The segment of Československý zvukový týdeník Aktualita (Czechoslovak Aktualita Sound Newsreel), 1938, issue no. 34 captures a speech given by Eddy Sherwood, an American journalist, Protestant missionary and YMCA official, in which he talks about the brave stance adopted by the Czechoslovak nation in the critical days of 1938.
The segment captures the funeral of YMCA Secretary James B. McCreary, who died in a tragic accident on 7 July 1919 while recording an attempt to fly under the Railway Bridge in Prague. During the attempt, the plane went off course and crashed into the boat from which McCreary was filming the event. The funeral procession of American soldiers and Czechoslovak legionnaires emerges from the building of the military hospital on Charles Square (a former Jesuit residence hall) and continues along Ječná Street. A view of the coffin draped in an American flag and a crowd of mourners in the streets of Prague´s New Town.
Footage from a manifestation in Uzhhorod in November 1919. Events following the General Statue that declared Subcarpathian Ruthenia as an autonomous part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Footage from a manifestation, from a ceremonial gathering on a square. Footage of soldiers and public speakers. A view of a bell covered with an American flag. Soldiers at the border. A military cemetery in winter. Ruthenians in fur coats and traditional clothes. People leaving a church. A group of people at a railway station.
Unedited film footage captures events taking place in the streets of Prague in October 1918 during the first weeks of Czechoslovakia´s independence. A public manifestation takes place in front of the building of the Czech Escompt Bank (Böhmische Escompte-Bank). A demonstration of Czech soldiers, dressed in the uniforms of the Austro-Hungarian army, is held on Old Town Square. Prime Minister Karel Kramář gets out of an arriving car. The gathering is attended by politicians Václav Klofáč and František Udržal. Gustav Habrman and Josef Scheiner speak by the Jan Hus Memorial. A shot of Karel Kramář, Gustav Habrman and Václav Klofáč in a train window at the Main Railway Station after their return from negotiations in Geneva on 4 November 1918. Czechoslovak soldiers in Austro-Hungarian uniforms march in a parade through Wenceslaus Square, which is decorated with Czech flags and the flags of the victorious states. A shot of a railway carriage with patriotic signs. A postcard with anti-Austrian caricatures. People in the parade carry the remnants of the Austrian coat of arms. Footage of the arrival of President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in Prague on 21 December. The train pulls into the Main Railway Station. President Masaryk, accompanied by František Tomášek, departs in an open car and then transfers to a carriage on Old Town Square.
Unedited film footage from the first days of the Czechoslovak Republic shot in Prague in autumn 1918. Images from a demonstration in front of the Czech National Bank. Footage from the military oath ceremony of the newly established army held on Old Town Square on 8 November. Soldiers are lined up wearing Austro-Hungarian army uniforms. The oath ceremony is attended by politicians Karel Kramář, František Staněk and Václav Klofáč. Shots of Karel Kramář, Gustav Habrman, Václav Klofáč and František Staněk in a window of the train on which they returned to their country from the Geneva negotiations on 4 November. A view of Star Summer Palace (Schloss Stern), where a public gathering took place on 8 November, the anniversary of the Battle of White Mountain. The covering of the statue of Marshal Radecký on Lesser Town Square. Removal of the Austrian Eagle from the façade of the Hybernia House. The tearing down of symbols of the Austrian monarchy. The despatching a military train carrying soldiers who are to take action against separatist attempts in the border regions of the country. Karel Kramář in a Praga car driving through the streets of Prague. A shot of Karel Kramář in front of the Main Railway Station.