Independent Bohemia Part 4

(c) _Persecution of the Press_

Among the Czech journals suppressed in Bohemia at the beginning of the war, the following deserve to be especially mentioned:

_Ceske Slovo_, organ of the National Socialist Party; the editors have been imprisoned. _Cas_ ("Times"), organ of Professor Masaryk (Realist Party); the editors Dusek and Hajek were imprisoned. _Samostatnost_, organ of the State Right (Radical) Party; the editors were imprisoned or sent to the front.

The _Narodni Listy_ (Kramar's organ) was twice suspended, and in May, 1918, suppressed altogether because it "fostered sympathies for the Entente."

The _Lidove Noviny_, organ of Dr. Stransk (Moravian People's Party), was also several times suspended during the war.

All Socialist journals were suppressed except _Pravo Lidu_ and _Rovnost_.

According to the _Wiener Zeitung_, seventy-eight Czech journals were suspended during the months of April, May and June, 1916, alone. All Slovak newspapers were also suppressed.

As regards censorship, we need only mention that even speeches delivered in the Austrian Parliament were censored in the press. The sense of the speeches delivered by Allied statesmen was invariably distorted and declarations in favour of Czecho-Slovak independence were suppressed.

Foreign newspapers were not allowed to be quoted; and the journals were forced to publish unsigned articles supplied to them by the police....

The Union of Czech Journalists declared on April 25, 1917

"We protest against the practice prevailing in Prague as against means quite contradictory to the moral principles of modern journalism, as in Prague the newspapers are forced to publish articles supplied by the Official Press Bureau, as though written by the editor, without being allowed to mark them as inspired. Thus the journals are not in reality edited by the editors themselves, but by the Press inst.i.tution of the state."

The same union again protested on November 16, 1917

"After the victorious Russian Revolution which brought about also the opening of the Reichsrat, the fetters binding the Czech press were a little relaxed, but only for a short time, and to-day we see the same conditions prevailing in which we lived for the first three years of war. Every free reflection in the Czech journals is confiscated. They are even prohibited to publish articles which appeared in the German and Austrian press. Furthermore, they are again compelled to publish articles written by officials without marking them as such. They cannot even inform their readers correctly about parliamentary debates, _as speeches and interpellations delivered in parliament are suppressed_.

We ask the Union of Czech Deputies to protest again against this violation of parliamentary immunity, and to obtain a guarantee that in future the Czech papers will not be compelled to print articles not written by the editorial staff and that the Czech press shall enjoy at least the same freedom as the press in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest."

_(d) Reichsrat Interpellations_

To complete the picture of Austrian terrorism, we will quote some of the interpellations addressed to the Austrian Government by Czech deputies in the summer of 1917.

The Czech deputies_ Prokes, Jaros and Charvat_ (Socialists) have demanded an explanation from the Minister for Home Defence respecting 300 Czech teachers from Moravia who were interned in 1915, being suspected of disloyalty, although there was no charge made against them either by the civil or by the military authorities. They were first interned in Lower Austria and then in Hungary, and had to do the hardest work. Though the educational authorities reclaimed them they were not set free even to attend to the burials of their relatives. The only exception made was when one teacher was allowed to be married in Vienna, and even then he was followed by the guard with fixed bayonets. In Hungary the conditions were still worse, and many of these teachers died and many of them are still in hospitals.

A long interpellation was addressed to the government by the Czech deputies_ Binovec, Filipinsk and Stejskal_ (Socialists) regarding the outrageous and inhuman treatment of the Czech political prisoners. They mentioned a vast number of appalling instances of deliberate torturing and starving of the prisoners. All rights of the prisoners were suspended and they depended entirely on the will of the commander: many of these political prisoners were imprisoned together with ordinary murderers; they were not allowed to read books or to write letters; their families were not permitted to visit them or even to send them provisions from home, so they starved in prison. Such cruel treatment did not affect only political prisoners but even people on remand, and it was nothing extraordinary for them to be imprisoned for years on remand only. The deputies asked whether the authorities wanted these prisoners to die from starvation.

The most interesting doc.u.ment is the interpellation of deputies _Stanek, Tobolka and Co_. on the persecutions against the Czech nation during the war. The interpellation has been published as a book of 200 pages which has been prohibited by Austria to be sent abroad, but a copy of which we have nevertheless been able to secure. The following are short extracts from the volume:

The Behaviour of the Austrian Government towards the Czech Nation during the War

"YOUR EXCELLENCY,--At a time when it proved impossible to continue to rule in an absolute way in this empire and when after more than three years the Reichsrat is sitting again, we address to you the following interpellation in order to call your attention to the persecutions which during the past three years have been perpetrated on our nation, and to demand emphatically that these persecutions shall be discontinued. They were not done unintentionally or accidentally, but, as will be shown from the following survey, this violence was committed deliberately and systematically by the Austrian Government on our nation, which took the abominable view that the present war is the most suitable period for realising the plans and aims of German centralism in the Habsburg Monarchy by curing the Czechs forever of all hallucinations about equality among nations, and about the glorious past of Bohemia and her relationship with other Slav nations. A general attack was made upon the Czech nation during the critical situation created by the war: our partic.i.p.ation in civil service was curtailed, German was made the official language of the state, the press was muzzled, schools persecuted, the Sokol idea declared to be high treason, men distinguished for service in the state arrested, imprisoned, persecuted and sentenced to death, everything reminding the population of the famous past of Bohemia removed, the ancient Czech aspirations for political independence or even aims for a mere reorganisation of the Habsburg Monarchy on a federal basis were not allowed and were suppressed, even the name of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, which was the foundation stone to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1526, was to disappear for ever.

"The persecutions against our nation were very cruel indeed.

"In the first place, _Dr. Kramar_ was attacked as the veritable leader of the Czech nation. In return for his valuable services for this state and for his nation, in return for his endeavours to educate the Czech nation towards realism in politics, he was recompensed by being arrested, imprisoned and sentenced to death, although a member of the delegations and therefore enjoying immunity. He was not brought up before the ordinary tribunal, but before a judge who was absolutely ignorant of Czech or foreign politics, so that his condemnation might be a.s.sured.

"The same fate also met his political friends, deputy Dr. Rasin and the editor of _Narodni Listy_, V. Cervinka.

"Incredible proceedings were taken against the deputy Klofac. Although being a member of the delegations and therefore enjoying immunity, he was arrested on September 7, 1914, and has been imprisoned ever since.

A charge was hurriedly prepared against him on May 24, 1917, that is when the Reichsrat was to be opened. Both Dr. Kramar and Klofac were prosecuted by the Vienna court-martial under the direction of Colonel Gliwitzki and Dr. Preminger in such a way that no ordinary judge would dare to act.

"The way in which the military tribunals treated the ordinary uneducated people is apparent from the following examples:

"The tailor Smejkal in Vienna was sentenced to six months' hard labour for saying, 'The government does not want to give us Czech schools in Vienna.'

"For saying, 'I do not know whether the Emperor Francis Joseph was ever crowned King of Bohemia or not,' a boy gardener named Tesar was sentenced to six months' hard labour, which sentence was altered to sixteen months by the High Court of Justice (the poor boy died in prison).

"The shoemaker's a.s.sistant Hamouz, of Vienna, sixty-seven years of age, ill and mentally stunted, served in his youth with the 28th Regiment.

He defended this regiment, therefore, by saying, 'It is a good regiment.' He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment.

"Private Cepera from Moravia was sentenced to three years' hard labour for saying, 'The German Kaiser is responsible for the war.'

"For saying that 'those of the 28th Regiment are our "boys,"' gunner Purs, of Benatky, was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was sent in chains to the military prison in Mollersdorf.

"The wilfulness of military tribunals, culminating in many cases in apparent hatred against everything that is Czech, is shown by the following, out of many examples:

"The editor of _Ceske Slovo_, E. Spatny, of Prague, was arrested on September 26, 1914, and interned in Prague, without being told the reason. In March, 1915, he was transferred to the internment camp at Gollersdorf, in Lower Austria. The Czechs interned there arranged on July 5 a Hus anniversary at which the editor E. Spatny and Dr. Vrbensk spoke about the life and importance of Hus. Being accused by a certain fellow-prisoner, Davidovsk, that they had been speaking against the Germans and that 'the speakers expected deliverance by a certain state but were disappointed,' they were transferred to the military prison in Vienna, and charged with high treason according to Par. 58_c_. The latter was discharged for want of proofs, but the editor Spatny was sentenced to fourteen years' hard labour.

"The Sarajevo prisoners were not allowed to be visited by their relatives in contravention of the orders of the official statutes D 6.

Out of five of those prisoners, three have already died, the fourth is dying, and the last one, a student Cubulic, was allowed a visit after two years when it became certain that the Reichsrat would meet.

"The extent to which starvation and inhuman treatment is raging in the state prisons is best shown by the conditions prevailing in the prison of Mollersdorf. In the years 1915-16, 61 prisoners died there out of 350 to 450 prisoners on the roll. Between January 1, 1917, and May, 1917, 101 prisoners were doomed to death. The majority belong to the sixth category of prisoners. The thieves, criminals and impostors, if they had served previously in the army, enjoy special treatment in Mollersdorf prison. They wear civilian clothes, and are treated with consideration and well fed. On the other hand, political prisoners, especially those cla.s.sed as second category, are dying from ill-treatment and insufficient nourishment. The judge, auditor A.

Konig, famous for his arbitrary verdicts against the Czech people, was a solicitor's clerk in civil life, and now recommends to his wealthy defendants his Vienna lawyer friends as splendid specialists and advocates in political matters. Thus, for instance, he forced Dr.

Glaser upon Mr. Kotik as the counsel. Kotik was sentenced to death by Konig, and Glaser sent him a bill for 10,000 kronen (400) for the 'successful defence.'

_The Persecutions of the Sokols_

"Terrible persecutions were inflicted on the Sokol Gymnastic a.s.sociation during the war. The sphere of the Sokols' activity does not touch political affairs at all, being reserved to gymnastics and spiritual education. Their activity was public, open to official inquiries and supervision. But this did not save them from persecutions. The first persecution was already committed in 1914 in Moravia, when some branches of the Sokol a.s.sociation were dissolved for various reasons. Numerous societies were afterwards dissolved throughout Bohemia and Moravia.

"_On November_ 23, 1915, _the Central Czech Sokol a.s.sociation (Ceska Obec Sokolska) was dissolved_ as the centre of the Czech Sokol movement, which before the war kept up lively relations with foreign countries and manifested brotherly feelings of sympathy towards Serbia and Russia. It was alleged that the Central Sokol a.s.sociation had had relations with the American Sokol branches during the war through its president, Dr. J. Scheiner, and conducted an active propaganda against Austria. The alleged relations were founded on a communication of the American branches to the president, Dr. Scheiner, asking him whether he would be willing to distribute money collected in America to people in Bohemia afflicted by the war. Dr. Scheiner was arrested and kept in prison for two months.

"Very characteristic was the way in which the military authorities treated the members of Sokol societies. In many cases soldiers, especially recruits, were questioned whether they belonged to the Sokol a.s.sociation. The authorities searched for Sokol badges or membership cards, and those who were found to have these in their possession were severely punished. The members of the Sokol societies as long as they were in the army were invariably subjected to ill-treatment and persecution. They were transferred to do heavy work, and not recommended for promotion, and in every way treated more brutally than other soldiers. In the case of both civil and military trials, one of the most important questions asked, was whether the accused belonged to any Sokol society, and if the accused did belong to a society this always went against him.

_Bohemian History_

"Every possible means was employed to wipe out the memory of important events in Bohemian history. Not only were historical books (like Lutzow's _Bohemia_ and others) confiscated, but even scientific lectures on John Hus and the Hussite movement were prohibited. The metal memorial plate with the names of Bohemian lords executed in 1621 inscribed upon it was removed from the Town Hall, and that part of the square which showed the spot on which they were executed was ordered to be repaved.

"In order to destroy the idea that the Czechs are of Slav origin, any use of red, blue and white colours was prohibited. Varnishes in these colours were not allowed to be used. The street plates of pre-war times had to be repainted in black and yellow. Newspaper posters, match-boxes and other articles were not allowed to be sold or exhibited, if they were painted in the Slav tricolours.

_The Suppression of Czech Literature_

"More than two hundred books published before the war were confiscated.

The tendency of this action was clear. The government wanted to destroy the memory of the glorious past of Bohemia, of John Hus and the Hussite movement, of the suffering of the Czech nation after the defeat of the White Mountain, to restrict all progressive and liberal movements and to kill the 'Sokol' idea, and further to destroy the consciousness that Czechs and Slovaks are the same nation and belong to the great Slav family. The apostles of this idea were proclaimed traitors, especially Dr. Kramar, J.S. Machar and others. These persecutions cover a great period before the war, and the following is a list of the books suppressed (follows a list comprising eleven foolscap columns). The government treated the Czech nation with special brutality. The persecutions in Bohemia were opposed not only to the liberal ideas of Czechs, but especially to their national feelings. The anxiety of the censor for the safety of the monarchy often bordered on absurdity. The word 'shocking' was deleted from a play, for instance, because it was English. _Henry IV_. was not allowed to be played 'until we reach a settlement with England,' and it was only when it was reported by the Vienna and Berlin papers that the prohibition was withdrawn.

_Persecution of the Czech Press_

"The Czech press was persecuted in a peculiar manner. Its editors were not allowed to receive papers from neutral countries and to express their own opinions as regards the propaganda of the Czechs abroad.

Under threats of suppression of the journals and imprisonment of the editors, the journals were obliged to print and publish articles supplied to them by the police, without mentioning the source from whence they came. The articles had to be put in in such a way that they appeared as if they were the editors' views. The articles betrayed the low intellectual level of the authors who lacked any knowledge of Czech affairs. Such articles which the Czech journals were compelled to publish were, for instance: 'In Foreign Pay,' published March 25, 1916; 'The Czechs in America against Masaryk's Agents,' published in all Czech papers on April 8, 1916; on January 16, 1917, the article 'Our Answer to the Quadruple Entente.'