nation is in Austria-Hungary alone split up into
eleven provincial administrations, coming under thirteen legislative
bodies. The feeling of national unity, together with the spirit
of liberty and independence, have supported it in the never-ending
struggles of centuries against the Turks in the East and against the
Germans and the Magyars in the West.

Being numerically inferior to its enemies in the East and West, it was
impossible for it to safeguard its unity as a nation and a State, its
liberty and its independence against the brutal maxim of "might goes
before right" militating against it both East and West.

But the moment has come when our people is no longer isolated. The war
imposed by German militarism upon Russia, upon France and upon
England for the defense of their honor as well as for the liberty and
independence of small nations, has developed into a struggle for the
Liberty of the World and the Triumph of Right over Might. All nations
which love liberty and independence have allied themselves together for
their common defense, to save civilization and liberty at the cost
of every sacrifice, to establish a new international order based upon
justice and upon the right of every nation to dispose of itself and
so organize its independent life; finally to establish a durable peace
consecrated to the progress and development of humanity and to secure
the world against a catastrophe similar to that which the conquering
lust of German Imperialism has provoked.

To noble France, who has proclaimed the liberty of nations, and to
England, the hearth of liberty, the Great American Republic and the
new, free and democratic Russia have joined themselves in proclaiming
as their principal war aim the triumph of liberty and democracy and
as basis of the new international order the right of free
self-determination for every nation.

Our nation of the three names, which has been the greatest sufferer
under brute force and injustice and which has made the greatest
sacrifices to preserve its right of self-determination, has with
enthusiasm accepted this sublime principle put forward as the chief aim
of this atrocious war, provoked by the violation of this very principle.

The authorized representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in
declaring that it is the desire of our people to free itself from every
foreign yoke and to constitute itself a free, national and independent
State, a desire based on the principle