Historian's Guild discussion

In this discussion feel free to talk about any aspect of Czech history. I myself am pretty interested in this subject (even though I have no personal connection to the Czech Republic or its history). One book about Czech history that I read recently is

Dreams of a Great Small Nation: The Mutinous Army that Threatened a Revolution, Destroyed an Empire, Founded a Republic, and Remade the Map of Europe by Kevin J. McNamara

This book is one of the only treatments of the Czecho-Slovak Legion and how their efforts in the First World War led to the creation of Czechoslovakia written in English. Here is my full review of the book, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... though in summary I can say that it was a good coverage of a piece of history that is oft forgotten in the West.

I am currently reading the book A History Of The Czechs And Slovaks by R. W. Seton-Watson

This book was first published in 1943. The author was an expert in Central European history, and was an important adviser to the British government in the First World War and in the peace treaties that followed. The book is a general survey of Czech history, beginning in the seventh century, though very quickly progressing through the early history until the Medieval period.

I have read up to the Thirty Years War (1618) and have found the book to be detailed and interesting. I've learned a lot so far. Of particular interest is the role of religion in the Medieval Period, particularly concerning the Hussite Wars and the Czechs' uphill battle against the Catholic church, which they ultimately lost thanks to the constant intervention of outside influence on Bohemia.

The Thirty Years War is often regarded as a tragic period for Germany, and rightly so, for armies ravaged and pillaged the various German estates with impunity for years on end. Yet, little thought is given to the lands of neighboring Bohemia.

Seton-Watson writes that,

It would be hard to exaggerate the state of misery and prostration in which Bohemia found herself at the conclusion of peace...Historians such as Gindely and Huber have estimated that her population had fallen from three million to 800,000; another version is from 2.5 million to 700,000. In 1618 the number of landed peasant families in Bohemia was reckoned at 150,000; in 1645 the Estates reported to the Crown that their number was only 30,000...Although the ancient Czech nobility and gentry had been almost rooted out, and replaced by crowds of foreign favourites and military adventurers, although the peasantry had sunk still further in the scale and lost the last semblance of liberty, and although all creeds save one had been strenuously rooted out, it is sometimes argued that the profoundest change of all was wrought in the towns. The ruin worked by expulsion, persecution, plunder, fire and plague is well illustrated by the fact that in Brno out of 1,356 houses 928 were in ruins, and 260 half-destroyed, in Königgrätz (Králové Hradec) 495 in ruins and only 495 inhabitated, in Komotau only 139 out of 545 inhabited. Olomouc, which had 30,000 inhabitants in 1630, only had 1,675 left in 1650. (130)

The war was just as disastrous for Bohemia’s political standing. For the next three centuries they remained a powerless subject of the Habsburg Empire.

To sum of the situation, within a few years of the [battle of] White Mountain Bohemia was bound helplessly to the Habsburg war chariot, and exploited in the interests of absolutism and militant Catholicism; so militant as to frighten a Roman pontiff and a French cardinal, Urban VIII and Richelieu, into giving political support to the Protestant North. Moreover, the broad outlines of these events may help is to an understanding of our own times; for it is no exaggeration to say that just as the seizure of Czechoslovakia opened up to Hitler the path of strategic ascendancy in Europe, so the collapse of Bohemia in 1620 turned the scale in favour of Ferdinand and the Counter-Reformation, as against the Protestant Union, drove Protestantism on to the defensive and infinitely prolonged the struggle.

These years provide eloquent testimony to Bismarck’s famous definition of Bohemia as a fortress whose possession meant the mastery of Central Europe. (117)

To make matters worse, the Czechs were now subjected to a ruthless process of religious persecution as Emperor Ferdinand II and the Jesuits did their best to eradicate Protestantism from Bohemia.

Forced conversion on a large scale were supplemented by the wholesale destruction of books in the vernacular (but also of many German books, for the German districts of Homeia had been quite as strongly infected by heresy as the Czech.), and by the insidious institution of confession registers. (131)

Very interesting. Just marked "To Read".

Chris wrote: "Very interesting. Just marked "To Read"."

It might be hard to find a copy of this book. I was lucky enough that my university library had a copy handy, but I suspect that it won't be an easy book to acquire.

Wow. I am very surprised you found some history of Czech Republic. I had hard time to find any, beside those from our (czech) authors. Thank You for suggestion. Thirty-year war is my favourite subject. (I live in Olomouc 😉)

Veronika wrote: "Wow. I am very surprised you found some history of Czech Republic. I had hard time to find any, beside those from our (czech) authors. Thank You for suggestion. Thirty-year war is my favourite subj..."

Hi Veronika, there really isn't that much written about Czech history in English. Additionally, we learn nothing about the Czechs in school (at least in the United States). Most of the books I've found have been very academic books which are not friendly to the casual reader. I'm fortunate that I'm a student which allows me to borrow books like this one from university libraries.

It's a shame because your country has such a fascinating history. One book I plan on reading soon is My War Memoirs by Edvard Beneš. That should be very interesting! I'm also considering reading
Czechs & Germans: A Study Of The Struggle In The Historic Provinces Of Bohemia And Moravia by Elizabeth Wiskemann which was published in 1938, concurrent with Hitler's seizure of Czechoslovakia.

Bohemia also suffered greatly during the wars in the mid-eighteenth century: the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War. Here's another excerpt:

Professor Kerner has shown more clearly than earlier writers the extent of Bohemia’s sufferings in this war. Summing up her financial history, he points out that ‘Bohemia, of all the Lands, was most devastated by military expeditions, yet at the same time paid into the coffers of the Treasury the largest sums of any state belonging to the monarchy. Besides carrying between 32 and 49% of the ordinary public revenue of the Monarchy, Bohemia alone contributed four times as much as all the Hungarian lands, and if both the ordinary and extraordinary war revenues were counted, it contributed between 20 and 40% more than the Netherlands, the next richest source of revenue. Such facts are astounding. They also account for the famine and misery and commercial depression which came upon Bohemia after the war.’ Bohemia, it should be borne in mind, was then one-quarter the size of Hungary, with only one-third of the latter’s population, and yet throughout the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century contributed infinitely more both in money and recruits. (147)

The Czechs were one of many people to rise up in rebellion during the year 1848. One of the leaders of the Czech nationalists was Ladislav Rieger. Here is the link to his wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franti%...

Below is his farewell message to his fellow Czechs, and I think its insight and wisdom is worth including here.

By this time Rieger was over eighty and living in retirement; but though the younger generation had far outstripped him and left him breathless, it is but bare justice, as we take leave of him, to quote his farewell testament to the Czech people. “It is my most profound wish that my nation may never allow itself to fall into despair nor ever become conceited in its pride. I should be very glad to see it defend its rights, which have been clearly and objectively formulated; but let it never be betrayed by passion into wronging anyone else. I wish that it may give heed only to the advice of men who are in all things honourable, whose integrity had been proved by their patriotic deeds; but let it close its heart against the loud words and empty slogans, the flatteries playing upon self-conceit, which are often uttered by people who may be immature, self-seeking or of dubious honour. I counsel it to put supreme confidence in its own strength. For this, it must first appraise its strength without over-estimating it. Armed with self-knowledge, let it never plunge into any foolish adventures which, irrespective even of success or failure, are dangerous to the nation. Let it rather remember always that only by honest, patient effort in the realms of the spiritual and the material will it lay the secure foundations for a brighter future. Furthermore, I trust that my nation may never abandon its ideal and Christian endeavor, exemplifying the eternal principles of honour, justice and humanity. I wish above all that it may never turn its back upon the claims of justice or resort to force, in spite of the fact that a brief violation of justice may promise some immediate success. Bear in mind that universal, international respect for justice provides the one bulwark for nations, especially for small nations. For them, it is particularly dangerous to desert this bastion and to tread upon the quagmire of ‘might makes right’.” (234)

It is time I shared some information about the Slovaks. Seton-Watson spent the first 250 pages on Czech history up to the First World War, and then devoted a chapter to Slovak history. He moves quickly through the early history and focuses mostly on the period in the 19th century under the Dual-Monarchy and the Hungarian oppression.

In the law courts very concrete linguistic rights were assured to the non-Magyars. But in 1868 the whole judicial system of Hungary was already under consideration, and two years later was completely revised by a new law, from which all the rights laid down in the Law of Nationalities were bodily omitted, in utter defiance of non-Magyar protests. Henceforward the proceedings of all courts of first, second or final instance were conducted exclusively in the Magyar language, and the official interpreters, when provided, were no longer provided gratis, as originally laid down. The Slovak leader, Father Hlinka, raised an outcry throughout Hungary when in 1906, in defending himself before a chauvinistic Magyar jury court, he declared that the Slovak peasant stood like an ox before the courts of his native land; he was stating but the bare truth, and therein lay his main crime. It was specially laid down that the high administrative posts of High Sheriff and Vice-Sheriff…should be filled by non-Magyars in non-Magyar counties; but though the Roumanians and Slovaks respectively formed a majority varying from 66 to 96% in eleven and seven counties, not a single non-Magyar was ever appointed to such an office during the Dualist era.

Still more glaring was the educational situation. By article 17 of Law XLIV it was laid down in theory that ‘all citizens of whatever nationality living together in considerable numbers shall be able in the neighbourhood of their homes to obtain instruction in their mother-tongue, up to the point where the highest academic culture begins.’ In actual fact, throughout the Dualist period the entire state school system was Magyarized, and not a single state school, primary or secondary, was provided for non-Magyars; while parallel with this went the deliberate tendency to reduce wherever possible the scanty number of denominational schools on which alone the non-Magyar depended for instruction in the mother-tongue. In actual fact, from 1875 to 1918 the Slovaks were entirely without secondary schools, the Ruthenes in Hungary never possessed one at all…The case of the Slovaks was, however, more than usually crass, since not merely the three gymnasia which they themselves had erected at great sacrifice were dissolved, but between 1869 and 1911 their primary schools were reduced, by a deliberate government policy, from 1921 to 440! (268)

Regarding electoral oppression,

Above all, the predominance secured to the ruling class [in Hungary] by a narrow franchise, was still further entrenched by the maintenance of open voting instead of the ballot, by an elaborate system of ‘electoral geometry’ (with only one polling booth in each constituency), and by corruption and intimidation on a grand scale. It often happened that votes of dead men were recorded, votes were deliberately credited to the wrong candidate or conveniently ‘lost’; candidates were disqualified on the flimsiest of pretexts, sometimes even expelled from the constituency or placed under arrest until all was over. The whole administrative apparatus was placed at the disposal of the Government candidates—military cordons being drawn to keep obnoxious voters from the poll, or roads being suddenly closed, or veterinary restrictions imposed. At the general elections of 1896 the casualties were 32 killed and 70 wounded, in 1901 (despite the new lay against corrupt and illegal practices) 7 killed and 19 wounded; in 1910 there were fewer casualties for the excellent reason that, according to official admissions in the Parliaments of Budapest and Vienna, ‘only 194 battalions of infantry and 114 squadrons of cavalry were employed to enforce the Government party’s will. [If battalion and squadron be reckoned at 600 and 500 men on a peace footing, that means 173,000 men.] (269-270)

And finally,

Meanwhile the key to political events lay in the backward agricultural and industrial conditions of Hungary, giving increased power to the feudal magnate class, sealing the decay of the gentry, and incidentally promoting the rise of the Jewish capitalist, advocate and intellectual. At the turn of the century there was a floating agricultural population of one and a half millions, badly housed, wretchedly paid—earning even in summer on an average only two to two and a half crowns a day (1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d.), often for a working day of sixteen hours—ravaged by alcohol in the mountain districts…and by tuberculosis even in the rich wheat lands of the south…

The acute unrest was reflected in the gigantic emigration figures of this period. Before 1898 emigration had averaged 25,000 a year; in 1901 it reached 71,000, in 1903 119,000, in 1905 170,000 (including 43,000 women), and in 1907 203,000 out of a total population of 19,000,000. The stringent emigration laws of 1903 and 1908 proved quite unavailing to check either the flow of emigrants, who were almost exclusively peasants, or their shocking exploitation by the big shipping companies and the Jewish touts and agents.

…If politically the Middle Ages did not end in Hungary till 1848, it might quite plausibly be argued that economically they continued till 1918. The phrase ‘Extra Hungariam non est vita [There is no life outside Hungary]’ made its appeal to the ruling class, and the cynic was amply entitled to add, ‘aut si vita, non est ita [if there is, it is not like it].’ It was in this strange world, hitherto so isolated from the major currents of European affairs, that the Slovaks were still living; and it is essential to an understanding of the subsequent narrative to realize the extreme difference of milieu between Slovaks and Czechs, the extent to which the Czechs had in the last century before the war repaired their own backwardness under the more enlightened rule of Austria, and above all the fact that the Czechs were free to go forward at a growing pace, while the Slovaks were falling behind in the race, if not actually beginning to go backwards. (280)

Here are some reflections on the formation of the Republic of Czechoslovakia. Seton-Watson, as one of the few men in Britain who had an intimate knowledge of Central and Eastern European affairs, played a role in the formation of Czechoslovakia during the First World War. He met with Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (the first president) and Edvard Beneš (the first foreign minister and later second president) and assisted in the peace conferences in Versailles. He remained friends with Masaryk and Beneš for the rest of their lives, and his affection comes through. Masaryk and Beneš were undoubtedly special men and I will discuss them more in later posts.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the causes of this phenomenal achievement. First in order undoubtedly stands the ‘conjecture’ of a World War that overthrew the four great dynasties of Central and Eastern Europe and altered many frontiers—a chance such as does not recur in several centuries. But not even that would have sufficed without the brilliant leadership and initiative of Masaryk, his skill in handling men and situations and especially in selecting the right collaborators—men as yet untested but, as the event proved, equal to any emergency. No less decisive was the reaction which led him, while consciously following in the footsteps of Hus, Comenius, Havlíček and Palacký, to avoid the barren and negative policy into which the Old Czechs had allowed themselves to drift and which, in another form, Kramář was prepared to adopt under the mesmeric influence of Russia. Masaryk kept in line with the teachers of the nation without losing his ability to learn from the political thought and experience of the West, and to adapt himself to changing circumstances…Parallel with this wen the long struggle for recognition of his cause by the Allied Powers and America, and the success which eventually crowned his Army policy, starting as it did from unpromising and almost fantastic beginnings. Most important of all, however, was the fact that Czechs and Slovaks recognized the great leader whom Providence had sent them, and followed him loyally through all vicissitudes.

To these factors must be added the corresponding lack of statesmanship on the part of his opponents in Austria-Hungary, the numbing influence of Francis-Joseph during his long reign, his marked antipathy for the Czech cause and the many obstacles which, under the fatal Dual System, prevented men of outstanding ability from attaining to, or retaining, high office. The whole system was inimical to talent and encourage mediocrity and slowness of decision…The reign of Francis Joseph was probably, on the purely material side, the most prosperous and peaceful era in the history of Central Europe; but the Dual System contained within itself a canker that sapped those powers of resistance by which the Habsburg state had astonished Europe in the days of Frederick, of Napoleon, and of the Revolution of 1848. (311-312)

Yesterday I finished reading A History Of The Czechs And Slovaks, and I finally finished writing up my review of it:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

In short, I really enjoyed this book and it has inspired me to read more books by R. W. Seton-Watson.

Here's one last final post from A History Of The Czechs And Slovaks. I hope you all have enjoyed what I've written here. Let me know if the posts are too long or if there are too many quotes.

In the final chapter of the book, Seton-Watson provides a devastating criticism of the policy of appeasement which was practiced by the British and French governments during the “Sudeten” crisis of the late 1930s. First of all, he discusses how the Nazi’s claims of Czech abuses of the German minorities in Czechoslovakia were baseless:

The best test of the status of the German citizen in the Republic is that provided in the educational statistics. Early in 1936 Henlein had publicly complained that in defiance of the minority treaty the Germans did not possess a due proportion of schools. But it was shown that in the previous school year, out of a total of 343,000 and 89,000 German children in primary and higher primary schools all save 10,000 and 6,000 respectively attended schools were the language of instruction was German. It was also pointed out that most of these Germans in Czech schools had been freely sent by their parents to learn the other main language of the country, and that for the same reason a certain number of Czech children attended German higher primary schools. The controversy was thus reduced to a question of a tiny minority of 3% to 5%, and the insinuation that Czechization was being pursued in the schools of the Republic was blown sky-high. It is important to add that in the higher spheres of education the Germans occupied an equally favourable position; they had in 1935, 80 secondary schools, 10 training colleges, 52 agricultural schools, 48 commercial academies, 98 technical and industrial schools, a university, 2 technical high schools, academies of music and art and two seminaries. (353)

Certainly the Czechs weren’t treating the Germans with a gentle touch, but, as shown above, the Germans were in a relatively comfortable position thanks to several centuries worth of occupation and assimilation.

It soon become clear to the Czechs that the Nazis and the Nazi-funded Sudeten German Party (D.d.P) led by Konrad Henlein harbored more aggressive designs on Czechoslovakia, but their allies did not realize the true details of the situation.

Mr. Chamberlain, happily rid of Mr. Eden, proceeded to negotiate with Italy—showing a strange indifference to the moral issues involved in the extinction of a country towards whom Britain and the League were peculiarly bound in honour. He also betrayed his naïve belief that man-eating tigers can be appeased by scraps of paper. He spoke of ‘a new situation’ created in Europe, of ‘intensified insecurity,’ but soon made it clear that not knowing what to do he would do exactly nothing. In France the parties were more interested in mutual mud-slinging than in the fate of Central Europe: important sections of the grande bourgeoisie merely saw in Czechoslovakia the allies of Bolshevism, and completely ignored the probably effects of the disappearance of Austria and Czechoslovakia upon the strategic situation in Europe, and therefore upon France’s immunity from attack. Even Moscow, for all its realist grasp of European strategy, and for all its desire to save Bohemia, that most westerly bastion of Slavdom, was not prepared to draw upon itself the whole striking force of the German Army, and therefore preferred to win the longest possible respite for military armament. Faced by the rapid disintegration of the Versailles and Geneva system, the Czechs stood to arms, and were ready to sell their lives dearly, avoiding meanwhile all acts of provocation. (357)

Seton-Watson proceeds to closely analyze the sequence of events leading up to the Munich Diktat of September 30, as Seton-Watson calls it, which I will not get into here as it would make this already lengthy post much too long. Suffice to say that Seton-Watson, who was as well in-tune with the affairs in Central Europe as anyone alive at the time, could not understand how his own country’s politicians were so utterly ignorant of reality. An excerpt from the book’s foreword shows what he about this:

On September 11, 1918, the British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, telegraphed to Professor Masaryk, as President of the Czechoslovak National Council, "Your nation has rendered inestimable service to Russia and to the Allies in this struggle to free the world from despotism; we shall never forget it." On September 27, 1938 (almost exactly twenty years later) another British Prime Minister, broadcasting to the Empire, tried to justify his surrender by describing the Czechoslovaks as "people of whom we know nothing."

The present volume is an attempt to deprive future politicians of any excuse for repeating this ineptitude.

In the following paragraph, Seton-Watson summarizes the consequences of the Munich Diktat:

What the Western Powers sanctioned at Munich was not the fulfilment of self-determination, but the surrender of a key position to the Pan-Germans. The frontier of Bohemia, one of the oldest in all Europe, and never altered even in the darkest days of national eclipse, ceased, at one stroke, to be defensible, and the whole Danubian area was at the mercy of Germany. The Czechoslovak Army, for the moment, remained in being, but most of its defensive positions were lost, its material resources—especially in coal—were seriously curtailed, and Germany obtained the right to build a strategic arterial road connecting Breslau and Vienna, and cutting in half what remained of the Republic. In terms of European strategy, the best small army in the world, with a total strength of 1,500,000 men and 2,000 planes, was entirely immobilized and threatened with speedy destruction. In the event of war, France and Britain had in their folly thrown away the help of between thirty-five and forty-five divisions, to say nothing of air bases within striking distance of Leipzig, Munich and Berlin. Moreover, their abandonment of the last free democracy east of the Rhine was at one and the same time a deadly blow to democratic institutions inside the Republic, a direct encouragement to Nazi tendencies in all the smaller states, especially in the Balkans, and a rebuff to the principles of the League, to which Czechoslovakia had shown loyalty for twenty years. For France it meant the collapse of her whole system of alliances and a radical change in the balance of forces on the Continent. For all, it meant that the democratic ideology was being driven more and more on to the defensive, and that the democratic Powers were associating themselves with the Axis’s open contempt for the sanctity of treaties. (371)

I am nearly finished with the book
Czechs & Germans: A Study Of The Struggle In The Historic Provinces Of Bohemia And Moravia by Elizabeth Wiskemann.

Here is an amusing and revealing episode which takes place in the Austrian Reichsrat (parliament) in 1861. I hope it is entertaining even without the full context. One of the German members had attacked a policy of Czech nationalists, claiming that the Czechs “were trying to intoxicate the masses. In response, the Czech deputy, Rieger, said,

‘We know that it is as difficult for nations as for individuals to be as just towards others as towards themselves. We have certainly found it to be so with the Germans and we still repeat this sad experience every day.’ At this point the President of the chamber, Hein, a Silesian German, called him to order and requested him to resume his seat. Rieger, protesting, said, “I appeal to the House—have I said anything insulting?’ whereupon Hein told him that what he had said was certainly insulting to the German nation, and was cheered from the left where the German Liberals sat. Rieger declared at once that he had had no such intention and was allowed to speak again. ‘I will say no more about the national question,’ he continued, ‘since I see that freedom of speech is fettered here.’ Hein immediately broke in again requesting him to sit down since he had accused the President of suppressing freedom of speech. Rieger, in a voice of thunder, cried out, ‘Long live the freedom of speech which prevails in the Austrian Reichsrat!’ and was finally compelled to sit down. In such circumstances it is not altogether surprising that the Czechs withdrew from the Parliament in Vienna in 1863, and did not reappear until in 1879 a new era had evidently dawned. (32)

Yesterday I finished reading Czechs & Germans: A Study Of The Struggle In The Historic Provinces Of Bohemia And Moravia by Elizabeth Wiskemann

This book is primarily a case study of the ethnic Germans who were living in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars. I thought the book was a very thorough and objective account of such a heated subject (at the time). Here is my review, though I had some difficulty expressing my thoughts well. I hope it is coherent as it is:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have just begun reading My War Memoirs by Edvard Beneš.

Beneš was the second most important individual responsible for the creation of Czechoslovakia during and immediately following the First World War (second behind Tomáš Masaryk). During the beginning of the war, he helped form the underground Czech independence movement and later on he spent his time in Paris negotiating with the Allies and representing the nascent Czechoslovak nation. After the war, he was the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czechoslovak Republic, and later become the country's second president. During the second war, he was led Czechoslovakia while in exile in London. Here is his wikipedia page if anyone is interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvard_...

This book, published in 1928, consists of Beneš's memoirs of both the foundation of Czechoslovakia and his part in it. I look forward to digging into this book.

Here are a few excerpts from My War Memoirs by Edvard Beneš

In the first year and a half of the war, Beneš was one of the key members of the group called the 'Maffia'--a small number of prominent Czech activists. Beneš made several risky trips abroad, mostly to Switzerland, in order to collaborate and exchange sensitive information with members of the Maffia who were in Allied nations. During one of his trips to Switzerland, Beneš experienced several close calls with the authorities:

At that time journeys to and from foreign countries involved considerable risks. The first thorough examination took place at Buchs and the second at Feldkirch. Besides that, however, all along the Tyrolese line military and police patrols were continually passing through the railway carriages and examining the travellers. I simply left matters to chance.
Beyond Arlberg one of these examinations took place in my compartment. I had several questionable books, and in order hide this fact I had also bought German anti-Entente books as well as German and Austro-Hungarian propagandist literature. Having twice escaped detection and seeing the decisive moment had again arrived, I decided to tempt fate for the third time. I made a parcel of all my books and on the top of it I put a copy of Simplicissimus and the Internationale Wochenschrift [International Weekly—a German publication], together with a few German books. When the officials who were carrying out the inspection arrived and asked me what I had, I showed them the parcel and told them to look for themselves. One of the officials lifted up the copy of Simplicissimus, loosed at the title of the two German books, examined one of them to see whether it contained any loose papers, and then passed on.

But I had no further desire thus to tempt fate. I therefore packed the books up, waited for a favourable moment, and put them into the next carriage into the lavatory with the railwayman’s belongings. They remained there during the new examination which took place before Salzburg, and when we had entered Austria I took the bundle out again. These and similar moments, many of which fell to my lot during the war, strengthened my nerves and helped me to cultivate presence of mind. (60)

Beneš left the Austrian Empire in September 1915, never to return while that entity existed. The situation in Prague was becoming too risky for overt action, and several members of the Maffia had been arrested. Here are Beneš's reflection on that moment:

I had slipped away from home with only a small handbag, which my wife had hidden under her cape when she had accompanied me to the railway station at our summer quarters. I had promised her that I would return within two years at the most, and I told her to be prepared for hard times, as she would be harassed, cross-examined, and perhaps even imprisoned by the police. I advised her what attitude she was to adopt and what answers she was to give. Should things become unbearable she was to repudiate me. We were ready for whatever might befall. Every great and righteous cause demands sacrifices and they must be made resolutely and without sentimentality. And every sacrifice thus made will cost one’s opponents very dear. Such were my feelings when I took my seat in the train bound for Cheb and bade farewell to those who were dear to me.

It was not long before my wife and the others who were implicated in the plot were arrested and imprisoned in Vienna, as we had expected. (71)

After escaping Austria-Hungary, Beneš located himself in Paris where the Czechoslovak activism was beginning to gain some traction with the Entente Powers:

And so we took open action and declared war officially upon the Habsburg Empire on Sunday, November 14, 1915, when the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Foreign Committee was published in Switzerland, France, Russia, and the United States.

In this proclamation the Foreign Committee emphasized the fact that the Czechoslovak nation was entering upon hostilities irrespective of their result, at a moment when Russia was retreating and Serbia was crushed. It associated itself with the Slavonic nations and the Allies, and proclaimed a life and death struggle against the Empire which was responsible for the war and had already lost its independence, having become a mere implement in the German war policy of an advance towards the East. The manifesto further described the struggle of the Czechoslovak nation against Vienna and Budapest before the war, and drew attention to the regime of persecution against us in Austria-Hungary during the war. It emphasized our historical right to a State of our own, and referred to the fact that the whole nation was resolved to gain its independence by its combative efforts in the war. The cause of Vienna and Budapest was proclaimed to be already a lost one, the downfall of the Habsburg Empire and the formation of an independent Czechoslovak State certain and inevitable.

The publication of the manifesto formed the beginning of our official opposition to Austria-Hungary. It was a step of historic importance, although the immediate effect was not considerable. It was the first decisive measure, open and deliberate, undertaken in agreement with the politicians at home and therefore fraught with responsibility to the nation and its future. There could now be no turning back. With this step began the phase of our organized activity abroad. That problem occupied us entirely for some time. (82)

I managed to type up my thoughts on My War Memoirs by Edvard Beneš if you're interested.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...