Edvard Beneš, Tomáš Masaryk, and General Milan Stefánik
Czechoslovakia became an independent state for the first time in 1918, following closure of the First World War.
The land and people had previously been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but during the war many Czechs and Slovaks had little interest in fighting for their Austrian and Hungarian masters. A large number of them defected to the Czech and Slovak legions and fought against the Germans and Austrians instead.
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Edvard Beneš and the Slovak Milan Štefánik also argued the case for independence.
Eventually the Czechs and Slovaks agreed to form a single federal state of two equal republics, and on the 28th October 1918 as the First World War drew to a close, the Czechslovak republic was delcared with Allied support. Prague became its capital, and the popular Tomáš Masaryk became its first president. He was subsequently re-elected three times, in 1920, 1927 and 1934.
The US President, Woodrow Wilson had kept the US officially neutral in the First World War, but eventually he took the country into the war on the side of the British, French and Russians in 1917. Then retreated from European involvement.
In the aftermarth of the First World War, the Allied leaders were determined to prevent destruction on such a massive scale from ever happening again in Europe. They forced Germany to sign a peace treaty at Versailles which made it give land back to other countries, cut its armed forces and promise not to increase them ever again.
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