Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/84

 Bohemia, Greater Roumania, Jugoslavia, and Italy, by which the Allied principles of justice and national self-determination would be vindicated and Germany prevented from repeating her present exploits.

The first condition of the proposed solution is the disappearance of the present Dual Monarchy. The realization of the national unity and independence of the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, Roumanians, Jugoslavs and Italians, would reduce Austria and Hungary to their proper racial boundaries. Austria and Hungary would then be States of not more than about 8 million inhabitants each, and would be without any political, military, or economic value to Germany. A close alliance between united Poland and Bohemia would mean an economically and politically strong anti-German block of 40 million people. Incidentally it would provide Bohemia with a sea port (Dantzig). Germany would be barred from expansion in the Adriatic, in the Balkans, and in the Near East by an alliance between the two Adriatic nations, the Italians and Jugoslavs. The encirclement of Germany would be completed by an establishment of a united Roumania which would border both on the Czecho-Slovak and the Jugoslav State. Roumania and Jugoslavia would together number some 25 millions, while the Polish-Czecho-Slovak-Roumanian combination would mean a solid block of over 50 millions which would definitely prevent Germany’s expansion to the East and assure the nations of Russia a peaceful development. No third solution is possible: either Germany will succeed in preserving the Hapsburg Monarchy and creating the Pangerman  or the Slavs and Latins of Central Europe will, with the help of the Allies, obtain national unity and independence. The growing courage and co-operation on the part of the subject peoples of Austria and the approaching Allied victory lead us to believe that the latter alternative will triumph.

Public and authoritative declarations by the Czechs in favor of Czechoslovak independence have been numerous and have left no doubt that the Czechs at any rate are absolutely united upon this demand and determined at all cost to realize it. Similar declarations by the Slovaks have been lacking, except on the part of Slovaks beyond the boundaries of Hungary, for the simple reason that under the Asiatic regime of the Magyars the Slovaks have had no means of making their sentiments known in an authoritative manner. The three million Slovaks have only two or three deputies in the Hungarian parliament who are howled down by the Magyar chauvinists, if they attempt to give expression to the aspirations of their people. The few Slovak news papers still maintaining a precarious existence under the Magyar tyranny are not permitted to print anything opposed to the Magyar state idea, and a Slovak public meeting is something unheard of in Hungary. So the Czechs who made good their defiance of the German tyranny in the Austrian half of the monarchy have to speak both in their own name and in the name of their brothers in Upper Hungary.

That the union of the two branches of the Czechoslovak people in an independent democratic state is ardently desired on the Hungarian side of the artificial dividing line is abundantly attested from Magyar sources. We have heard much about the proposed franchise reform in Hungary and the cabinet of Dr. Wekerle recently resigned, because its so-called democratic franchise reform included the concession of a few seats to the non-Magyar races of Hungary, a step that the majority of the Budapest Parliament violently disapproved of. From the debates on the government bill one gleans a few indications as to the true sentiments of the Slovaks.

Deputy Andrew Kuzma, speaking before the Commission on Electoral Reform on February 27, referred to the Slovaks in these words:

“Members supporting the government ought to realize that the objections urged by the majority against the government’s proposal of electoral reform are not due to reactionary motives. They proceed from very grave apprehensions as to the future of the Magyars. These objections deserve closest attention and should not be slighted. I know from experience that the brave Slovak people are ready to yield to the seductions of the Czechs. Prominent Slovaks, men of influence and energy, sent to a