Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/33

 abused us. He often said to us: „What are you Czechs but simple deserters? You know that if you get back to Austria you would be shot as traitors. You ought to be glad to be kept here!“ Another day he said to me: I am a better Austrian than you are!“ I did not deny it.

After we had been about three months at Kurgan an incident occured which excited our bitterest animosity against the colonel. The authorities at Petrograd, who had heard of the conduct of the 28th Regiment of Prague, and wished to show us special favour, decided that all the officers of the regiment should be released on parole and given their freedom. A telegram containing this decision was sent to our colonel. He deliberately withheld it from us, and instead of it showed it to the senior Austrian captain, who always wanted to assume authority over us. The Austrian captain came to me in a fury and said that we Czechs continued to be traitors, and had no right to accept the favours of the Russian Government. I told him to mind his own business, that we Czechs had a right to accept our freedom if it was offered us, without any comments from him. I informed the other Czech officers that we had been given our freedom by orders from Petrograd, and that the colonel refused to transmit the order to us. Their indignation was immense. It was the severest blow we had yet received.

Officers like this colonel—and we found others of a still worse type-ruined the Russian army and ruined the Russian people. Our colonel carried his duplicity still farther. When good news for the Russians came from the front he deliberately suppressed the bulletin and concealed the news from us. When bad news came with the story of any Russian reverses, he immediately communicated it to the Austrian officers, who went bragging about it and insulting us. The colonel favoured the Austrians all he could. There were four Austrian doctors from Vienna whom he allowed freely to go about and establish a large practice in the town. A Ruthenian priest also was a great Austrophile, and joined the Austrians in cabals against us.

We simply ignored them. We refused to speak with them or have any relations with them. With four Bosnian Serbs who were our friends we formed a club of thirty Czecho-Slovak officers. We corresponded with Petrograd, and we obtained real news of the progres of the war. After a while an order came to distribute the Czecho-Slovak soldiers, among the peasants to give them an opportunity to work, and with every detachment of soldiers an officer was sent. In this way we were for a while scattered in all directions. I was sent with a detachment of about 100 Czechs to Morsichinskoie Selo, a village about 120 kilometres from Kurgan. 3