Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/39

 in each family. Next we organised theatrical recitals, at which we made collections for the prisoners or some other public work.

We had thus settled down to a quiet routine life, waiting for the war to end, or for us to get a chance to join the Czecho-Slovak regiment or division, if ever it came to be formed, when we got a great shock. Our old colonel, with his German “frau,“ was removed, and another appointed. We expected to be under a better man, but the new one, Colonel Karpoff, was, if possible, worse than his predecessor. He ignored the order for our liberation, and placed us once more under restraint. Luckily his tyranny did not last long. After one month the crder came again that we should be free, and soon afterwards we were transferred from Ishim to Tjumen. Our stay at Ishim, though, was not in vain, for it became one of the centres which we afterwards had to deliver from the Bolsheviks and the German bands, and the people who knew us there received us on our return with jubilation. When our officers and men returned it was not with violins, bass fiddles, or harmoniums, but with rifles, machine-guns, and a train of artillery that sent the local Soviet scooting out of the town! We came not as humble captives and prisoners, but as liberators and conquerors.

Tjumen is a very important town on the Siberian fine. Our order to go there came in May, 1916. Here things for the first time assumed a brighter aspect for our national and patriotic aspirations. Tjumen was in command of a fine Russian patriot, Colonel Dimitrieff, the first good Russian we had met in command of a town. He received us with a warm, friendly smile, and told us at once, “I receive you as free men, not as prisoners of war, and I give you the liberty you so well deserve.“

He had heard of the Czecho-Slovaks. He spoke with enthusiasm of our regiments who had surrendered rather than continue to serve Austria, and said he would help and encourage us in the formation of our national army under the auspices of the Russian Government. These were the first encouraging words we had heard from a high officer since we had left the front. He authorised us to put off our uniform and to got about in civilian dress. He went further, and gave their freedom to our soldiers. They were allowed to look for work in the town, and soon found it. The colonel showed his confidence in us by appointing four of our officers as censors of all the mail that came to Siberia. Our “colony“ here soon increased. From being fifty officers at first, we soon were 200. The soldiers numbered about 2,000 and officers and men became popular with the inhabitants. Tjumen later also succumbed for a little while to the Bolshevik terror, but as at Ishim our men returned, and were welcomed as heroes and deliverers.