Later on, when Dr. Edward Beneš, lecturer at the Czech University of Prague and author of several well-known studies in sociology, also escaped abroad, the Czecho-Slovak National Council was formed, of which Professor Masaryk became the president, Dr. Štefanik, a distinguished airman and scientist, Hungarian Slovak by birth, the vice-president, and Dr. E. Beneš the general secretary. A French review was started in Paris (La Nation Tchèque) in May, 1915, which became the official organ of the Czecho-Slovak movement. Up to May, 1917, it was published under the editorship of Professor Denis, and since then its editor has been Dr. Beneš. A Central Czech organ is also published in Paris called Samostatnost ("Independence"), edited by Dr. Sychrava, an eminent Czech journalist.
The undisputed authority enjoyed by Professor Masaryk among all the Czecho-Slovaks is undoubtedly the secret of the great strength and unity of the movement. It is also the reason for the great diplomatic successes achieved by the Czechs. The chief lieutenants of Professor Masaryk were Dr. Beneš, an untiring worker with rare political instinct and perspicacity, and Dr. Milan Štefanik, who entered the French army as a private at the beginning of the war, was gradually promoted, and in May, 1918, rose to the rank of brigadier-general. He rendered valuable service to France as an astronomist before the war, and as an airman during the war. He has rendered still greater service to the Czecho-Slovak cause as a diplomat. These three men, unanimously recognised by the two million Czecho-Slovaks in the Allied countries as their leaders, were finally, in the summer of 1918, recognised also by the Allies as the de facto provisional government of the Czecho-Slovak State, with all rights and powers of a real government. The central seat of the Czecho-Slovak Government is in Paris, and official Czecho-Slovak representatives and legations are in all the Allied capitals.
3. The first political success of the National Council was the Allies' Note to President Wilson of January 10, 1917. The Czechs are especially grateful to France for this first recognition of their claims.
In this Note, in which the Allies for the first time stated publicly and explicitly their war aims, the Allies declared that these include:
"The reorganisation of Europe guaranteed by a stable settlement, based upon the principle of nationality, upon the right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment of full security and free economic development, and also upon territorial agreements and international arrangements so framed as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjust attacks; the restitution of provinces or territories formerly torn from the Allies by force or contrary to the wishes of their inhabitants; the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Rumanians and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination; the liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks, and the expulsion from Europe of the Ottoman Empire, which has proved itself so radically alien to Western civilisation."
The greatest success of the Czecho-Slovak National Council, however, has been the formal recognition by France of the formation of an autonomous Czecho-Slovak army in France with the National Council at its head. By this act France recognised:
(1) That the Czecho-Slovaks have a right to form an army of their own, which right appertains only to a sovereign and independent nation;
(2) That the Czecho-Slovaks have a right to fight on the side of the Entente, and therefore are to be considered as one of the Allies;
(3) That the political direction of the army is reserved to the Czecho-Slovak National Council, which right is usually accorded only to the government of an independent state.
The full text of this historic document, signed by the President of the French Republic, M. Poincaré, the French Premier, M. Clémenceau, and the Foreign Secretary, M. Pichon, and dated December 19, 1917, reads as follows: