Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/45

 the command of Italian General Luigi Giuseppe Piccione occupied all this territory without further armed conflict. The city of Prespurk for which the Magyars have made a most determined struggle came also into their hands and is sure to remain in Czechoslovakia as its great Danube port and the second capital of the republic. Thus the two principal difficulties with which the new republic had to deal, taking possession of territory claimed by Germans and Magyars, were happily solved. But in the meantime a complication that seemed at first of slight importance grew into larger dimensions.

Two days after the national committee in Prague carried out the succesful revolution against Austria, Polish soldiers from Cracow took possession of coal mines in Austrian Silesian territory which had never belonged to Poland and had been always a part of the Bohemian crown, but which has a considerable Polish element among