Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/229

The author is now director of the official Czechoslovak Press Bureau in Prague. During the war he was one of the so-called “Maffia” which directed Czech revolutionary activity at home and kept in touch with the Czechoslovak National Council abroad. His sketches of the chief figures in the Court of Vienna and the relations between the Austrian and German Kaisers throw much light upon a phase of the war to which little attention has been paid so far.

We had a most efficient weapon in our fight for independence and against the Hapsburg monarchy in detailed and exact reports concerning the internal situation at the Court of Vienna, about the ministers, about the sentiments of various persons of importance, about various currents of opinion in the highest places, about frequent personal changes, about the peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of leading men—in short we had reliable information about everything relating to the seats of the mighty. Our reports were frequent and timely, so that events mystifying to others were plain to us; and we were thus enabled to plan ahead and to keep our workers abroad well informed.

The reports we got came to us through various channels. They were so plentiful that we could check them against each other and thus get a very reliable and comprehensive view of the situation. As a matter of fact we were not once misled. Machar in his skizzes refers to one way we had of getting information; the Pilsen “Česká Demokracie” also mentioned something of our secret work. But all that is far from complete. We were favored by the fact that there were Czechs everywhere, and even among the servants of the Hapsburgs were men who would not deny their Czech descent. The German pressure was so severe and coarse that it excited opposition even in persons whose national consciousness had long ago been overlaid by a heavy lacquer of court traditions and life. Insignificant servants whose very existence was ignored by the proud noblemen rendered immense services to us, often without realizing it. And toward the end, when hunger was general, even Germans brought in items of interest, selling their stories for a loaf of bread or a small bag of flour; some of their news were of great importance.

All of these former court attendants are still living, most of them eating the bread of the new Austrian government. So I will not name them; for that matter they would not want me to. They did not render their services for the sake of glory, generally did not even know what use we made of the news they brought us and in which they seldom saw anything of value.

Part of this work was attended to by me. I made frequent trips to Vienna, and through a friend whose near relative was attached to the court in attendance on Emperor Charles, I received frequent reports of what was going on in Vienna. We put these reports together and constructed out of them a general view of the situation. In 1915 and 1916 the reports were rather scarce, but gradually we introduced system into our operations and our information was very extensive. We were even getting reports on Charles Hapsburg after the revolution.

In Prague Dr. Šámal and I managed things so that we had a say about official reports sent from Prague to Vienna. I was constantly in very close touch with Bienert, then chief of political police, now commissioner of police of Prague. He was a patriotic Czech and himself offered us his services, regardless of the doubtful outocme of