Masaryk becomes president

On Thursday 14 November 1918, at 11.40 a.m., in the chamber of the former Bohemian Diet in the Thun Palace in the Lesser Town of Prague, Karel Kramář opened the first session of the Revolutionary National Assembly. In less than two and a half hours the parliament of the new state broke with the Habsburgs, proclaimed Czechoslovakia a republic, elected its first president and appointed its first government. Tomáš Masaryk, who was chosen as head of state, was still in the United States at the time.

The Assembly grew out of the Prague National Committee, which had taken power in the country on 28 October. It was enlarged according to the so-called Švehla key, that is in proportion to the results of the Czech parties in the 1911 elections to the Imperial Council, and representatives of the Slovaks were co-opted. The Assembly initially had 256 members. There were neither Germans nor Hungarians among them, although they made up a large part of the new state’s population. Its legal basis was a provisional constitution adopted by the Committee the day before.

Kramář, the chairman of the Committee, in a long speech thanked the soldiers of the legions, Masaryk, the foreign minister Edvard Beneš and the minister of war Milan Rastislav Štefánik, as well as France, Great Britain, the United States and President Wilson. He assured the Germans within the state’s borders that they had no reason to fear for their national development, but added: “Our state will, of course, be a Czech state.” He then turned to the most important matter. As the stenographers recorded, he said: “All the bonds that tied us to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty are severed. An end to the agreements of 1526 and to the Pragmatic Sanction. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty has forfeited all rights to the Bohemian throne. And we, free and unfettered, declare that our Czechoslovak state is a free Czechoslovak republic.” Those present received these words standing and with applause. Kramář then proposed that Masaryk be elected the first president and, amid cries of “Sláva!”, declared him unanimously elected. The same Charles who three days earlier had withdrawn from government in Vienna ceased to be King of Bohemia without any involvement of his own.

The Assembly then elected its chairman. The Social Democrat František Tomášek received 220 ballots, with one left blank. A government consisting of the prime minister and sixteen members was also appointed by acclamation. It was headed by Kramář. Its members included Beneš and Štefánik, both still abroad, the Agrarian Antonín Švehla, the National Democrat Alois Rašín and the Slovak Vavro Šrobár. It was a coalition government of all the Czech parties. The ministers one by one made their pledge before the chairman, and at 1.50 p.m. the session was closed.

The news of his election reached Masaryk in America, where he had arrived in the spring of 1918 from Russia via Siberia and Japan. He set out on the return journey already as president, via England, France and Italy. On 21 December 1918 Prague gave him a ceremonial welcome. Meanwhile the republic’s borders were still disputed: the German provinces in Bohemia and Moravia wanted to belong to German Austria, and in most of Slovakia the Hungarians still held power.