The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. BOHEMIA, THE ARMENIA OF AUSTRIA

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 99, 19 January 1918, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. BOHEMIA, THE ARMENIA OF AUSTRIA

A distinguished diplomatist of the last generation said that Asia began at Vienna. The Habsbuhus in the past have justified this uncomplimentary judgment by pursuing Asiatic and not European methods of ruling the numerous nationalities in.. their . dominions. The Habsburgs of our day, controlled by the Prussian military autocracy, have changed their bad method ol ruling—but only for the worse. lhe v Ottoman Government has earned tor itself eternal infamy by using the methods of injustice, persecution, and massacre in governing illfated Armenia. That land' is spoken of as the land of a million martyrs, and thb world is aflame with indignation aroused by tho story of her sufferings. A somewhat similar tragedy, but not on such a colossal scale, has been enactcd in Austria. The Habsburgs, controlled by Potsdam, .have turned one of the fairest spots of Central Europe into an Armenia, and have soaked its sou with the blood of a racc that is one of the best intellectual and moral assets of our time. We refer to Bohemia, the land of the Czechs, and to the method of government by persecution and massacre pursued'there by Austria since tho war began. This martyr land is fcncccl by German' 'steel, and the "German censor has buried in the grave of

silence tho story of many a crime. But murder will out, and the story of the suffering Czechs is slowly but surely reaching tho ears of men, in whose souls hatred of wrong and lovo of freedom turn as a passion, and these men are appealing to the statesmen of the Allied nations to make tho redemption of Bohemia part of their great programme of freedom. In the Round Table, in the A orih American licvicw, and in other journals of high repute in recent months the story of Austria's cruelty to the Czcchs and her method of government by massacre in Bohemia has been told with much, fullness. Dr. William Barry, in his article "How to Break Austria," in tho November number of The Nineteenth Century, cannot overlook tho crimes of the Habsburgs in Bohemia, and so lro writes: "The whole chapter of Bohemia during these melancholy years is, like a prophet's scroll, ■ most lamentable, yet most glorious for a people who, cut off from help and sympathy, are struggling in a silent martyrdom that the Allies may win. This cultivated, peace-loving, and constantly heroic branch of the Western Slavs should be dear to England on many accounts."

Mb. G. K. Chesterton, in his! introduction to Bohemia's Claim for Freedom, a little book published on behalf of the London Czcch Committee, remarks that. "It is to be feared that the average educated Englishman knows very little, about Bohemia. Very likely he would never have known that it has no sea coast i£ Shakespeare had not inadvertently said that it had. But the present war is teaching the English what their schoolmaster's, for some reason, have never' taught them—a little history arid-geography." Bohemia occupies a strategic position in Central Europe. It is the "borderland between the German and Slavonic worlds." Small in size,-being less than Scotland, it is rich in natural resources, and it has produced the. most highly educated race in Austria, a race with a passion for patriotism, and as a consequcnce a,love for national freedom and independence, of which they have been robbed for very long years. But as "Mr. Chesterton says, martyred nations aro always endowed with immortality, and Austrian injustice beforo the war only nourished the lovo of the Czech for his people, his language, and his land. The mass of the people aro Roman Catholics, but their national hero is John Huss, the champion of civil and religious freedom, who was martyred 500 years ago. Germany has been the hereditary foe of Bohemia, and when this German-made war broke out the Czechs in Bohemia and throughout the world were openly anti-German and in genuine sympathy with Britain and her Allies, and of courso in true accord with their Slavonic kith and kin in Russia: for this sympathy they have paid a terrible price in bloocl and treasure, and their suffering still continue. The Bohemians in an evil hour a few centuries ago by a free election made the Habsbukg ruler their King and entered into a federal union with Austria. But the Habsburgs treated as "scraps o! paper" the solemn covenants, bearing on freedom and independence, made with Bohemia. When the war broke out in 1914 the wretched Francis Joseph, knowing the antiGermanism of Bohemia, dissolved tho Bohemian Council of the Kingdom and appointed an Imperial Council of aliens to govern Bohemia ! This political outrage of course, exasperated the people and made them moro opposed to the war and to Potsdam aggression. A manifesto oi tho Czcch National Council published in the Round .Table of March. last_ notes that Austria entered on this war without the sanction of Parliament, and that if such sanction had been sought tho majority of the members would havo declared against war, and Bohemia would have very specially refused to sanction the war. This has been the attitude of the mass of tho Czcchs in Bohemia and outside Bohemia in relation to the war to this hour. Since August, 1914, a Reign of Terror has obtained in Bohemia, and the land is policcd by Potsdam "bayonets, and every man between 18 and 55 years able to bear arras has been forced into an army they hate and into a war they abhor. This forcible drafting of men into the army has led to outbreaks of the people, and there have been massacres of unarmed men, women, and children.,. The people aro ground down by heavy war taxes, which are spent outside Bohemia, and tho •most elementary -needs of the land arc neglected. The ■ leaders of the nation have been put in prison without fo.rmal accusation and without . trial.... Dr.- Seton-Watson, in his recent informing book, German, Slav, and Mar/yar, tells us that the Czech opposition to the war was so strong that; whole regiments surrendered to Russia without firing a shot. There have been no bounds to German cruelty in meting out punishment to the Czcchs for such actions. A thousand young Czech soldiers were marched to- the Italian front and " thrust into the most exposed places to cxperiencc extermination: only IS of the 1000 escaped death or wounds. It is not too much to say that Austria, at the bidding o'f Potsdam has made Bohemia an Armenia, a place of massacre and martyrdom. For this crime a day of reckoning will.come to. Hohenzoixern and .Habsbukg.. . .

Tho manhood of Bohemia Ims beon slain or murdered in thousands during these three years, but probably the Czech rational sentiment is stronger to-day than ever. In Bohemia the Czech mothers train their children to view with horror everything German, because Germany has slain their fathers, confiscated their property, and treated them as helots. When the United States entered the Avar the Czechs there flockcd in thousands to tho colours to fight against the Central Powers. In trance there are whole battalions of Bohemian volunteers, and the samo fact obtains with regard to the Serbian and other armies of the Allies. Before the war the Czechs of Bohemia and Ene Slovaks of Hungary, one in 1 ' race and in language, were one aliso in aspiration for nationality. and .self-government. They numbered then 10,000,000. The war has thinned their ranks, but it has made more intense their hatred of German despotism and deepened their desiro for freedom and independence. Has the time not come for the recognition by the Allies of the rights of Bohemia as well as those of Poland Serbia, and other nationalities to freedom andself-government? If a rampart against Pan-Germanism is formed of self-governing States extending from the Baltic to the Aegean Sea, the Czccli race will

make the strongest part of such a rampart. The end of the war is not yet in sight, but it is well to remember that the Central Powers are studded with political volcanoes in tho shape of millions of peoples who

hate like poison (,he war unci tlie war-makers. The clay of peace may be hastened by internal political explosions in the Central Powers as well as by the shot and shell of our guns.,