Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/80



About the same time we received some details of the battle at Pensa before our troops abandoned that town. The group, after the various echelons had been hastily assembled, consisted of about six battalions. They were only partially armed. The Bolsheviks had twelve batteries and 300 machineguns. They held a position outside Pensa, and opened with a heavy fire. The battle lasted twelve hours, after which the Bolsheviks were completely routed, and left not only the station, but the town of Pensa, with about 80,000 inhabitants, at our mercy. We occupied it only three days, as it presented no strategical interest, and our echelons concentrated towards Samara, a town of 300,000 inhabitants. They fought severe battles at Sysran, defending the bridge across the Volga, and at Lipjak, before they entered Samara. From Samara they proceeded to take possession of Kygnerg, and after two very hot engagements the station of Busoloc and the junction of Orenburg were taken. The last action of the group east of Cheliabinsk was at Ufa, a town of 150,000 inhabitants, which was occupied and delivered from the Bolsheviks. Our troops entered amid the enthusiastic rejoicings of the inhabitants.

The Government of Moscow was stunned by these exploits, which were accomplished in the space of a litle more than a fortnight from the day that Trotsky sent his famous telegram. The places we afterwards occupied are almost too numerous to mention. Could we have had the assistance of large Allied contingents we might have occupied the greater part of European Russia and marched upon Moscow. Whenever we appeared at any place, even with the strength of only a company, the Soviets fled, the Red Guards fired a few rounds and scattered, and the places were ours, much to the joy of the delivered inhabitants. Some of our exploits in capturing towns read almost like fables. When Trotsky learned that we had taken Kazan, one of the richest and most populous Russian towns, with about 700,000 inhabitants, it is said he almost fainted. He declared that unless Kazan was recaptured by the Red Guards, the Revolution would be dead in three weeks. The fact is, we had taken Kazan with only one battalion. To hold a town over half a million inhabitants with a force of only about 1,000 men was out of the question. The peril was too great, and we had no particular object in holding it, unless an Allied army came to our support. We voluntarily abandoned it after twenty-four hours, and Trotsky recovered from his fright.

Our occupation of the Siberian railway continued beyond Lake Baikal, following the River Ussuri down to the mouth of the Amur, and from the station of Khabarovsk to Vladivostok. It comprised the two railway lines which connect the eastern coast with Central Siberia—that