Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/43

 dissented only on technical principles, but when they learned that Petrograd had approved our association all came back to us.

An active propaganda was already afoot for our men to join the regiments that it was proposed to form at Kieff. In June, 1916, 700 of our men and thirty of our officers who had volunteered left for Kieff, either to join the “Družinas“ or to be incorporated in the regiments that were ultimately to form our first division. We gave them a great sendoff, and many others would have volunteered, but an order came that no more “Družinas“ were to be formed. I had also asked to go, but the camp took a refenderum, and begged me to stay, as they wanted me to remain president of their association.

We were in touch with our compatriots at Tjumen, Ishim, Gurgan, Omsk, Irkutsk, and numerous other camps, and we were astounded ourselves at the number of Czecho-Slovaks who had succeeded in escaping from Austrian service by surrendering wholesale at the front. The famous offensive of Brussiloff, in 1916, vastly increased our numbers, and we had reason to think that we had long exceeded the figure of 100,000 and might be near 200,000. This fired our imagination and stirred up all our patriotic feelings. We argued that if Russia would only permit us, there would now be a unique chance of forming a grea Czecho-Slovak army which would help to deal a decisive blow against Austria and win our independence. We worked with great zeal and enthusiasm for this end.

The hesitating policy of the Russian Government perplexed us. We tried everything to urge our cause. But our requests to be accepted for the formation of volunteer corps were nearly always refused. We were told that Russia needed workmen more than soldiers, and that employment in the munition factories was always open to us. We Czechs were, more over, esteemed as good workmen, better than the Russians. This induced me at the beginning of 1917 to ask to be sent to a munition works. I might learn any part of the work, become a foreman, or director of a works, in fact, anything where I might be more useful than staying where I was, I was accepted at once for the works of Rostock, on the Sea of Azoff.

I left Tashkent in February, 1917, and travelled in civilian clothes, being entirely released as a war prisoner. I crossed the Caspian Sea from Kranovotsko on a comfortable steamer to Baku, and travelled by train over the Caucasus with eleven other Czecho-Slovak officers. I got lo Rostock with my companions on March 20, a day before it was known the revolution had broken out in Petrograd. I just came in time to witness memorable scenes in the factories and in the town, and I never learned much about munition works or factories, bul saw a good deal of speech-making, idling, feasting, and eventually “fasting“.