History of Czechoslovakia
With the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed as a result of the critical intervention of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, among others.
Czechoslovak Legions in Vladivostok (1918)
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia.
From left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured before signing the Munich Agreement in September 1938, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany.
Sudeten Germans in Saaz (Žatec) greet the Wehrmacht with Nazi salutes.
Milan Rastislav Štefánik was a Slovak politician, diplomat, aviator and astronomer. During World War I, he served at the same time as a general in the French Army and as Minister of War for Czechoslovakia. As one of the leading members of the Czechoslovak National Council, he contributed decisively to the cause of Czechoslovak sovereignty, since the status of Czech- and Slovak-populated territories was one of those in question until shortly before the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1918.
Milan Rastislav Štefánik
Štefánik's statue on Prague's Petřín
Identical statue atop war memorial in Paulhan, France
Statue in Bratislava
