U.S. Recognition of Czechoslovaskian Independence, .

The tenth of President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points called for free opportunity for the “autonomous development” of the peoples of Austria-Hungary.

On September 3, 1918, Secretary of State Robert Lansing announced that the United States recognized the Czecho-Slovak National Council, which was resident in Paris, as a de facto government at war with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires and that it was prepared to enter into formal relations with it. The Czecho-Slovak National Council organized a Provisional Government on October 14 and declared its independence from Austria-Hungary on October 18, 1918.