The whole group of Czech deputies stood in opposition against Vienna with the exception of Kramář, who tried to imitate the Polish positivist policy in the hope of obtaining concessions in return. But, as we have already shown in a previous chapter, Dr. Kramář abandoned this policy even before the war, when he saw how completely Austria was tied to Germany. The bulk of the Czech people were, of course, always solidly anti-Austrian. During the Balkan War the Czechs openly showed their sympathies with their brother Slavs who were struggling for liberty.
The Clerical Party had comparatively little influence and prestige. All their deputies (seven) were elected in country districts of Moravia, where civilisation is comparatively less developed than in Bohemia. In Bohemia and in the more developed districts of Moravia, people resist the efforts of the clergy to mix religion with politics. The three million Slovaks in Hungary, who speak a dialect of Czech and who form with the Czechs a single Czecho-Slovak nation, had only two deputies (Dr. Blaho and Father Juriga), and were without any influence in the Budapest Parliament.
11. Although many Czech politicians foresaw that Austria's anti-Serbian policy in the Balkans and her increasing dependence on Germany must lead to war, yet on the whole the Czechs were not prepared for this contingency. The Reichsrat was closed when war broke out, and the Diet of Bohemia had been replaced by an Imperial Commission in 1913. War was declared by Austria against the will of the Slavs, and yet they did not dare to protest, as an organised revolution was impossible in view of the presence of German troops and of the perfect police spy system in Austria. Two German divisions would have been sufficient to suppress the best organised revolutionary movement in Bohemia.
The immediate effect of the declaration of war was the unity of the whole Czech nation. One of the leaders, Professor Masaryk, escaped abroad, and is at the head of the Czecho-Slovak Government, recognised by the Allies as the trustee and representative of the Czecho-Slovak nation.
Political activity was of course out of the question until the Reichsrat reopened on May 30, 1917. Before that date there was an absolute reign of terror in Bohemia. Some of the leading Czech newspapers were suspended soon after the outbreak of the war. The few Slovak papers published in Hungary were suppressed at the same time.
Those newspapers which survived were subject to strict censorship and were compelled to publish leading articles written by government officials and supplied to them by the police. Dr. Kramář, one of the most prominent Czech leaders, his colleague Dr. Rašín, and five National Socialist deputies were thrown into prison, and some of them even sentenced to death.
The effect of these persecutions was that all the Czecho-Slovaks became unanimous in their desire to obtain full independence of Austria-Hungary. Old party differences were forgotten and some of the Czech deputies who had formerly been opportunist in tendency, such as Dr. Kramář and the Agrarian ex-minister Prášek, now at last became convinced that all hopes of an anti-German Austria were futile, that Austria was doomed, as she was a blind tool in the hands of Germany, and that the only way to prevent the ten million Czecho-Slovaks from being again exploited in the interests of German imperialism was to secure their complete independence. On entering the Reichsrat on May 30, 1917, all the Czech deputies, united in a single "Bohemian Union," made a unanimous declaration that it was their aim to work for the union of all Czechs and Slovaks in an independent, democratic state. To-day Dr. Kramář is in complete agreement with the Radicals who formerly were his most bitter opponents. In fact four Czech nationalist parties (the Young Czech, Realist, State Right and Moravian People's Parties) united in February, 1918, as a single body under the name of "The Czech State-Right Democracy." The president of its executive is the former Young Czech leader Dr. Kramář, who was sentenced to death in 1916, but released in July, 1917. The executive committee of the new party included all the leaders of the four former parties, namely, Dr. Stránský, Dr. Herben, M. Dyk, Professor Drtina, and others.
In their proclamation published in the Národní Listy of February 10, 1918, the executive declared that:
"The chief aim of the new party will be to engage in a common national effort for the creation of an independent Bohemian State, the fundamental territory of which will be composed of the historical and indivisible crown-lands of Bohemia and of Slovakia. The Bohemian State will be a democratic state. All its power will come from the people. And as it will come from the Czech people, it will be just towards all nationalities, towards all citizens and classes."
In a speech to the Young Czech Party before its dissolution, Dr. Kramář openly declared that "at the moment of the outbreak of the war it became quite clear that, despite all tactics of opportunism, our party remained true to the programme of Czech independence. It became at once evident to all of us that the chapter of our former policy was forever closed for us. We felt with our whole soul that the Czech nation would not go through the sufferings of the world war only to renew the pre-war tactics of a slow progress towards that position to which we have full historical rights as well as the natural rights of a living and strong nation...." And again, in an article in the Národní Listy of December 25, 1917, Kramář wrote under the heading "By Order of the Nation":