The greatest mistake the Czechs made was when in 1866, after the battle of Sadova, they thought that Austria would cease to be the bulwark of Pan-Germanism and would do justice to her subject Slavs, and thus become a protection against Germany. It is true that Austria did cease to be the head of the Pan-German Confederation, but instead of becoming a bulwark against Prussia, she became her faithful ally and obedient tool. The Czechs, who feared lest they should be annexed by Prussia, failed to grasp the subtle plans of Bismarck who in a short time succeeded in converting Austria into Germany's bridge to the East. When the victorious Prussians entered Prague in 1866, they issued a proclamation to the Czechs recognising their right to independence. This proclamation was probably drafted by the Czech exile J.V. Fric, an ardent democrat who fled abroad after the abortive revolution of 1848. Fric, who was a man of keen sense for political reality and a great friend of the Poles, exerted all his influence with the Czech leaders to proclaim Bohemia independent, without an armed revolt, simply by means of a plebiscite, as he was aware that the masses were always thoroughly anti-Austrian and desired nothing more than independence. He proposed to his fellow-countrymen to establish a monarchy, with some other dynasty than the Habsburgs on the throne, preferably the youngest son of the Italian king, Victor Emmanuel. Even while peace negotiations between Prussia and Austria were going on, he conducted an active propaganda and distributed a proclamation all over Bohemia in which he declared himself as "the deadly enemy of the Habsburg dynasty and of Austrian militarism and bureaucracy": "The Hungarians are preparing, the Yugoslavs are ready. Let us come to a common agreement with them and we shall succeed. And when all the Austrian nations have been freed they may form a great federation on the basis of international law which will be an example to Europe. _A federation without the freedom and independence of the nations who form part of it is an empty dream. Let him who desires a federation work for the independence of his nation first_. It is not a question of a revolution, it is a question of a public proclamation of the Czech nation so that Europe may realise that we live and what we want. Europe will surely lend us a helping hand, but she expects us to ask for it. Let us therefore, my brother Czecho-Slovaks, proclaim aloud, so that the whole world may hear us: '_We do not want Austria because we realise that she not only does no good to us, but directly threatens our very existence. We are able to and want to maintain an independent state existence without Austria_." Unfortunately, however, the Czech leaders at that time did not follow Fric's advice and, as we have already pointed out, they fell into Bismarck's trap.