Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/219

 At noon Švehla, Soukup, Rašín and Stříbrný went to the Governor’s palace, but did not find Count Coudenhove in. They informed his deputy Kosina that the National Council took over public administration. The same announcement was made to Count Schonborn, president of the Provincial Administrative Commission. They told him also that the Committee took over the halls of the Bohemian Diet for its sessions. The War Food Commision was taken over at the same time and deputy Vyškovský. Dr. Němec, editor Svočil and Alois Jirásek were placed in charge.

When the four delegates of the Committee returned from the left bank of the Vltava, they were welcomed with a storm of applause by the people, and each of the four pronounced a speech in which they greeted the arrival of the great day and exhorted the people to maintain order. The next step taken by the National Committee was an order to stop all traffic to German Austria and to Germany, the mo tive being to prevent the export of food from the country.

Dr. Scheiner, the last president of the Czech Sokols, was appointed military commander, and Sokols were charged with the maintenance of order. The whole machinery of public administration, including the railways, posts and telegraphs, was now at the disposal of the new Government.

Naturally the day was observed by the entire city as a day of rejoicing. Factories and stores were closed and from noon till late at night the streets were jammed with crowds. No fares were collected on the street cars, though the cars could only crawl along on account of the constant processions. Before the Hus monument a military band played “Kde Domov Můj” and the Marseillaise; an empty funeral car was stopped. Austria was written on one side and Germany on the other, and the mob with band followed the car to the St. Václav Square, where an officer lined up a guard of soldiers, called out “attention,” while the band played the Czech hymn, and thus they buried the Central Powers. On the base of the St. Václav monument a placard was placed with the inscription: Long live the Czechoslovak Republic. Incidents like these were without number.

At nine o’clock in the evening the Austrian commander, Lieut. Field-Marshall Kestranek appeared at the offices of the National Committee and placed himself under orders of the new authority. Half an hour later the 28th Regiment, composed of recruits from Prague, arrived at the depot upon orders previously issued by the Committee and was received with enthusiasm. Doubt had been felt, whether the Magyar garrison of Prague would accept the new order of things, and machine guns were installed in houses opposite their barracks. But the Magyars desired only to return to Hungary and left Prague on November 1st. . The last units of German soldiers left the city the following day. General Kestranek was later arrested, because he attempted to destroy some important documents. But during the entire course of the sudden revolution there were no riots and not a single life was lost.

The first care of the new government was to establish its authority over the entire territory of the new state. Opposition was expected from the German minority in northern Bohemia and Moravia, where the Germans began to organize their own national council with headquarters at Reichenberg. But the prompt action of the new government in occupying with their troops all the important German centers was crowned with complete success. Brno, the capital of Moravia, Opava, the capital of Silesia, Olomouc and Jihlava in Moravia, Lípa, Litoměřice and Rumburg in Bohemia, all gave in without armed conflict. It was almost surprising, how readily the Germans were reconciled to the overthrow of their rule. When the announcement was made in the German National Theatre in Prague that the Czechoslovak National Committee took over the government, the audience accepted it with cheers. The German manufacturers of northern Bohemia realized that there could be no separate German-Bohemian state, for the districts in which Germans are in the majority form narrow disconnected belts between purely Czech territory and Germany; and joining Germany did not appeal to them for economic reasons. German peasants and workingmen have no quarrel with the Czechs and know quite well that they will receive fair treatment in the new state. Only the professional politicians have not yet become reconciled to the new order.