Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/11

 had to retreat. In places re-occupied by Magyar authorities great cruelties were committed; members of the local Slovak National Councils were murdered and captured Czechoslovak gendarmes were hacked to pieces. The Prague government was forced to call to arms several regiments, but as everybody was anxious to avoid a new war Dr. Kramář in Prague and Dr. Beneš in Paris resorted to diplomatic means to settle the conflict. The result of their intervention was that the French military mission in Budapest served notice on Count Karolyi that the Czecho slovak government as one of the Allied governments was entitled to occupy its own territory, even though it had been formerly a part of Hungary. A provisional line was drawn running along the Danube to the river Ipol, along this river to the city of Rimaszembat, thence in an easterly direction to the river Ung, thence in a northeasterly direction to Mt. Uzsok on the Galician border. Everything north of the line thus drawn was occupied by the Czechoslovaks; Slovakia within those limits measures about 24,000 square miles and constitutes an integral part of the Czechoslovak republic. Some touching stories are told of the welcome with which the long oppressed Slovaks greeted the day of freedom. Thus one correspondent relates that in a Slovak village a peasant speaker began the celebration by saying: “This is the day which the Lord had made.” And all the people responded: “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Then the people shouted: “Glory be to our noble liberator Wilson,” and with bared heads all sang the national hymn “Hej Slováci.”

The culmination of this first stage in the constitution of the Czechoslovak republic was the arrival of President Masaryk in Prague. After touching at London, Paris and in the Italian war zone Masaryk reached Prague on Sunday December 22nd and was received by the cabinet, the members of the National Assembly, his former colleagues of the university of Prague and hundreds of thousands of citizens. The scenes of this wonderful outpouring of national rejoicing were best described by the Prague correspondent of the London Times, from whose description the following may be quoted:

“The joyous acclaim with which the golden city of Prague welcomed Prof. Masaryk, president of Czechoslovakia, today was a perfect expression of the triumph of the cause of civilization. Perhaps never again in one’ day and place will the true significance of the great war and the sanctity of the allies’ case be so completely evident. Would that the whole allied world might have been on the banks of the Moldau and had it impressed on its heart and brain that one such day is worth the world war.

“So sure are we who viewed it that if all whom the war has bereaved or whom the war has left maimed and broken could have witnessed the joy of this nation redeemed from the bondage through victory of the allies, they would say with the heroes who died to bring it about—“It is enough; it is worth all we paid.”

Masaryk was conducted from the station to the parliament buildings to take the following oat of office. “I promise as president of the Czechoslovak republic, on my honor and conscience, that I will care for the welfare of the republic and its people and respect its laws.” In his inaugural address the great Czechoslovak leader said: “Komenský’s historic prayer has literally been fulfilled and our people, free and independent, advances, respected and supported by universal sympathy.into the community of European nations. Are we living in a fairy tale?”

The first president of the Czechoslovak republic came to Prague with an escort of several companies of Czechoslovak soldiers from the French and Italian fronts. Others had reached Prague before him on December 9th under the command of Col. Husak, and soon all those who fought in the west will come home and be reunited to their families. Only the unlucky Czechoslovaks in Siberia are still cutt off from their liberated fatherland and from their wives and children, whom the majority have not seen for four years.

Mr. Chas. R. Crane says of the Czechoslovaks in Russia: “They govern well. Although they lived for the most part in box cars while they were fighting, these cars were immaculate. Wherever they stayed in a town a few days, they started little gardens and began to clean things up and put affairs in order—and keep them so. They did hard and severe fighting, bore hard ships ungrudgingly, and certainly showed a stuff which augurs well for the new Czechoslovak republic.”