In the declaration of Czechoslovak independence which the Czech National Committee of Prague issued on 28 October 1918, the names of Thomas G. Masaryk (1850–1937) and Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) were linked together as Czechoslovakia's "liberators".¹ In the opening statement to the Slovak National Council in Turčianský Svätý Martin on 30 October 1918, its chairman Matúš Dula (1846–1926) confidently placed the fate of the Slovak people into the hands of the arbiter mundi — President Wilson.²