Sudeten Germans - in The Wake of The First World War

In The Wake of The First World War

The end of World War I, in 1918, brought about the breakup of the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire into its historical components, one of them being Bohemian kingdom, forming the western part of newly created Czechoslovakia. Czech politicians insisted on the traditional boundaries of the Bohemian Crown, according to Uti possidetis juris. This meant that the new Czech state would have defensible mountain boundaries with Germany, but also that the highly industrialized settlement areas of three million ethnic Germans would be separated from Austria and come under Czech control.

The late-war Austrian minister president, Ernst Seidler von Feuchtenegg, wanted to divide Bohemia by setting up administrative counties (Verwaltungskreisen) based on the nationality of the population. On 26 September 1918, his successor, minister president Max Hussarek von Heinlein, offered the Czechs wide-ranging autonomy within Imperial and Royal Austria. This came too late, however, because exiled Czechs had already achieved the status of an ally in the United States during the First World War and as a result of the Triple Entente, and the imperial and royal government in Vienna was no longer considered a serious power by the victors of the war.