Habsburgs on the throne, preferably the youngest son of the Italian king,
Victor Emmanuel. Even while peace negotiations between Prussia and Austria
were going on, he conducted an active propaganda and distributed a
proclamation all over Bohemia in which he declared himself as "the deadly
enemy of the Habsburg dynasty and of Austrian militarism and bureaucracy":

"The Hungarians are preparing, the Yugoslavs are ready. Let us come to
a common agreement with them and we shall succeed. And when all the
Austrian nations have been freed they may form a great federation on
the basis of international law which will be an example to Europe. _A
federation without the freedom and independence of the nations who form
part of it is an empty dream. Let him who desires a federation work for
the independence of his nation first_. It is not a question of a
revolution, it is a question of a public proclamation of the Czech
nation so that Europe may realise that we live and what we want. Europe
will surely lend us a helping hand, but she expects us to ask for it.
Let us therefore, my brother Czecho-Slovaks, proclaim aloud, so that
the whole world may hear us: '_We do not want Austria because we
realise that she not only does no good to us, but directly threatens
our very existence. We are able to and want to maintain an independent
state existence without Austria_."

Unfortunately, however, the Czech leaders at that time did not follow
Fric's advice and, as we have already pointed out, they fell into
Bismarck's trap.

In November, 1866, the Bohemian Diet uttered a warning against the danger
of dualism, pointing out that Bohemia had the same right to independence as
Hungary. Relying upon the support of the other Slav races of Austria, the
Czechs declared they would never enter the Reichsrat.