Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/37



If there was ever any doubt as to the sentiment of the Bohemian people and their sympathies in the present war, it has been removed in an authoritative way by an official communique of the Austrian government, dated January 5, 1917, which announces the commutation of the death sentences of Dr. Karel Kramar and his three co-defendants, and summarizes the evidence of their guilt.

The judgment of the highest military court of Vienna is a curiosity in this twentieth century. Since the days of the inquisition men have not been condemned for their beliefs or thoughts, but only for their acts. Kramar was found guilty of high treason because of what the court took to be his beliefs; and he was held responsible for the sentiments of the Czech people. You may not indict a nation, but you can indict and punish the nation through her leaders; that seems to be the standpoint of the men who dictated the judgment.

The judgment of the court and the official statement accompanying the judgment are of such instrinsic interest and shed so much light on conditions in Bohemia during the war that the full text of it deserves to be translated into English. It reads as follows:

“As has been announced before, Dr. Karel Kramar and Dr. Alois Rasin have been sentenced to death by the divisional military court for the crime of high treason, par. 58 of the Criminal Code, and for crime against the war power of the state, par. 32 of the Military Code. Vincenc Cervinka, secretary of the “Národní Listy” daily newspaper and Joseph Zamazal, clerk, have been sentenced to death for the crime of espionage. Kramar and Rasin have also been deprived of the degree of doctor of laws. The defendants applied for a writ of error. The supreme military court held a public hearing lasting eight days and refused the writ on Nov. 20, 1916, whereby the judgment went into effect.

But now His Majesty most graciously commuted the death sentences, and in place of them the following terms in the penitentiary at heavy labor were substituted: Karel Kramar 15 years, Alois Rasin 10 years, Vincenc Cervinka and Joseph Zamazal each 6 years.

The court in a lengthy opinion says:

Judgment of the lower court decided that Dr. Kramar as leader of the PanSlav propaganda in Bohemia and of the Czech movement in favor of Russia acted against the interests of the state both prior and subsequent to the outbreak of the war, by deliberate cooperation with plots aiming at the dismemberment of the monarchy. Not only in enemy countries, but also in neutral lands there was created a well organized and wide spread revolutionary propaganda which had for its purpose the partition of our monarchy by taking away from it Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Hungarian Slovakland, as well as other districts inhabited by Slavs. It also aimed to increase internal peril for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, to organize rebellion and civil war and to employ all means for the erection of a Bohemian State, independent of Austria-Hungary. This propaganda was carried on partly by Bohemians who were settled in foreign lands or who fled after the opening of the war, such as Deputies Masaryk and Duerich, and Pavlu, a former editor of “Národní Listy”, who deserted as an ensign from the front, partly by foreigners who had interested themselves before the war in the so-called Bohemian question in a sense hostile to the monarchy, and after the war broke out manifested decided enmity against the empire, such as Denis, Leger, Cheradame, Count Bobrinski, Lieutenant-General Volodimirov and others.

Means used by this propaganda were these: publishing of newspapers serving the idea of dismemberment (La Nation Tchèque, L’Independance Tchecoslovaque, Čechoslovan, Čechoslovak), publication of expressions, declarations, programs and newspaper articles in other foreign periodicals, creating of societies and political committees working toward the above mentioned aims; meetings and conferences were held (in Prague 1908 and 1912, in Petrograd 1909 etc.), and finally Czech volunteer legions were organized and armed in Russia, France and England which fought in enemy armies.

In addition to that there appeared in certain districts among parts of the Czech people at home a series of demonstrations that not merely gave expression to sentiments