Independence of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia was proclaimed in Prague on 28 October 1918, two weeks before the war ended. It had been argued into existence abroad. Tomáš Masaryk, a philosophy professor and member of the Austrian parliament, left the empire in 1914, spent four years in Geneva, London, Petrograd, Tokyo and Washington making the case that Austria-Hungary should be dissolved rather than reformed, and was believed largely because he could point to an army. The Czechoslovak Legion was some 60,000 men, formed from prisoners and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army in Russia, and in 1918 it found itself fighting its way along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, controlling much of the line and becoming a factor in the Russian civil war. An army in the field is a stronger argument than a memorandum, and the Allies recognised the National Council as a provisional government in the summer. The proclamation in Prague was made by five politicians on the news of an Austrian note accepting Wilson's terms, and it was peaceful. The state that resulted was the most industrialised, democratic and prosperous of the successor states, holding most of the old empire's manufacturing. It was also a nation-state for a nation that was a minority in it. Czechs were about half the population, Slovaks a seventh, and Germans more than a fifth — some 3.2 million people, more than the Slovaks, whose grievances gave Hitler his lever in 1938. Masaryk was president until 1935. The state lasted twenty years. Slovakia's position was the other unresolved question. The Pittsburgh Agreement signed by émigré organisations in 1918 had promised Slovak autonomy, the constitution of 1920 declared a single Czechoslovak nation instead, and the grievance was live enough for Hitler to use it as well.
- Year: 1918 CE
- Category: Political
