The chief reason for the failure of their efforts was the fact that they sometimes had illusions that the Habsburgs might favour the plan of such an anti-German federation, although the Habsburgs always mainly relied on the Germans and Magyars and could not and would not satisfy the Czech aspirations. The Czechs were greatly handicapped in their political struggle, because they had only just begun to live as a nation and had to face the powerful German-Magyar predominance, with the dynasty and the whole state machinery behind them. Moreover, the Czechs had no national aristocracy like the Poles or Magyars, and their leaders lacked all political experience and all sense of reality in politics which was so marked in a state built on deceit and hypocrisy. They continually defended themselves with declarations about the justice of their claims, satisfied themselves with empty promises which Austria has never kept, and cherished vain illusions of obtaining justice in Austria, while Austria was _via facti_ steadily depriving them of all their rights. On the other hand, it should be remembered that they were faced with a government that had the whole powerful German Empire behind it, and that they had to struggle for freedom in a state where genuine constitutional government and democracy were unknown. The Czech efforts to obtain some measure of freedom by struggling for democratic reforms were consistently opposed by the dominant Germans. To-day, of course, the situation has greatly improved as compared with the situation seventy years ago. The Czecho-Slovak nation, through its own work and energy, is a highly advanced and economically self-supporting and rich nation, and in its struggle for a just resettlement of Central Europe it has the support not only of all the other non-German nations of Central Europe, but also of the Entente on whose victory it has staked its all. The Czecho-Slovaks are resolved not to let themselves be fooled by Austria any longer and claim full independence from Berlin, Vienna and Budapest, which alone will safeguard them against the possibility of being again exploited militarily, economically and politically against their own interests for a cause which they detest. 1. Although as early as 1812 the Bohemian Diet (then a close aristocratic body) demanded the restitution of the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia, the political activity of the Czechs did not really begin until 1848 when, on April 8, the emperor issued the famous Bohemian Charter recognising the rights of Bohemia to independence. It was that year which marked the end of Metternich's absolutism and in which revolution broke out in Western and Central Europe, including Hungary and Bohemia. Already at that time the Czechs counted on the break-up of Austria. Havlicek, who in 1846 began to publish the first national Czech newspaper, wrote on May 7, 1848, when inviting the Poles to attend the Pan-Slav Congress in Prague: