CZECH POLITICAL PARTIES BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR

The Czech policy during the past seventy years has always had but one
ultimate aim in view: the re-establishment of the ancient kingdom of
Bohemia and the full independence of the Czecho-Slovak nation. From the
very beginning of their political activity Czech politicians resisted the
Pan-German scheme of Central Europe. They preached the necessity of the
realisation of liberty and equality for all nations, and of a federation of
the non-Germans of Central Europe as a barrier against German expansion.

The chief reason for the failure of their efforts was the fact that they
sometimes had illusions that the Habsburgs might favour the plan of such an
anti-German federation, although the Habsburgs always mainly relied on the
Germans and Magyars and could not and would not satisfy the Czech
aspirations. The Czechs were greatly handicapped in their political
struggle, because they had only just begun to live as a nation and had to
face the powerful German-Magyar predominance, with the dynasty and the
whole state machinery behind them. Moreover, the Czechs had no national
aristocracy like the Poles or Magyars, and their leaders lacked all
political experience and all sense of reality in politics which was so
marked in a state built on deceit and hypocrisy. They continually defended
themselves with declarations about the justice of their claims, satisfied
themselves with empty promises which Austria has never kept, and cherished
vain illusions of obtaining justice in Austria, while Austria was _via
facti_ steadily depriving them of all their rights. On the other hand, it
should be remembered that they were faced with a government that had the
whole powerful German Empire behind it, and that they had to struggle for
freedom in a state where genuine constitutional government and democracy
were unknown. The Czech efforts to obtain some measure of freedom by
struggling for democratic reforms were consistently opposed by the dominant