and led to strife. There were, naturally, personal and party differences in all our colonies, in Paris more than elsewhere; but there was also abundant goodwill.)
In the United States a Congress of the “Czech National Association in America” met on January 18 at Cleveland, and formed a centre for the efforts of our American colony. At Moscow the first Congress of the delegates of Czechoslovak Societies in Russia was held, and a General Association of those Societies founded. Our people organized themselves likewise in Serbia and Bulgaria. In Germany, where they were more numerous than elsewhere, they could not, of course, form a militant organization.
Everywhere, too, plans were approximately the same, opposition to Austria-Hungary taking the form of enlistment in the Allied armies, though the statements of our political aims were often very radical and ill-conceived. Some of them, for instance, claimed that not only should Vienna and Austria be included in Czechoslovak territory but also the whole of former Silesia and other regions which had once belonged for a time to the Bohemian Crown. It never seemed to occur to these enthusiastic politicians that a Czechoslovak State thus constituted would be mainly German. As long as these fantastic ideas were confined to our own people they did little harm, but harm was done when they were laid before Governments and statesmen.
Nevertheless, towards the summer of 1915, the process of creating a “single front” was practically completed. My authority was promptly recognized on every hand without much difficulty. We established, too, a press with a single policy. On May 1 our friend Professor Denis brought out in Paris his periodical “La Nation Tchèque.” On June 15 Pavlu published the “Čechoslovák” in St. Petersburg, while Švihovský issued the “Čechoslovan” at Kieff. Finally we had the “Československá Samostatnost” (Czechoslovak Independence), edited by Dr. Sychrava, which appeared, from August 22 onwards, in the little French town of Annemasse. This was the official organ of our whole movement abroad. In America the Czechs and Slovaks had their own separate journals; and, in Russia, a Slovak paper was published in May 1917. Later on, in Siberia, there were Czech as well as Slovak papers. In response to my constant demands that some Members of Parliament and journalists should come from Bohemia to help us, M. Dürich, a Member of Parliament, arrived at the end of May. I had met him in the Vienna Reichsrat. He was quite a good parliamen-
E
