The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/Bohemia's Case for Independence

BOHEMIA'S CASE FOR INDEPENDENCE

 

Under this title, Dr. Edward Beneš, general secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council of Paris, has just published a book setting forth the demands of the Bohemians and Slovaks. It is an excellent presentation of arguments with which readers of this Review are familiar. After a brief account of the Bohemian history, with a special chapter devoted to the wrongs of the Slovaks, the author describes the Pan-German plans which included the crushing of the Czechoslovaks as the first great obstacle to the German dreams of Central Europe. The chapter on Czechoslovaks and the War gathers together the most startling instances of oppression to which Bohemia has been subject since the war began. As the book was published in London and was intended primarily for English readers, a chapter has been added on the relations of England and Bohemia. A very full bibliography is a valuable feature of this little book of 132 pages.

Henry Wickham Steed, for many years correspondent of the London Times in Vienna, author of the “Hapsburg Monarchy”, writes the Introduction. He makes a strong argument for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and quotes an old parody from Macmillan’s Magazine of 1866:

 

Who is Austria? What is she?
That all our swells commend her?
Dogged, proud and dull is she;
The heavens such gifts did lend her
That she might destroyed be.

But what is Austria? Is it fair
To name among the nations
Some Germans who have clutched the hair
Of divers populations,
And having clutched, keep tugging there?

 

We commend this book most warmly to our readers. If you want an American friend ignorant of Bohemia to take interest in Bohemia’s independence, present him this book. It may be ordered from the Bohemian National Alliance, 3639 West Twenty-sixth street, Chicago; the price is 75 cents.

 

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