Cleveland Agreement

The Cleveland Agreement — the first agreement on cooperation between American Slovaks and Czechs signed during the First World War on 22 and 23 October 1915 by members of the Slovak League in America (Slovenská liga v Amerike) and the Czech National Association (České národné združenie) in Cleveland (USA), it contained the aims of their struggle for self-determination. Giving details about the internal structure of the state in which Czechs and Slovaks would live, the text of the agreement was proposed by the Czech National Association, its main aim being independence for the Czechlands and Slovakia. According to the agreement, the future state would be a federation with full autonomy for both nations, each having their own assembly and political, financial and cultural administration, with Slovak being the official language in Slovakia and the new state democratic in character. During the war, the agreement provided political justification for the Czech foreign resistance movement to frame the struggle of Czechs and Slovaks as a fight against Austro-Hungarian rule and for the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. In May 1918, the Cleveland Agreement was replaced by the Pittsburgh Agreement.