Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/170

 ered around them feel confident that the Allies will not leave them in the lurch against the advancing Germans, the reconstruction of Russia will proceed with much greater speed.

A few months ago, when the Czechoslovaks started on their long trip to France, they had no high officers in their ranks. Their highest officers were captains, and many volunteers who had been officers in the Austrian army had to serve as privates or corporals. Masaryk selected a Russian general of experience for chief of staff. But during the time that the main body of this force was cut off from all contact with the outside world, during the four months of steady fighting, men came to the front by a process of natural selection. At present the commander of the Czechoslovaks in Siberia is Major-General Syrový, an engineer by profession, one of the earliest volunteers in the original Czechoslovak Legion of the Russian army. At the battle of Zborov he lost his right eye, and like the great Czech general, Žižka, of the Hussite Wars, he leads his men with a black flap over one eye. Under him the commander on the Volga front is General Čeček, who commanded a battalion at Zborov and who won the battle of Bachmach in March of this year against the Germans. The commander in the East is General Gajda, who is a physician by profession and only 28 years old. The other generals are slightly older. They will all be subject to the supreme directions of General Janin who left the command of the Czechoslovak Army in France to be in direct charge of the forces in Russia. The political control over the Czechoslovak forces will be in the hands of the vice-president of the Council, General Štefanik. Both these distinguished leaders are now on their way to Vladivostok.

On the French front three regiments are stationed in Alsace alongside of the American troops, and while they have not taken