Page:The future of Bohemia by Seton-Watson (1915).pdf/25

 the Franco-German War, when the present Emperor seemed inclined to atone for his neglect of Czech interests and was on the point of being crowned King of Bohemia. But the Magyars immediately strained every effort to withhold from the Slavs the rights which they had so persistently and successfully claimed for themselves; and from that day to this Francis Joseph has always evaded his plighted word to Bohemia.

The protests of the Czechs have gained steadily in strength and volume, as the current of their national life broadened and deepened; and a year ago the Czechs might fairly have been described as a highly organized, highly educated, keen, hardworking democracy, perhaps sometimes needlessly aggressive, perhaps also shortsighted or narrow in its political outlook, but none the less progressive and modern in the very best sense of those words.

Their national attitude in home politics is reflected in their attitude to Foreign Policy. The Czechs have always been pronounced and outspoken opponents of Viennese policy, and still more of the poisonous influence of Budapest and of Magyar racial tyranny upon that policy. They have always opposed Prussia, Berlin, and the Triple Alliance by every means in their power. Public opinion in Bohemia has always been consistently Francophil and Anglophil, and above all Russophil, emphasizing the kinship and blood ties of all the Slav races. In 1870 it sympathized keenly with France, in 1878 with Russia and