Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/50

 bond of all. Instinct, therefore, drove those who might have hesitated to seek enlistment. Luckily, the difficulties were no longer so great as a year before.

Our leaders had during the first days of the revolution urged upon the Revolutionary Government the need of forming our army. During the first two months Government hesitated, and seemed even more opposed to it than had been the Empire. But on the one hand, our great leader, M. Masaryk, came to Russia soon after the revolution, and on the other towards the end of May, Kerensky, seeing the Russian army fall to pieces, gladly authorised the formation of a Czecho-Slovak army, which would compensate some of the losses. He not only authorised, but with a sudden ardour encouraged the formation afof [sic] our first division. M. Masaryk and our other patriotic leaders got energetically to work, and in a short time formed a brigade out of two regiments with the elements near Kieff, and by the month of June the first division was already formed.

I left Rostov on June 30, 1917. with 250 men, the last that had been left. As we departed from Rostov it was like leaving a town on fire. But other towns were the same. All were ablaze with revolutionary doings, factions fighting against factions, and nobody doing anything useful. It was a sad departure, and sadder for us after two years and more of exile, ex-prisoners, away from our country, and not knowing what would be the final outcome of it all, Would Bohemia independent after all? We kept up our hope, but Russia had disappointed us badly. It was now for us to fight either by ourselves all alone, or i some way join other Allied armies. It was for our leaders to decideno dot [sic]

I proceeded to Borispol, not far from Kieff. At Borispol there were large camps where our first regiments, and our first division had been formed. The men for the second division, which I was to join, were already coming in. I left my men at Borispol, and went to Kieff to report. At Kieff I met M. Masaryk, and had the pleasure of hearing from his own lips what was to be our future destination. His plans were very simple. All the Czecho-Slovaks in Russia and Siberia were to be collected into a national army. Now that authorisation had come no time was to be lost to take advantage of it. Many officers thought that as the Russian front was breaking up, the only alternative was to be sent to France to fight with the other Allied armies. M. Masaryk did not yet take that view. He argued, on the contrary, that it was just then, when her own army was in a most critical position, that Russia needed us. He issued a proclamation, the main features of which I well remember. It was sent to all the Czecho-Slovaks in Russia and Siberia.