanese war had not been overcome and, though reforms had been introduced and weapons provided, progress was insignificant. Of this I had confirmation during the Balkan wars of 1912–1918, and subsequently up to the beginning of the Great War. I distrusted the Russian army administration and the various Grand Dukes. Indeed, the light-mindedness of Tsarist Russia was soon shown by the terrible fact that Russian soldiers had to withstand the Germans with sticks and stones; and it was no compensation that the Archdukes in the Austro-Hungarian army were little better than the Grand Dukes of Russia. In the spring of 1914, about May, I think, a leading Russian journal, the “Novoye Vremya,” had written of Russian unpreparedness for war in the same way as Sazonof had spoken to our fellow-countrymen. This was reported in the Czech press, but soon forgotten, and a miraculously rapid Russian victory was expected. Our optimists are, however, entitled to plead that the Allies were no less optimistic than they.
I could understand that our people should be enthusiastic over the official Russian pronouncements, which spoke of “Slavs and brothers.” That was enough for our public
