Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/169

 the Allies in their struggle to free the world from despotism. We shall never forget it.”

A great deal remains to be done on the Pacific slope of Siberia. There are still large groups of well-armed German prispners and Bolshevik forces, hiding sections of the Amur Railroad and roaming freely over the vast area north of the railroad. But to clean them up presents no great military problem; it is merely a question of time.

But the Allies are faced now with a question of first rate importance. They sent small detachments to Siberia for the purpose of backing the Czechoslovaks and to enable the Russians to regain control of their own affairs. Now it seems that they will have to do more than merely keep asmall expeditionary force hugging the Pacific coast of Siberia. As a matter of fact the Western front is again in existence. On the Volga a force of Czechoslovaks of an unknown size, but counting less than 100,000, opposes strong forces of Bolsheviki officered by Germans. It is said that the Soviets have raised fifty divisions, while the Czechoslovaks are assured by the new Siberian government that 200,000 volunteer troops will support them. But it will be a long time, before the Russian troops can be relied upon in a serious battle. As the situation now stands, three campaigns are being carried on in European Russia. In the north a small Allied force is marching southward from Archangel. Separated by a few hundred miles from them the Czechoslovaks are holding their own from Perm to Samara. South of them fighting is going on between the Bolsheviki and the Don Cossacks. If two or three Allied divisions appeared on the Volga, the break between the three armies will be quickly filled in and a new front will extend from the Arctic to the Black Sea. That of course would mean an open alliance between the Bolsheviki and the Germans, but then it has been made clear that the Bolshevik leaders have been all along in the employment of the Germans. If the Czechoslovaks and those Russian elements which gath-