BOOKS.
THE CLAIMS OF BOHEMIA,* Throng are three great Slav problems all bound up intimately with the future of Amtria.Hungary. They are problems almost as old as European history-, wars have continually ranged round them, and if we are to have a Europe at peace they will all need to be faced and solvent. All attempts at dynastic solutions have led to war piled upon war. There is no hope of peace except, in the words of President Wilson, by solving them on the basis that " every people should be left free to detennine its owns polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."
The problems aro those of the Poles, the Southern Slays (logo- Slays), and the Czecho.Slovaks. It is with the last-named that this book desk. Dr. Banes tells the story of his people, the seven million Czechs of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, and their kin in blood and language, the Slovaks inhabiting the North of Hungary. The Czechs are under the yoke of Austria, the Slovaks under that of Hungary. The ten millions of Czecho-Slovalon, taken together, are the inhabitants of a racial " island " surrotuided by a sea of Germans, German-.Austrians, and Mogyars. They have no access, —smith all deference to Shakespeare—to the salt seas of the world. They are slat in ns the Swiss are shut in, and like the Swiss inhabit for the most part a land of mountains and doop rivers. Until the middle of the nineteenth century., when, under the Ausglcich or Compromise, Hungary and Austria were constituted as separate States under a common Sovereign, the Czechs and Slovaks were closely united. Politically they are now apart, but at heart they are still one people. The Austrians have dragooned the Czechs, the Magyars have dragooned the Slovaks ; though their sufferings have been different, there is enough of likeness in their commons persecution to make them aide in suffering.
During twelve centuries this little people of Czeeho-Slovaks has struggled without ceasing to maintain its independence against three enemies : first the Germans, secondly tine Hapsburg Dynasty (who in tho sixteenth century became rulers of Bohemia), and lastly the Magyars. " There is," writes Dr. Bones with truth, "not a single period in the history of this people which does not record a conflict with one or another of these three enemies. And the struggle continues." To-day it is realized that these centuries. old enemies of the Czecho.Slovales are malignant enemies of the whole human race ; and we, at this safe distance, can by exercising our imaginations picture to ourselves what must be the feelings of this people, who, after their long struggle, see at last dawning the sun of deliverance.
These Czecho.Slovalc.a, of whose story most Englishmen know little or nothing, have in their day made much more than local history. They gave to Europe John Has, the man who began the fight for religious freedom. Hus can justly bo claimed as more than the Father of the religious Reformation. He was also the Father of a political Reformation, the porartt of the democratic idea of government. On the one side, Hiss was the first of the line which gave us Wycliffe and Tyndale and Luther. On the other, Isis intellectual progeny include Joan.Jacqueo Rousseau. Hue was burnt alive at Constance, and the entire Czech nation rose up to avenge his death. They have been fighting ever since for tho principles which Hus represented. The war, at first religious, became racial and has remained racial.
The greatest mistake that the Czechs ever made in their history was-in 1526, when they voluntarily accepted a Prince of the House of Hapsburg for their Sovereign. It was the free choice of an independent people, and was repaint, in typical Hapsburg manner, by relentless, unending attempts to deprive the Conchs of their independence, both religious and political. To a large extent those attempts have succeeded. But though overborne by numbers, the Czechs have never submitted. To this day they are the prickliest of thorns in the hide of the Hapsburgs. Every promise made by the Hapsburg Kings of Bohemia to the Czechs has been broken. The consistent policy of this House has been to unite the Germans and the Magyars against the Slays, and between the German hammer and the Magyar anvil the Mars have been con- sistently crushed. The Czeeho.Slovales have suffered tile most and the Poles tine least. During the last thirty years the Czechs of Austria and the Slovaks of }Imagery have given up open rebellion for political obstruction, and have shown no little skill at the game. They have paid dearly in attempts to crush out their language and to deny them books, newspapers, and education, but they have held on. They are a small people as unconquerable as-the Swiss or the Scots.
The Czecho-Slovak country is the brightest jewel in the H. apsburg Crowns. It is the most densely populated part of the Empire, and half its population is devoted to commerce and industries. It • Rahnnin's Cast far Ind•pendenee. By Edouard Dew*, D.Litt., Lecturer no pragoe IfDi.ercity, Au. With an Introduction te, 11. Wickham Sterol. Laudon: Allen and Unuin. tat, Cul. net.]
produces over fifty-four per cent. of the whole of Austria's grain, and ninety-five per cent. of the beetroot crops. In 1914 the Czech countries paid sixty-three per cent. of the Austrian taxes, and produced sixty per cent. of the iron. The Skoda Factory, which turned out the great guns which enabled the Germans to smash up the forts of LOge, Namur, and Antwerp, is situated at Pilsen in Bohemia, and this town of Pilsen is not less famous over the world for its beer than for its guns. Two-thirds of Austria's exports originate 10 Bohemia and the other Czecho-Slovak districts sugar, textiles, beer, machines—the industrious Czechs produce the greater part of all of them. It will not be easy to tear so rich a province from the grip of the Hapsburgs and to set it up as en independent country unhindered. unthreatened, unafraicL" Dr. Belles claims that during the war the Czecho.Slovak armies have done great service to tine Entente Allies
" The results of the behaviour of the Czech soldiers have been disastrous to Austria. Nearly 350,000 Creche-Slovak soldiers have surrendered to tine Serbs end Russians. In fact, at the beginning of 1916 tho Aust.-Mrs Army counted only about 600,000 Creche- Slovaks, who were all sent to the front. Of the 70,000 Austrian prisoners in Serbia, 35,000 are Czechs ; in Russia there are more than 300,000 Czech prisoners, and among these many have entered the ranks of the Serbian and Russian armies. Up to the [Russian] Revolution only administrative difficulties and lack of goodwill of the old Government have prevented all Czech prisoners from being enrolled in the Russian Army. But, in spite of that, an important Czech Legion, forming a large distinct unit, fought in the Russian ranks, and the Russian communications of February 2, 1916, and March 29, 1917, highly praised the services rendered to the Allies by these gallant soldiers. They all fought heroically, and more than a third are decorated to-clay. . . In France a Creche- Slovak Legion was formed too. . . . Their losses to-day in killed, wounded, and disabled amount to mom than fifty per cont. In conclusion we must mention the Czech soldiers in the Serbian Army, those who have now voluntarily enlisted in Canada and in England, and others at present prisoners in Italy, who also asked to enrol in the armies of tine Allies to fight against their hereditary enemies."
The demand of the Czecho-Slovaks is, of course, that their country should be set upon its feet as an independent barrier against German expansion towards the East. Bohemia and Slovakia, together with a Jugo-Slav Greater Serbia to the south, would shut the door of the German Eastern "corridor" if they could be maintained there against German pressure. This re- arrangement would involve the breaking up of Austria-Hungary, which was adopted by the Allies as their joint policy in their Note to President Wilson of January 10th last. The liberated and federated Slays would thus form the counterpoise to the Germans. Both in Austria and in Hungarythe ruling peoples are in a minority, the Germans in Austria, the Magyars in Hungary. They rule by dividing. Wo are all agreed that the small nations should have their independence guaranteed to them in tine new world which will open out after this struggle has worn to its end. The world has had more than enough of dynastic oppremions and of dynastic ambitions. No peace will be worth the bloody purchaao of this war taxless it does secure to all European peoples the right to live their own lives in security, to determine their own polity and their own way of development " unhindered, untineeatcned, unafraid, the little along wills the great and powerful." Unless wo can anive at this end the war will have been fought in vain,
Previous page
