Exiting the Great War through the Rule of Law. Czechoslovakia, Its Minorities and Their Protection in the League of Nations

The study applies the French term "sortie de guerre" (exiting the war) to the issues at the end of the Great War in the Habsburg monarchy, Central-Eastern Europe and in Slovakia, which was part of this area. It pays special attention to the issues of the minorities and the search for the possible ways in which they could be protected by international law and the treaties signed after the end of World War I. Exiting the war for Slovaks cannot be considered from a narrow local perspective. It is linked to the decision-making process regarding the exiting the war at the level of the monarch and council of ministers, which is briefly considered in the first section of the study. The second section demonstrates the impact of these decisions on Slovakia. On the basis of the published documents it depicts the situation in the Slovak countryside before the ceasefire was signed on the Italian and Western fronts and the brutalisation of society resulting from the wartime suffering. It points out the danger of its unilateral identification with antisemitism. The issue of the inclusion of Bratislava in the Czechoslovak Republic points to the importance of both social matters as well as military and diplomatic solutions reflected at the local level by the city's inhabitants. The ethnically conciliatory policy of the governor, Samuel Zoch, offered hope for the future. The third section, analyses in detail the reaction of the powers' representatives at the peace conference to the post-war situation in Central-Eastern Europe and the solution of the issue of minorities, on the basis of documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic and the League of Nations in Geneva. The conclusion responds to some French studies concerning the "sortie de la Grande Guerre" and their view of the treaties after the Great War. At the same time, it summarises the author's knowledge gained from the work on this study.