Page:Edvard Beneš – Bohemia's case for independence.pdf/37

Rh Habsburgs. Those nations who, in the beginning, had allowed their rights to be violated, were now paying the price, and being forced to submit to a constant abuse of power on the part of the monarchy. We may sum up the actual situation as follows: Germanisation and centralisation in Cisleithania (Austria), Magyarisation and centralisation in Transleithania (Hungary); the union of these two elements, German and Magyar, against the Slavs and Latins; a European war to hasten and facilitate their extermination.

The Czechs have never recognised or accepted this coup d'état. Up to the present day they consider all the constitutional measures taken by Maria Theresa as illegal and non-existing. They have never renounced the rights of their country, though outraged by sovereigns and abolished by measures absolutely anti-constitutional. Even when the era of the modern Constitution commenced (in 1848 and again in 1867) they persisted in claiming their ancient Constitution of the kingdom of Bohemia, and with it their independence.

Austria has never existed de jure for the Czechs; not one of the Czech national parties has renounced its claims, and even to-day the Czech parties in Bohemia are bringing forward the programme of the independence of the kingdom of Bohemia to set against the enterprise of a Pan-German Central Europe.