Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/6

 were followed by the execrations of Francis Joseph and his courtiers. Execrations like those are as blessings to us. The Emperor is gone, his empire is in the dust, and we shall return with our band and banners to Prague, after great hardships and sufferings, but with satisfaction and glory.

Our regiment was one of the first to be mobilised. We were marched through the city of Prague with a German regiment beside us. Each of the German soldiers had his bayonet fixed to his rifle as he accompanied us step by step. This was an indication of the confidence placed to us. They did not trust us a single moment. Despite the presence of the German regiment, we flaunted our own white Czech flag, and a young German, who wanted to pull it out of the hand of the soldier who carried it, was sent rolling in the gutter.

Our families and relatives, our comrades not yet called out, and the younger students whom we knew accompanied us. It is no harm to say that there was a tear in many an eye as it caught sight of a handkerchief waving from someone already in black. The women waved to us from the windows and balconies, and there were cries to us: “Don’t go; don’t fight; throw down your arms!“ A glance at the window or balcony revealed to us from whom it came, from our brothers and sisters, from our young wives or mothers. But the German regiment with bayonets fixed marched stiffly along with us. They did not understand the words in Czech flung at us from the windows, and even if they did, it was their policy to pretend not to understand.

It was in the Ferdinandstrasse that a young German tried to pull the white Czech flag out of the hand of our soldier. Some day when I go back to Prague, I may find the spot again where he was sent rolling in the gutter, and our white flag continued to go with us proudly. It would be no harm to mark the spot for ever as a symbol of our resolution, and the sentiments with which the 28th Regiment, the “Children of Prague“, marched to the war.

We were assembled in a barrack after some three hours march outside Prague. The German troops who surrounded us tried to be gay. They did everything to make themselves and us believe that it was to be a mere holiday war. Their condescension to us went even further, and they hinted it might be possible that we would not be sent to the front at all. Our regiment would simply be kept drilling, and before our drill was finished the war would perhaps be over. We knew better. We had no need to be told that as soon as they could the Austrians would send us right to the battle-front, and the very worst they could find. As we marched we sang, but our own national songs, and in