Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/10

 must be made gradually so as not to harm the economic and political future of the new state. A supreme court was established in Prague of which Dr. August Popelka was made presiding judge, and in addition there was also erected an administrative court under the presidency of Dr. Ferdinand Pantuček. Preliminary steps were taken to open universities in Brno and Prespurk, and reconstruction of the public school system in Slovakia was placed in charge of Jaroslav Vlček, who has been for decades the greatest expert among the Czechs and Slovak problems. Titles of nobility were abolished and the eight hour working day was introduced as a measure of social reform. Prompt action was taken against two bolshevik agitators who came to Prague in pursuance of Lenine’s general plan for creating anarchy on the ruins of Germany and Austria. They were at once expelled and at the same time the departure of 56,000 Russian prisoners in Bohemia was expedited. A national loan of one billion crowns was issued and oversubscribed; other steps were taken to introduce order into the financial administration of the republic. It may be mentioned here that nearly all Bohemian banks have largely increased their capital in expectation of the great business which the Czechs hope to carry on under the new order of things in Central and Eastern Europe.

More sensational than these internal questions were the problems of establishing a modus vivendi with the neighboring republics of Austrians, Germans and Magyars. In the Czech lands there is a considerable German minority which according to the biased Austrian census constitutes almost one-third of the population, while in Slovakia the Magyars would not release their hold on even the purely Slovak districts. German deputies from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia after the successful Czech revolution established in Liberec a National Council for German Bohemia, subordinated to the Vienna government of German Austria. They claimed for their own all those parts of the Bohemian lands which had been under the artificial Austrian system in the hands of German municipal authorities. They even dared to claim cities lying in the very midst of purely Czech territory, such as Brno, Olomouc, Opava and others, which owing to an unfair franchise and the pressure of Austrian authorities were still under German control, as Prague itself had been up to about 50 years ago. But the German politicians found little response from their own people. First the German minorities in Czech cities reconciled themselves to the new state of affairs; then one city and district after another accepted the authority of the Prague Government, until finally Eger and Liberec itself fell into the hands of the Czechoslovak Government without a struggle. Credit is surely due to dr. Kramář’s government for their conservative methods of dealing with the threatened German secession. The Government neither employed arms, although its military strength was overwhelming, nor did it even design to use pressure by withdrawing food supplies from the diseffected districts; its statesmanlike course was justified by the surrender of German population of Bohemia.

It may be stated here that the German question which had seemed so full of complications will undoubtedly solve itself very simply. Already men who under the Austrian regime would never think of calling themselves Czechs now vie with one another in promising loyalty to the new state and using the Czech language in place of German. In cities like Hodonín, Masaryk’s birthplace, where the Germans artificially maintained their rule, German schools are empty, because most of the children attending them have been placed by their parents in Czech schools. The Jewish element of the population claims to be Czech now and speaks Czech in public. And even the new Czechoslovak army German speaking citizens of Bohemia are volunteering in great numbers.

The difficulty with the Magyars was not settled without some bloodshed. During the first days after the Czech revolution many of the districts and cities of Slovakia were abandoned by Magyar officials and gendarmes, and it was necessary for the sake of maintaining order that new officials and civilian guards should take charge in such districts. But in a few days Karolyi’s government thought that there was still a chance to hold on to Slovakia and orders were sent from Budapest to drive out the new Czechoslovak authorities from every part of the old Hungarian kingdom. In this the Magyars were supported on one occasion at least by Mackensen’s soldier who were passing through Hungary to Germany. There was a number of bloody conflicts and the small Czechoslovak guard