explanation, which filled them with pride in themselves and
contempt for the Czechs.

But the German officers in charge of reorganising the
Austro-Hungarian Army were not content to let Bohemians perform
safe duties in the rear. Consequently, they diluted them until no
regiment contained more than 20 per cent.

The authorities have been no less thorough with the civilian
population. From the day of mobilisation all political life was
suspended. The three parties of the Opposition, the Radicals, the
National-Socialists, and the Progressives, were annihilated and
their newspapers suppressed. Their leaders, such men as Kramarzh,
Rasin, Klofatch, Scheiner, Mazaryk, Durich, the men who served as
guides to the nation, were imprisoned or exiled. This is surely a
violation of the principle that Governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed, for all these men were the
true representatives of the people. The fact that the Government
was obliged to get rid of the leaders of the nation shows what the
real situation in Bohemia is.

The Czech deputies who were considered dangerous, numbering forty,
were mobilised. They were not all sent to the front; some were
allowed temporary exemption; but the Government gave them to
understand that the slightest act of hostility towards the Monarchy
on their part would result in their being called up immediately and
sent to the front.

The fetters of the Press were drawn more tightly. Even the German
papers were not allowed into Bohemia. For some months, two or
three enterprising editors used to send a representative to Dresden
to read the German and English papers there. At present
three-quarters of the Czech papers and all the Slovak newspapers
have been suppressed. The columns of those which are still allowed
to appear in Bohemia and Moravia are congested by mandates of the
police and the military authorities, which the editors are
compelled to insert. Recently the Government censorship has been
particularly active against hooks, collections of national songs,
and post-cards. It has even gone so far as to confiscate
scientific works dealing with Slav questions, Dostoyevski's novels,
the books of Tolstoi and Millioukoff, and collections of purely
scientific Slav study and histories.

The Government, however, have had to proceed to far greater
lengths. By May, 1916, the death sentences of civilians pronounced
in Austria since the beginning of the