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

The Czechs and Germans and the Birth
of Czechoslovakia
and that “the Czechoslovak state is the
free Czechoslovak Republic” and
proclaimed Tomáš G. Masaryk
President of the Republic. All the acts
of executive or regulatory power taken
up till then by the National Committee
were ratified by the Constitution.
According to that Provisional
Constitution and to the previous legal
status after October 28 it was possible
to designate the form of government as
the rule of a parliament based on a
unified authority.
The change from the rule of
parliament to a parliamentary republic
with a more extensive division of powers
did not occur until the amendment of
the constitution in May 1919 (Law
No. 271 of May 23, 1919). At Masaryk’s
request, the amended Constitution
enhanced the status of the President,
particularly vis-à-vis the government.
The President of the Republic was thus
accorded the right to attend and chair
meetings of the government, to demand
written reports from the government
and its members, to appoint and dismiss
the prime minister and members of the
government, and decide on the
appointment of ministers on the basis of
the prime minister’s recommendations.
A clause about the President’s travel
abroad in respect of the exercise of his
office was replaced by another clause
about the exercise of his office in the
event of illness. In the case of illnesses
lasting more than one month, the
National Assembly was to elect a deputy
President of the Republic. In stipulated
instances, the Prime Minister could
stand in for the President of the
Republic. The President’s powers were
also strengthened in respect of the
single-chamber National Assembly and
the powers of that legislative body were
defined in greater detail.
The democratic and republican
principle of equality was enshrined in
Law No. 61/1918 Coll. of December 10,
1918, which abolished the nobility,
orders and titles. According to that
regulation, the former members of the
aristocracy were not allowed to use titles
or attributes. The nobility had not taken
53
Chapter II
part in the struggle for an
independent state.
The creation of Czechoslovakia, also
justified on the grounds of historical
state right, had thwarted attempts to
destroy the historical entity of the
Lands of the Bohemian Crown
(Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia). The
division of those lands (“provinces”) and
the abolition of the historical entity in
the interest of the German population
started to be implemented
during the war.
The representatives of the new
political power were relying more on
natural than historical law when they
declared a common state with the
Slovaks, even though for reasons of
historical legitimacy in various
documents stress was laid on the
common nation and state at the time of
the Great Moravian Empire. The
Slovak political leadership, represented
abroad chiefly by Milan R. Štefánik and
the National Committee by Vavro
Šrobár supported that common
statehood. The Slovak National Council
did likewise in the “Declaration of the
Slovak People” signed at Turčianský
Svätý Martin on October 30, 1918
before it knew about the proclamation
of the Czechoslovak state.
THE CREATION AND
PROMOTION OF THE STATE
BODIES
The National Committee and the
National Assembly that emerged out of
it were made up of delegates of political
parties. The representation of the
various parties in those assemblies was
based on the results achieved by those
parties in the elections to
the Reichsrat in 1911.
(Originally, the National Committee
was set up on the basis of a manifesto of
nine political parties on November 9,
1916, as a standing national committee
comprising representatives of the
political parties that signed the
manifesto. It was intended as a support
to the Czech Union of Reichsrat
Deputies in respect of moral and
political issues affecting the nation as a