"At this grave moment when the Hohenzollerns are offering peace in
order to stop the victorious advance of the Allied armies and to
prevent the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, and when the
Habsburgs are promising the federalisation of the empire and autonomy
to the dissatisfied nationalities committed to their rule, we, the
Czecho-Slovak National Council, recognised by the Allied and American
Governments as the Provisional Government of the Czecho-Slovak State
and nation, in complete accord with the declaration of the Czech
deputies in Prague on January 6, 1918, and realising that
federalisation and, still more, autonomy mean nothing under a Habsburg
dynasty, do hereby make and declare this our Declaration of
Independence:
"Because of our belief that no people should be forced to live under a
sovereignty they do not recognise and because of our knowledge and firm
conviction that our nation cannot freely develop in a Habsburg
confederation which is only a new form of the denationalising
oppression which we have suffered for the past three centuries, we
consider freedom to be the first pre-requisite for federalisation and
believe that the free nations of Central and Eastern Europe may easily
federate should they find it necessary.
"We make this declaration on the basis of our historic and natural
right: we have been an independent state since the seventh century, and
in 1526 as an independent state, consisting of Bohemia, Moravia and
Silesia, we joined with Austria and Hungary in a defensive union
against the Turkish danger. We have never voluntarily surrendered our
rights as an independent state in this confederation. The Habsburgs
broke their compact with our nation by illegally transgressing our
rights and violating the constitution of our state, which they had
pledged themselves to uphold, and we therefore refuse any longer to
remain a part of Austria-Hungary in any form.
"We claim the right of Bohemia to be reunited with her Slovak brethren
of Slovakia, which once formed part of our national state, but later
was torn from our national body and fifty years ago was incorporated in
the Hungarian State of the Magyars, who by their unspeakable violence
and ruthless oppression of their subject races have lost all moral and
human right to rule anybody but themselves.
"The world knows the history of our struggle against the Habsburg
oppression, intensified and systematised by the Austro-Hungarian
dualistic compromise of 1867. This dualism is only a shameless
organisation of brute force and exploitation of the majority by the
minority. It is a political conspiracy of the Germans and Magyars
against our own as well as the other Slav and Latin nations of the
monarchy.
"The world knows the justice of our claims, which the Habsburgs
themselves dare not deny. Francis Joseph in the most solemn manner
repeatedly recognised the sovereign rights of our nation. The Germans
and Magyars opposed this recognition, and Austria-Hungary, bowing
before the Pan-Germans, became a colony of Germany and as her vanguard
to the East provoked the last Balkan conflict as well as the present
world war, which was begun by the Habsburgs alone without the consent
of the representatives of the people.
"We cannot and will not continue to live under the direct or indirect
rule of the violators of Belgium, France and Serbia, the would-be
murderers of Russia and Rumania, the murderers of tens of thousands of
civilians and soldiers of our blood, and the accomplices in numberless
unspeakable crimes committed in this war against humanity by the two
degenerate and irresponsible dynasties of Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns.
We will not remain a part of a state which has no justification for
existence and which, refusing to accept the fundamental principles of
modern world organisation, remains only an artificial and immoral
political structure, hindering every movement towards democratic and
social progress. The Habsburg dynasty, weighed down by a huge
inheritance of error and crime, is a perpetual menace to the peace of
the world, and we deem it our duty towards humanity and civilisation to
aid in bringing about its downfall and destruction.
"We reject the sacrilegious assertion that the power of the Habsburg
and Hohenzollern dynasties is of divine origin. We refuse to recognise
the divine right of kings. Our nation elected the Habsburgs to the
throne of Bohemia of its own free will and by the same right deposes
them. We hereby declare the Habsburg dynasty unworthy of leading our
nation and deny all their claims to rule in the Czecho-Slovak land,
which we here and now declare shall henceforth be a free and
independent people and nation.
"We accept and shall adhere to the ideals of modern democracy as they
have been ideals of our nation for centuries. We accept the American
principles as laid down by President Wilson, the principles of
liberated mankind of the actual equality of nations and of governments,
deriving all their just power from the consent of the governed. We, the
nation of Comenius, cannot but accept those principles expressed in the
American Declaration of Independence, the principles of Lincoln and of
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. For these
principles our nation shed its blood in the memorable Hussite wars five
hundred years ago. For these same principles beside her Allies our
nation is shedding its blood to-day in Russia, Italy and France.
"We shall outline only the main principles of the constitution of the
Czecho-Slovak nation. The final decision as to the constitution itself
falls to the legally chosen representatives of the liberated and united
people. The Czecho-Slovak State shall be a republic in constant
endeavour for progress. It will guarantee complete freedom of
conscience, religion and science, literature and art, speech, the press
and the right of assembly and petition. The Church shall be separated
from the State. Our democracy shall rest on universal suffrage; women
shall be placed on an equal footing with men politically, socially and
culturally, while the right of the minority shall be safeguarded by
proportional representation. National minorities shall enjoy equal
rights. The government shall be parliamentary in form and shall
recognise the principles of initiative and referendum. The standing
army will be replaced by militia. The Czecho-Slovak nation will carry
out far-reaching social and economic reforms. The large estates will be
redeemed for home colonisation, and patents of nobility will be
abolished. Our nation will assume responsibility for its part of the
Austro-Hungarian pre-war public debt. The debts for this war we leave
to those who incurred them.
"In its foreign policy the Czecho-Slovak nation will accept its full
share of responsibility in the reorganisation of Eastern Europe. It
accepts fully the democratic and social principle of nationality and
subscribes to the doctrine that all covenants and treaties shall be
entered into openly and frankly without secret diplomacy. Our
constitution shall provide an efficient, national and just government
which will exclude all special privileges and prohibit class
legislation.
"Democracy has defeated theocratic autocracy, militarism is overcome,
democracy is victorious. On the basis of democracy mankind will be
reorganised. The forces of darkness have served the victory of light,
the longed-for age of humanity is dawning. We believe in democracy, we
believe in liberty and liberty for evermore.
"Given in Paris on the 18th October, 1918.
_(Signed)_ "PROFESSOR THOMAS G. MASARYK,
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.