Page - 966 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

966 The Twilight Empire Czecho-Slovak state would also have troops who had been sanctioned by the Allies as an allied military force, and who were already fighting as legionaries on the side of the Allies. If Czech claims after the war were to be believed, they were indeed large in number : the American forces counted over 42,000 Czecho-Slovaks, of whom only a few individuals were sighted at the front, however. They were not deserters, but had at most abandoned their posts. The British counted 1,102 Czecho-Slovaks, while 1,365 fought in the new Serbian Army, 9,975 in the French formations and, finally, 19,476 with the Italians, of which some had already changed sides in Russia. In Russia itself, a total of 71,310 Czecho-Slovak soldiers had apparently reported for duty to the Legion. Naturally, there were a large number of double counts, and those Czechs and Slovaks who wished to serve as part of the US forces were a category in their own right. The fact that on the Czech side, 145,614 Czech and Slovak soldiers were claimed as Legion members was after all only part of the post-war propaganda that was designed to push through the Czech demands.2341 And the fact that at least four times as many Czechs and Slovaks still belonged to the Imperial and Royal Army at the end of the war was quickly pushed to one side. This was not material that could be used to ‘make a state’ in November 1918. But agitation was always possible. The Imperial-Royal Prime Minister Hussarek already began at the end of July to drive forward the separation of Germans and Czechs as national groups, and to prise the German settlement area out of the federation of the Kingdom of Bohemia.2342 The Czech side described it as ‘ripping the land apart’.2343 On 14 September, the next Im- perial-Royal Interior Minister, Baron Edmund von Gayer, requested that the Austrian Council of Ministers agree to an act on the division of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Two days later, the Council of Ministers approved the act. At the same time, the slogan of national self-determination began to circulate, and was also used to justify the division pushed forward by the German nationalist side. Then, work began on specific organi- sational matters, which were intended to bring a change to the political administrative districts and the installation of regional governments. The notion of the Czech state could no longer be negated ; now, only the continued national existence could be secured, or bare force applied. Hussarek opted for the former, and in so doing, was at least acting in concord with the German Freedom, German Nationalist and Christian Social circles in the German parts of the Monarchy. They held ‘people’s days’ in all the lands, and de- manded, as did the Mayor of Vienna, Weiskirchner in mid-June 1918, for example, ‘that dams should be erected in order to protect our property’.2344 Laws were demanded to pre- vent non-Germans from purchasing German land and property, as well as the extension of the German education system, which had been abandoned to ‘alienation’ following the influx of tens of thousands of Jews from Galicia and Bukovina. The ‘immeasurable sacri- fices’ should not have been made for nothing. There should be no Czech and no southern Slav state, Tyrol should remain undivided, and Trieste (Triest) be retained for shipping.