Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/21



Not so many years ago the people of Austria-Hungary would have hailed with joy a declaration of Great Powers demanding for them “the freest opportunity of autonomous development.” Now the word autonomy leaves them cold, nay disappointed. They have seen the most improbable things happen in the course of a few short years—slaughter more awful than man ever imagined, barbarities exceeding all that history recorded, sufferings and misery beyond human endurance, as well as political transformations of which only wild enthusiasts dared to dream. Who before the war would have hazarded the guess that a few short years would find a general agreement of minds as to the necessity of an independent Poland? Who foretold the rise of an independent Ukrainian republic?

War has created certain psychological states whose influence exceeds the might of the mightiest armies. In Bohemia it has brought into being a state of mind which affects all alike—the rich and the poor, conservative and radical, young and old, men and women. It manifests itself in a fire of patriotism the intensity of which no American, patriotic though he be, can comprehend. It is the patriotism of a small nation in which each member counts, a nation that had once played a noble part in Europe, a nation with a history of which each Czech is passionately proud, a nation with a strong individuality jealously preserved, a nation determined to be once more independent. This exalted enthusiasm accounts for the boldness of the Czech deputies in Vienna who in the very den of lions dare to challenge their enemies by demanding a Bohemian state with all the attributes of sovereignty; this explains the conduct of the Czechoslovak people who by desertions, insubordination, strikes, riots seek to embarrass their oppressors and bring about their defeat. No promise of autonomy has the power to create such determination. Only freedom in its full sense, freedom as a nation, political independence can and does inspire a nationally conscious people to unheard of heights of heroism.

Perhaps America will understand now, why the promise of freest autonomy from the Allies has been such a disappointment to the Bohemians. Not merely because Bohemians know that autonomy under the Hapsburgs, autonomy under the same roof with Germans and Magyars would be illusory. But because it is such an anti-climax to what they had aspired, what they had confidently and with good reason expected from the Allies, and from America above all.

Is it necessary in the interests of the world democracy that the Allies should abandon the Czechs and all the Austrian Slavs to the Hapsburgs? Is the cause of justice so weak that it must compromise with tyrants? It cannot be. There may be weighty reasons, why at this time the enemies of the Central Powers cannot speak of independent Bohemia as openly as they speak of independent Poland. But surely no diplomatic or military considerations require that the democratic nations of the world abandon their real friends in Central Europe for the sake of conciliating a dynasty.

Bohemians have no desire to embarrass their friends by asking too much at an in convenient time. But it surely is not too much to ask that the Allies speak not of autonomy, but of self-determination, for the peoples of Austria-Hungary. All that the Bohemian nation asks is that it be allowed to determine for itself under what government it shall live.

The words of Woodrow Wilson, the scholar, written nearly thirty years ago, have been clothed with a new significance by the events of the last four years: No lapse of time, no defeat of hopes, can reconcile the Czechs of Bohemia to incorporation with Austria.”