that they were punished for their treachery by being given their own
independence does not speak against us.

"Yes, gentlemen, we are traitors as much as you Magyars, or as you
Germans were, or would be under similar circumstances. And _we want the
same as you want_, i.e. _to be free citizens of our own state_. Our own
state--that does not mean to have a few officials or one more
university. To have a state of our own--that means to be able to decide
freely if our soldiers shall go to war again, and if they do, to see
that they go only for the interests of their own nation, and not for
the interests of their enemies. An independent state--that means for us
no longer to die by order of foreigners, and no longer to live under
foreign domination.

"Let me remind the gentlemen on the German benches of a lesson in
history. Up till 1866 Germany was nominally under the sceptre of the
Habsburg dynasty--a German dynasty, mind you. Prussia and Northern
Germany felt the indignity of the 'foreign' rule of the Habsburgs--and
they started the fratricidal war in 1866 in order to get rid of this
rule....

"It is for you gentlemen on the German benches to speak! Let him who
regrets the blood then spilt stand up and speak. Let him stand up and
condemn Bismarck and William I. who started the war in order to deliver
Germany from the same yoke from which we are trying to free ourselves
to-day. If there is a single man among the Germans who would be
prepared to say that the war against Austria should never have
happened, let him stand up. That war was carried on to free Germany
from the incapable rule of Vienna and it had the same aim in view which
you reproach us with to-day and call high treason!