ABSTRACT
The early successes of Russian arms in Galicia and the Carpathians heightened the hopes of the Czechs and Slovaks in the autumn of 1914. In the meantime Czechs and Slovaks residing in Russia, France, Switzerland, Italy, England and America were showing both by word and action where their sympathies lay. A considerable number of the Czechs and Slovaks in Russia had become subjects of the Czar, and those who had not were strongly pro-Russian in the conflict. The whole Russophile section of the Czech population was completely discredited, and those who thought in terms of Pan-Slavism no longer had any grounds for argument. The situation among the American Czechs and Slovaks was, at the beginning of the war, somewhat parallel to that in Russia, in that there was some difference of opinion between conservative and radical elements within the various colonies. The establishment of a central Czechoslovak military authority was a very delicate and involved matter.
