Page:The Bohemians (Czechs) In The Present Crisis.djvu/18

 pendence has for its object simply to inform the Allied governments and to inform the neutral world of the situation in Austria, and we are confident that at the peace conference the Allied powers will see to it that Bohemia again becomes an independent State. This is not only a requirement of justice, but is a condition precedent to permanent peace.

A war plot indeed! Was it a war plot when, after the sending of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, monster meetings were held in Chicago, and Bohemian turners spontaneously, without any direction, in one of the Chicago halls tore down the Austrian eagles? Was it a war plot when immediately upon the outbreak of the war Bohemians living in France, England and Russia volunteered to fight in the armies of the Allies?

Yes, even though Bohemians are not thinking of a revolt; even though they are not indulging in any dreams as to a possibility of a revolution in Austria, the Bohemian attitude has found its expression on the battlefield in more ways than one.

In these days we must remember those Bohemian heroes who, in the service of humanity, and for their own nation, fell on the battlefield of Champagne. And how heroically they did struggle! Their deeds of heroism at Carency will be forever remembered. The Bohemian company, fighting with the French in the Champagne region, at Carency, within an hour took three German trenches in succession; it stormed the German trenches with such rapidity that the Bohemian Volunteers outdistanced the supporting troops and entered even the zone beyond the German trenches where the French shells were falling, and ultimately, because of the impossibility of being properly supported, had to be recalled.

There is reliable information that the Bohemian regiments in the Austrian army, as soon as opportunity afforded itself, surrendered to the "enemy". The twenty-eighth regiment surrendered in fact on two occasions, once in Serbia and once in the Carpathians; the eighty-eighth in Serbia; the eleventh in the Carpathians; the eighth, the ninety-first, as well as the one hundred second, in Serbia. Although subsequently again re-established