system under the young heir-apparent, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, would be no better than the old. The soldiers would have the upper hand after a victorious war and they would centralize and Germanize. It would be absolutism with parliamentary embellishments.” “What about Berlin?” I asked. “Will Germany be wise enough to make her ally adopt reforms?” “Hardly,” was Koerber’s reply
If necessary, I could quote from Koerber’s experience of the Austrian Court and its surroundings many an anecdote to illustrate its incapacity and moral degeneracy. But his Memoirs will certainly not get lost. From a purely political point of view his diagnosis was all the more striking because he did not look upon the Hapsburg Dynasty, Vienna and Austria as I did or judge them from an ethical standpoint.
I hunted up also a number of my Austrian-German Parliamentary acquaintances. They merely confirmed what Koerber had said and what I had foreseen; but, before carrying out so grave a decision as that which I had taken, I wanted to hear for a last time what the Austrian-Germans themselves thought about Austria. I discovered, however, that even quiet and peaceable Germans had been turned against us by military influence. Several of them hinted at impending prosecutions and they, like Koerber, knew of the administrative and political schemes that were to be carried through after victory. Dr. Kramář (the leader of the Young Czech Party), I learned, was in for trouble. His pro-Russian policy was a thorn in the flesh of the Archduke Frederick, while pan-Slavism of every shade was a nightmare in Vienna and Budapest. I let some intimate acquaintances of Dr. Kramář know what I had heard.
Dr. Beneš.
After this trip to Vienna the only thing was to get ready to start; and, at this point, I must say a word about Dr. Beneš.
Up to the war my personal knowledge of him was slight. I had noticed the articles he had sent from Paris and his other writings. In him I could detect the influence-albeit as yet undefined of my own “Realist” philosophy, of French Positivism and of Marxism. After the outbreak of war he offered his services to my paper, the “Čas,” as a volunteer, and we met often in the “Čas” office. One day, before the regular conference at the office, he came to my house in an earnest mood. He had reached the conclusion that we could not
