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The most significant speech, however, was that of Dr. Stransky in the Austrian Reichsrat on July 23, which surpasses any of those we have quoted hitherto in its frank anti-Austrian spirit and expression: "We want to expose and show up before the whole world the intolerable state of foreign domination over us.
We Czech deputies recognise the declarations in the Reichsrat, and deem it our duty emphatically to declare, in the name of the Czech nation and of its oppressed and forcibly-silenced Slovak branch of Hungary, our attitude towards the reconstruction of the international situation.
The Poles of Galicia, having enjoyed the utmost liberty under Austrian rule, have naturally been almost immune from the discontent so noticeable among their kinsmen in Russia and Prussia, and have indeed for a generation past formed the backbone of all parliamentary majorities in the Austrian Reichsrat.
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. Kramar is in complete agreement with the Radicals who formerly were his most bitter opponents.
On November 29, deputy Modracek declared in the Reichsrat: "The Revolution of the Bolsheviks is a misfortune for the Russian Revolution, the Russian Republic and all the oppressed nations of Europe.
"YOUR EXCELLENCY, At a time when it proved impossible to continue to rule in an absolute way in this empire and when after more than three years the Reichsrat is sitting again, we address to you the following interpellation in order to call your attention to the persecutions which during the past three years have been perpetrated on our nation, and to demand emphatically that these persecutions shall be discontinued.
In the same way Austria wanted to make outsiders believe that a change in the name of the Hungarian Premier meant a change of system, and that the convocation of the Reichsrat meant a new era of "democracy" in Austria. Neither of these assumptions was, of course, correct.
Seidler, had to admit, when he declared in the Reichsrat on January 22: "This resolution, in which we in vain look for a distant echo of dynastic or state allegiance, adopts to a certain extent an international standpoint, and shows that this people is ready, at any rate on the conclusion of peace, to accept international support with a view to obtaining the recognition of foreign states.
But Austria could not possibly hope to deceive free Russia or the Allies and lure them into concluding a premature peace if the reign of terrorism and absolutism still prevailed in the Dual Monarchy. For this reason Tisza, with his sinister reputation, was forced to go, and the Reichsrat was convened.
The deeds of our army met with equal admiration and gratitude also in Bohemia. This is clearly shown by the speech of the Czech deputy Stribrny, delivered in the Austrian Reichsrat on July 17, and entirely suppressed in the Austrian and German press.
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