Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/20



MILAN, March 27.

The story of Captain “S.“ proves the terrible ordeal trough which Czech officers had to go before they were able to fling off their Austrian uniform, and it was long time yet before he got to Siberia. His days of “fighting“ continued for another five months, almost without interruption. Again and again his Ruthenian company was wiped out, and again it was replaced by others. He continued his narrative:

We had been on the River San, near Mielez, from Oct. 11 to Oct. 18. Then we got orders to fall back to reserve positions. We had not been able to dislodge the two Russian companies. Our whole division had failed in the task. It was the 24th Division and the 14th Army Corps came to replace it! We left our positions during the night, expecting to get to comfortable quarters somewhere before morning. We needed a rest. Instead of a rest we got orders at 4 a. m. to march for another part of the front. It was somewhere near Grembov. Our rest was to consist of six days’ marching. We walked through Grembov after six days, on the Russo-Galician frontier. We crossed the bridge of the Visla at Sandomierz, on Oct. 26. The Russians had again fallen back. The Germans were pressing them hard, and were threatening an advance on Warsaw and Ivangorod. The Austrian armies had orders to support their offensive by a strong attack on the right.

It meant for me a continuation of five months more “fighting“ before I got my “chance“. They were five terrible winter months. Most of the “fighting“ was in the Carpathians. I was often waist-deep in snow. From Sandomiers the landscape was one of utter desolation. The war fiend had passed over it hither and thither for three months. Some German regiments had passed there before and razed every village to the ground. I saw the first two villages, Ozarov and Tarlov, in smouldering