the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

The Czechs and Germans and the Birth
of Czechoslovakia
Czech representatives is the Reichsrat in
Vienna. Well, gentlemen, at least show
yourselves there to be true spokesmen of
your nation. There, at least, tell the state
and the world what your nation wants
and what it insists on!…
“The Czech nation will not be able to
acknowledge the present delegation’s
right to speak and act in its name within
the Reichsrat until complete civic
freedom has been secured for our public
life!…
“The yearnings and rights of the
Czechoslovak nation are gaining new
support and a new vigour by the course
of the World War to date, which is
ensuring a democratic future Europe.
“The nation’s eloquent silence,
unaffected by oppression, however
great, ought not to be disturbed in any
way until the end of the international
contest. However, the doors of the
Austrian parliament are now open and
the political representatives of the
nations have their first opportunity to
speak and act freely if they so choose.
“The nation demands of you,
gentlemen, that you rise to this great
historical moment. If you are unable to
discharge everything the nation requires
of you now then it would be better for
you to step down… and appeal to your
highest authority: your nation!”
At that moment, however, a dam
seemed to burst. In January 1918, under
the influence of the October Revolution
in Russia, a general strike took place
against the brutal attitude of the
German and Austrian delegations at the
peace talks at Brest-Litovsk. The Czech
Union of Deputies in the revived
Reichsrat realised that it had to change
course, and it drew up with the Czech
deputies of the Diets of the Bohemian
Crown an “Epiphany Manifesto” calling
for self-determination for the
Bohemian lands and Slovakia.
The Czech deputies and other
representatives of political and cultural
life subsequently signed a political oath
on April 13, 1918, which stated:
“To the Czechoslovak nation!
“The boundless war is reaching its
height. Countless multitudes of
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Chapter II
Czechoslovak men and women stand in
agony and horror. Czechoslovak blood
continues to gush in streams on the
battlefields. Countless graves of the
dead are memorials to the losses of the
Czechoslovak nation. Boundless and
endless woes have decimated the people
and the anxious gaze of mothers is fixed
in despair on the generations of
Czechoslovak youth as they waste away.
All these immeasurable sacrifices were
imposed on us by a war we did not want
and for which we are not responsible.
Unbroken and steeled by suffering, our
nation believed that from the tempest of
the world war would at last flower a
better life for it too, and that its
yearnings will be sanctified by a
universal peace that will preserve
mankind for ever from a repetition of
the present catastrophe. We have only
ever wanted to live a free and
independent life and to manage our
own destinies under our own
sovereignty and build our own free and
unfettered existences as every conscious
nation does throughout the civilised
world.
“This is our most sacred right!
“It is the national right and the
international right of a nation that has
contributed to world culture, a nation,
which by its standard of education,
moral fibre and economic development
has proudly placed itself, through its
own efforts, in the front ranks of the
democratic nations of the world.
“Such is the nation’s unanimous and
concerted will!
“Nothing will alter this
determination, neither the malevolent
incitement of resentment among our
neighbouring nations, nor the
fraudulent use of mothers’ and women’s
tears, nor even greater attempts to
starve the nation. Vain are all attempts
to break the nation or undermine its
resistance by means of threats.
“Czechoslovak nation!
“We are gathered here as your chosen
representatives to declare far and wide
that the entire nation, united as never
before in your history, stands as a
granite bastion foursquare behind your