added, was amply discussed at the time by our press in Russia and America. I wanted to stop bickerings among us and to prevent foreigners from being dragged into them. In this I succeeded, on the whole. Dürich was imprudent, and he had been exploited by dubious people in Paris who wished to use the Czech army for their own purposes. In Russia he succumbed to the pressure of the reactionaries and of foolish officials. As early as January 1917 I published a declaration that we were finanically independent of the Allied Governments. That parried the attacks of the enemy press and dispelled whatever doubts were felt here and there. But Dürich’s dependence upon the Russian Government made a bad impression in London and Paris where fear of a pan-Slav Russia was far too general. These matters I explained confidentially in the proper quarters, for the trouble with Dürich and about Dürich had arisen in Paris and had spread thence to Russia and even to America. It affected Beneš and Štefánik more than me. At last, there was nothing for it save to exclude Dürich from our National Council so as to silence all doubt in our colonies. Of course, we wrote as little as possible about it; and even if our very reserve enabled opponents to cast suspicion upon us until the Russian Revolution helped to clear things up, the affair did us little harm. The controversy compelled our people to reflect more seriously upon our aims and tactics. With the Allies, our vigorous suppression of Dürich did us good as was recognized by the Southern Slavs and the Poles who found it less easy to settle their personal squabbles. Similar strife and personal animosities in Allied countries came to my knowledge, and I used them to silence references to our troubles, or to those of the Southern Slavs and other organizations of “small peoples.”
One complication arose out of the unexpected influx of brand-new Czechs and Czechoslovaks into our colonies. Even Dürich fell into the hands of these “new Czechs.” Since, in Paris and elsewhere, it was not pleasant to be classed as a German, all kinds of renegades who knew a few words of Czech claimed fellowship with us, especially when the Allied Governments granted privileges to our citizens and recognized us not only as a nation but as an Allied Nation.
The National Council.
For our fight abroad we needed, above all, a leading central authority. At first, I was that authority, and the questions
