Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/133

 concentration camps; most of them were scattered through Siberia. And now as the trains began to roll over the vast distances of Asia and especially after the reports spread into all parts of Russia that the Bolsheviki had attacked the Czechoslovaks and that a war was on, these volunteers rushed to the Siberian Railroad and joined their brothers. We know that in the middle of June the army had grown to 70,000 and it must be much larger now. There are reports stating that a Polish contingent joined the Czechoslovaks and that other Austrian prisoners of war of Slav and Roumanian races are coming in. We shall hear some wonderful stories of adventure and daring, when we learn the full details of how the Czechoslovak ex-prisoners of war marched toward the Siberian Railroad, riding in box cars or on top of them and often walking, from the boundaries of China and Persia, from Samarkand and Tashkend, from Astrakhan and Tsaritzin on the Lower Volga, and from Stavropol in the Caucasus. Here must lie the explanation of the capture by Czechoslovaks of some of the towns which are hundreds of miles distant from the Siberian Railroad. It must have been the prisoners of the Causasus marching to Samara who captured Novorosijsk on the Black Sea with two Russian cruisers lying in its harbor. Think of men who have never been to sea, who had probably never seen a warship, who fought mostly with bare hands, capturing cruisers and handling the big naval guns in a masterly fashion. A similar explanation must account for the reported capture of Kandales on the White Sea.

The situation on the first of August was this: the Czechoslovaks were in full control of the Siberian Railroad from the Volga as far as somewhere east of Lake Baikal; they controlled the Pacific coast and were engaged in clearing up that stretch of the railroad lying between the Pacific and the Baikal; two columns of Czechoslovaks, one proceeding west from Vladivostok and another marching east of Irkutsk, were trying to establish contact and destroy well-armed bodies of German and Magyar prisoners. The Czechoslovaks also control navigation on the Volga, the junction of the Turkestan Railroad, and a considerable section of the Petrograd branch of the Siberian Railroad. They had already accomplished a good deal. They prevented the return of almost a million German and Austrian prisoners of war who would have been used to reinforce the armies of the Central Powers; they kept the grain of Western Siberia and the cotton of Turkestan from reaching German hands; they made it impossible for the Germans to grab the mineral riches of the Ural mountains, especially platinum; and above all by overthrowing the terrorism of the red guards they offered an opportunity to the people of Siberia to establish a decent and orderly government. For it would not be fair to the Czechoslovaks to speak of their exploits as the conquest of Siberia. They are no warlike tribe imposing their dominion on less organized peoples. They want nothing for themselves, but they are all anxious to help their Russian brothers whose language they have all learned to speak and whose confidence they fully enjoy. In every city occupied by the Czechoslovaks perfect order prevails and life is as safe as in an American city.

What will be the outcome of it all it is too early to say. It all depends on what the Allies will decide to do. But it should be remembered that the chief aim foof [sic] the Czechoslovaks is to put in a few good licks for the freedom of Bohemia and of all mankind. They want to get at the Germans; if they can get at them in Russia with some chance of accomplishing something definite and not merely throwing their lives away, so much the better. If the Allies act promptly, before winter sets in, there is good reason to believe that Russia will rouse itself once more and that the Germans will have to withdraw at least half a million men from the Western front to meet the danger in the East.

The “Lidové Noviny” of June 7th contained an interesting incident of Russian disorganization. They quote a story from a Russian newspaper:

Bolsheviki divisions were returning from the front, one of them had a train of heavy artillery which was delaying them considerably in their hurry to get home. The commander of the train was a clever man who thought of a way to get rid of their inconvenient baggage.

When they got to a Jewish town named Jaltuskov in the district of Magylev this resourceful commander offered the heavy guns for sale, but the Jews, always ready to buy up metal, had no use for guns, so the division backed away a mile and pointed the guns above and fired a round. The Jews came running with the desired amount and took away the guns and munitions.