The idea of its national unity has never suffered extinction, although all
the intellectual forces of its enemy were directed against its unification,
its liberty and its national existence. Divided between several States,
our nation is in Austria-Hungary alone split up into eleven provincial
administrations, coming under thirteen legislative bodies. The feeling of
national unity, together with the spirit of liberty and independence, have
supported it in the never-ending struggles of centuries against the Turks
in the East and against the Germans and the Magyars in the West.
Being numerically inferior to its enemies in the East and West, it was
impossible for it to safeguard its unity as a nation and a State, its
liberty and its independence against the brutal maxim of "might goes before
right" militating against it both East and West.
But the moment has come when our people is no longer isolated. The war
imposed by German militarism upon Russia, upon France and upon England for
the defense of their honor as well as for the liberty and independence of
small nations, has developed into a struggle for the Liberty of the World
and the Triumph of Right over Might. All nations which love liberty and
independence have allied themselves together for their common defense, to
save civilization and liberty at the cost of every sacrifice, to establish
a new international order based upon justice and upon the right of every
nation to dispose of itself and so organize its independent life; finally
to establish a durable peace consecrated to the progress and development
of humanity and to secure the world against a catastrophe similar to that
which the conquering lust of German Imperialism has provoked.
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