Postcard celebrating the independence of Czechoslovakia from Austria-Hungary, proclaimed in its capital Prague on October 28, 1918. The lion, a symbol of Bohemia dating to the 12th or 13th century, became part of the coat of arms of, and a symbol for, Czechoslovakia. The lion holds in its mouth remnants of a Habsburg banner, while looking at part of the Prague skyline.
Ať ŽijeČeskoslovenska Republika!28. Rijna 1918Long liveThe Republic of Czechoslovakia!October 28, 1918
"In Paris, the Czechoslovak National Council, which had by now organized a provisional government headed by Masaryk, published on October 21, the declaration of independence composed in Washington by the Professor with the assistance of American friends. 'Our nation,' it was explained, 'elected the Hapsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its own free will, and by the same right deposes them.' . . .. . . the Arbeiter Zeitung . . . finished by lashing out violently against Czech and Hungarian authorities for imposing an embargo on food shipments. On October 21, Austro-german politicians of all parties set up a provisional national assembly, which proclaimed a new Austrian state to embrace the German language areas of the former empire—the predominantly German-speaking districts of Bohemia among them."
Number 10 of President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points called for 'Assuring the freest opportunity of autonomous development to the peoples of Austria-Hungary.' (Quoted in King's Complete History of the World War, page 371.) The peoples of the Empire were breaking it apart. The Arbeiter Zeitung article referenced was from October 20 and was one of many pieces from a 'Vienna press [that] teemed with stories of impending starvation, unless provisions from outside were somehow obtained,' (May, p. 793). Expected and desperately needed food supplies from defeated Romania and newly-independent Ukraine had not materialized, and Hungary had withheld food from Austria for months.
The Passing of the Hapsburg Monarchy, 1914-1918 2 Volumes by Arthur James May, pp. 774 and 793–794, copyright © 1966 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, publication date: 1966
1918-10-21, 1918, October, Prague, Czechoslovakia, Austria
