Independent Bohemia | Page 6

according
to the principle of nationality, is a sine qua non of a permanent and just
peace in Europe.
5. The four strongest races in Austria-Hungary, then, are the Germans,
Magyars, Czecho-Slovaks and Yugoslavs, numbering from eight to ten
million each. The Austrian Germans and the Magyars occupy the centre,
while the Czecho-Slovaks inhabit the north (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia
and Slovakia), and the Yugoslavs ten provinces in the southern part of
the monarchy. In order to facilitate German penetration and domination
and to destroy the last remnants of Bohemia's autonomous constitution,
the Austrian Government attempted, by the imperial decree of May 19,
1918, to dismember Bohemia into twelve administrative districts with
German officials at the head, who were to possess the same power to
rule their respective districts as had hitherto appertained only to the
Governor (Statthalter) of Bohemia, legally responsible to the Bohemian
Diet.
But not only are the Czecho-Slovaks and Yugoslavs divided between
both halves of the monarchy and among numerous administrative

districts which facilitate German penetration. Dissensions were
fomented among the different parties of these two nations and religious
differences exploited. The Yugoslavs, for instance, consist of three
peoples: the Serbs and Croats, who speak the same language and differ
only in religion and orthography, the former being Orthodox and the
latter Catholic; and the Slovenes, who speak a dialect of
Serbo-Croatian and form the most western outpost of the Yugoslav (or
Southern Slav) compact territory. It was the object of the Austrian
Government to exploit these petty differences among Yugoslavs so as
to prevent them from realising that they form one and the same nation
entitled to independence. At the same time Austria has done all in her
power to create misunderstandings between the Slavs and Italians, just
as she tried to create dissensions between Poles and Ruthenes in
Galicia, and between Poles and Czechs in Silesia, well knowing that
the dominant races, the Germans and Magyars, would profit thereby.
Fortunately the war has opened the eyes of the subject peoples, and, as
we shall show later on, to-day they all go hand in hand together against
their common enemies in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.

II
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND THE PRESENT WAR
In order to understand fully what is at stake in this war and why the
Slavs are so bitterly opposed to the further existence of
Austria-Hungary, it is necessary to study the foreign policy of the
Central Powers during the past century. The "deepened alliance"
concluded between Germany and Austria-Hungary in May, 1918,
resulting in the complete surrender of Austria's independence, is in fact
the natural outcome of a long development and the realisation of the
hopes of Mitteleuropa cherished by the Germans for years past. The
scares about the dangers of "Pan-slavism" were spread by the Germans
only in order to conceal the real danger of Pan-Germanism.
1. The original theory of Pan-Germanism was the consolidation and
unity of the whole German nation corresponding to the movement of
the Italians for national unity. In fact it was a German, Herder, who
first proclaimed the principle of nationality and declared the nation to
be the natural organ of humanity, as opposed to the idea of the state as
an artificial organisation: "Nothing seems to be so opposed to the

purpose of government as an unnatural extension of territory of a state
and a wild confusion of holding different races and nations under the
sway of a single sceptre." It was this humanitarian philosophy
recognising the natural rights of all nations, great or small, to freedom
which inspired the first Czech regenerators such as Dobrovský,
Jungman and Kollár.
The legitimate claims of the Germans to national unity became unjust
and dangerous for Europe when the Germans began to think of
subduing the whole of Central Europe to their hegemony, which meant
the subjugation of some 100 million Slavs and Latins. At first it was
Austria which, as the head of the former Holy Roman Empire, and the
traditional bulwark of Germany in the east (Osterreich--an eastern
march), aspired to be the head of the Pan-German Empire. At the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Austrian Emperor became the head of
the German Confederation. Prussia at that time entirely gave way and
left the leadership to Metternich's system of absolutism.
By and by, it became obvious that Austria was, on account of her
non-German population, internally weak, condemned to constant
employment of violence and reaction, and therefore unfit to stand at the
head of a strong modern Pan-Germany. Prussia therefore, as the
greatest of the homogeneous German states, became Austria's rival and
was accepted by the Frankfurt Assembly as the leader of the
Confederation. The rivalry between Austria and Prussia ended in 1866,
when after Austria's defeat the clever diplomacy of Bismarck turned the
rivalry between Austria and