ABSTRACT
In the spring months of 1916 Masaryk was in London, laying the groundwork for British recognition of Czech and Slovak aims. Meanwhile the thousands of Czech and Slovak prisoners from the Austro-Hungarian army in Italy, concentrated mostly in a camp near Naples, began their own agitation for active association with the Paris Council. The Czecho-Slovaks have constituted a considerable army, fighting on three different battlefields and attempting, in Russia and Siberia, to arrest the Germanic invasion. The Czech and Slovak colonies in America were widely dispersed, and as a consequence many shades of opinion concerning the government to be established were freely voiced. News of the diplomatic and military successes of the Czechoslovak Council in Paris and its armies in Russia, France and, later, Italy, had been widely disseminated among the people throughout the latter half of 1917. A separate or premature peace would nullify all the work done, and blast all their hopes for Czechoslovak independence.
