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.93 Hehad realized that Western leaders and electorates knew little and cared lessabout the Czechs.Masaryk would have to work and organize publicly, andexplain the need for an independent Czech state.He could not do it alone.94In August 1915, Benea escaped from Prague to Paris.He, Masaryk, and SlovakMilan Rastislav `tefánik created the Czech Committee Abroad, which inFebruary 1916 became the Czechoslovak National Council, essentially agovernment in exile and propaganda apparatus.Masaryk spent the war inLondon, the United States, and Russia; Benea remained in Paris, where hebegan making connections to Parisian intellectual and political life.TheFrench minister of war was Benea s former professor, Eisenmann; Benea soondeveloped a reputation as a respected source of information about Austria-Hungary, drawing on Czechs in Switzerland and the Viennese and Budapestnewspapers provided him by the ministry itself.Benea also presented theCzech case before the committee for foreign affairs in the French Senate.Hewrote for and arranged propaganda campaigns in French publications; hesocialized with French journalists, particularly editor Gauvain of the Journal Myth and Wartime 41des Débats; and he lectured on Czechoslovakia and the other oppressednations of Austria-Hungary at the Sorbonne.95 Masaryk came often to Parisand met with prominent politicians and journalists in an effort to counteractthe strong Austrophile and Hungarophile tendencies he believed prevalentin France.96 He also spent time in Geneva and Amsterdam, where he tried topersuade prominent politicians that a free and independent Central Europecould help contain future German aggression.Liberating the Habsburgnations, he argued, would be another way to satisfy the Entente s stated waraim of defending democracy and freedom.97Masaryk did the same in London, where his tireless activity establishedhim as the face of the Czech resistance abroad.Since May 1915, when hehad delivered to George Clerk in the British Foreign Office a memorandumon an independent Bohemia s place in a new Europe, he had developedties to pro-Slavic British diplomats.98 Seton-Watson and Wickham Steedhelped secure him a professorship at King s College, London; he also lecturedat Cambridge, Oxford, and in London clubs.99 He wrote for the SundayTimes, The Nation, Spectator, The Weekly Dispatch, Everyman, and Seton-Watson s The New Europe.He visited academics, journalists, and consularofficials in Edinburgh and London, and attended Saturday salons at thehome of Wickham Steed, by then political editor of the Times and fastally of the Czechoslovak cause.100 He also established a Czech Press Bureauon Piccadilly Circus, with the help of émigré Czechs in London.Theslogan Kingdom of Bohemia was displayed prominently in the windowsalong with war maps and maps of Berlin s plan to dominate Centraland southeastern Europe on its way to Baghdad.The office sold Czechneedlework, La Nation Tchèque and The New Europe, and many otherpropaganda pamphlets.101 Wickham Steed helped them coordinate theirpress office s efforts with Crewe House, the British propaganda organizationled by Lord Northcliffe.102 The Czech resistance effort abroad would createsimilar organizations in Rome, Geneva, Kiev (after the Russian Revolu-tion), and the United States during 1917.103 The exiles also succeeded insponsoring commemorations of Jan Hus s martyrdom in most of England schurches.104Masaryk and Benea did not act alone.Particularly in France, they reliedon the dashing Slovak émigré `tefánik, an astronomer, meteorologist, andofficer in the French air force.105 `tefánik, with his personal charm andimpressive connections throughout government and society s highest circles,would be the third of Czechoslovakia s Founding Fathers.More politicallyconservative than Masaryk and Benea, `tefánik nonetheless shared theirvision for postwar Europe.106 Other, less helpful collaborators did not,such as Agrarian Josef Dürich, sent abroad by Karel KramáY to ensurethat Masaryk s pro-Western viewpoint did not dominate the discussion of 42 Battle for the Castlean independent postwar Bohemia, which KramáY envisioned as part of aRussian-ruled great Slav Empire. Dürich negotiated separately with theFrench and the Russians through 1916, then faded into insignificance oncethe tsarist government fell.Dürich irritated Masaryk, who wrote snidely inhis memoirs that the ambitions of the sundry bibulous aspirants to thefuture Russian Satrapy of Bohemia gave a little trouble. 107Masaryk and Benea coordinated their activities closely through incessantcorrespondence.Their tone was relatively formal, always using the formalvy rather than the more intimate ty.Benea addressed Masaryk as DearProfessor and Valued Friend, while Masaryk initially used the same standardaddress ( Valued Friend or Dear Friend [Milý pYíteli]), soon abbreviatingit to DF (MpY). But the content was forthright and intimate.The twomoved from language to language, communicating in Czech, English, andFrench
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