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 Bohemia’s tie to the German Bund was purely dynastic and voluntary, and that it implied no obligation on the part of Czechs to participate in Frankfurt’s deliberations. “Bohemia is indissolubly linked to Germany,” he countered. “Her connection with Germany is as old as her history.” As far back as the fourteenth century, kings such as Charles IV already considered themselves more German than Czech; and by the beginning of the eighteenth century, under Joseph I, Bohemia was declared an inseparable part of the imperial lands. Voluntary association did not exist, and if it ever had, the distinction had become obscured by the time the Holy Roman Empire was transformed into the Bund, following the Napoleonic wars.

Havlíček led the defense of Palacký, strengthening his own claim to leadership among Czech liberals. Writing in Národní noviny (National News), he admitted that Austria had been shaken by the revolution. Yet she might survive, he observed, because Slav support of her was constant, even if liberal German was not. What confused the situation was the growing attraction of Frankfurt for certain Austrian government ministers. Unlike middle class German intellectuals, they did not regard Austria’s demise as inevitable. To the contrary, they shared Metternich’s dream of Austrian domination of all central European German states, and they realized that the goal would be frustrated if they ignored Frankfurt and its labors subsequently proved fruitful.

These Austrian designs on the German Confederation, and even Italy, fostered, according to Havlíček, a serious misunderstanding of Austria’s destiny. Two hundred years earlier the Habsburgs had ignored Wallenstein’s warning that excessive preoccupation with the Protestant threat was jeopardizing Austria’s ability to defend Europe’s south-eastern flank. The result was a second, nearly disastrous Turkish siege of Vienna (1683). Now in the nineteenth century, Austria was again acting against her true interests and mission–to serve as an “association of diverse peoples with equal dignity.” “O irony of fate! The Czechs are more Austrian than the Austrians themselves! We in Prague, we in Zagreb, have cared better and more persistently for your welfare [than have you, the Austrian government] Wallenstein fell, sacrificed to the Jesuits. But what did not happen two hundred years ago [Austria’s disengagement from the Bund] can still be realized today.”

Throughout the spring and summer of 1848, Havlíček expanded his support of Palacký. By late April the Frankfurt controversy had split the bi-national Svatováclavský výbor into rival Czech and German organizations. Palacký became chief policymaker, Havlíček journalistic