Essays On Human Rights - 2

International Aspects of

The Sudeten German

Question: 1918-1928

by

Sophie A. Welisch, PhD

A historic overview of the creation of
Czechoslovakia, which forcefully included the
Sudetenland

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German-American World Historical Society, Inc.
and their Board of Directors
Thanks Mrs. Hermine Hausner
for permitting us to publish their works
on the Expulsions in Our Website
www.gawhs.org

                          Chapter I

THE BOHEMIAN CROWN LANDS IN TRANSITION:
FROM THE ARMISTICE TO THE OPENING OF THE
                         PEACE CONFERENCE

The romantic movement in the early nineteenth century evoked among the
Czechs---as among other European nationalities---an idealized picture of
their past and furthered the development of a philological revival as a means
of preserving national solidarity.  As a small Slavic outpost in the
German--dominated Habsburg Empire they felt themselves threatened by
the Germans who, after the Czech defeat at the Battle of White Mountain
(1620), made steady political and economic gains in the provinces of
Bohemia and Moravia.  The realization that their national language faced
extinction strengthened the tenacious struggle of the Czechs to achieve such
autonomous political status as the Austrian government had granted the
Hungarians by the Compromise of 1867.  Since the Hungarians had gained
their national freedom by associating  it with historic rights, the Czechs tried
to follow their example by claiming historic rights in Bohemia.