Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/52



MILAN, March 27.

It was during the first months of the Russian revolution and under Kerensky’s Government that the first two Czecho-Slovak divisions were finally formed, fought their first battle, and ultimately developed into the Czecho-Slovak legions. The revolutionary government, as already stated, and Kerensky were in the beginning as much opposed to the forming of a Czecho-Slovak army as had been the Tsarist Government. It was only when the Russian army began to break up, when hopeless disorder set in, and when the front was being deserted en masse, that Kerensky gave his consent. He proceeded to the front in the month of May on a famous tour of speechmaking to exhort the Russian soldiers to stay in the trenches; and it was whilst he was hurriedly urging on the commanders the preparations for the ill-fated June offensive of 1917 that he not only accepted Czecho-Slovak support, but placed great hopes in them. They perhaps would save the situation by infusing new courage into the Russian troops and giving them an example of discipline.

Captain “S“ continued his story of these events as follows:

The first occasion on which the Czecho-Slovaks showed what they could do when in greater numbers was at the battle of Zborov. Kerensky made every effort to galvanise the Russian army. The chief command was in the hands of General Korniloff. The best troops that could be got together were concentrated on the south-eastern front against the Austrians. The Czecho-Slovak regiments at the beginning of June, 1917, already formed a splendid “brigade“. The offensive began towards the