in the ultimate victory of the Slavs and their Allies, and we are
convinced that this victory will contribute towards the welfare of the
whole of Europe and humanity. The spiteful anti-Slav attitude of
Ferdinand the Koburg and his government cannot retard the victory of a
just cause.

"The Czech nation made an alliance with Hungary and the Austrian
Germans by a free election of a Habsburg to the throne of the kingdom
of Bohemia in 1526; but the dynasty created through a systematic
centralisation and germanisation a unitary absolutist state, thus
violating their treaty guaranteeing the independence of the Bohemian
State within and without. The Czech nation, exhausted by the European
and Habsburg anti-reformation, has only since the Czech regeneration at
the end of the eighteenth century been able to resist this violence. It
was especially the revolution of 1848 which challenged it.

"The revolution was crushed, and the secured rights of nations,
especially of the Czechs, were again sacrificed to absolutism which,
however, was shattered by the war of 1859, and replaced by an
incomplete constitutionalism. Then Vienna gave way to the Magyars. But
the Czechs had to content themselves with solemn promises that were
never kept. The Czech nation started a struggle of passive opposition.
Later on it also took an active part in the new parliament, but whether
in parliament or in the diets, it always claimed its historic right of
independence and struggled against the German-Magyar dualism. The
attempts made to come to an understanding were frustrated by the
obstinate spirit of domination of the Germans and Magyars.

"The present war has only accentuated the Czecho-Slovak opposition to
Austria-Hungary. War was declared without the parliament being