a member of our subterranean organization, and a Social Democrat; and it irked him to see his Party taking so small a share in the work abroad. So, unknown to me, he took it into his head to send a messenger to its leader, Dr. Soukup, by way of stirring up the Party. The police caught the messenger. It was a bad business for us, as we had to begin all over again with new methods. The police, too, had become smarter, so that we were obliged to be more wide-awake than ever.
To some extent we communicated with Prague “legally,” by post. In the early days, at least, non-political letters got through. Thus, in a form agreed upon, I was able to hint that, in certain circumstances, I should come home. True, Dr. Beneš had telegraphed at the end of January that this would be impossible, and Machar[1] sent me word that I should be executed on crossing the frontier. Friends in Prague got wind of a telegram sent from Rome by Baron Macchio, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the Quirinal, charging me with treasonable activities in Rome. Macchio had disliked me ever since my fight against Aehrenthal in 1909–10, when he was a Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. To keep me informed, our people at home made clever use of the advertisement columns of the newspapers, including the German newspapers. Dr. Beneš even managed to come twice to see me in Switzerland for a few days. Professor Hantich, M. Habrman (a Member of Parliament) and Dr. Třebický came also.
Another aspect of our task was to create a single organization for our people in all Allied countries. In this progress was slow, because correspondence was difficult. As time went on I managed to visit our principal centres myself or to send emissaries to confirm written instructions. We felt the need for a journal to guide and inform all our colonies as a substitute for voluminous correspondence. Friendly newspapers helped us to some extent by publishing news and interviews—as did hostile newspapers by their denunciations and indictments—and our people everywhere understood what was wanted. At Berne they formed a Central Executive Committee of Czech Societies in Switzerland (January 8, 1915). In Paris, the weekly papers “Na Zdar” and “L’Indépendance Tchèque” were published, and soon afterwards the “National Council of Czech Colonies was formed. (It must, however, be confessed that these Paris undertakings did harm as well as good. They were short-lived
- ↑ J. S. Machar (born 1864), a realist Czech poet-philosopher of strong originality, whose writings have had marked influence upon the younger generation.
