Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/216

 rapidly dropping morale of their fighters, the Czech saluting began to lose its verve and elan, so to speak. Czech enlisted men on approaching an American officer would suddenly become deeply interested in something on the opposite side of the street. Czech officers would pass by deep in thought. When we first arrived, it was unusual to see a Czech pass an American officer without saluting. By the end of December it was unusual to see a Czech salute an American.

“To speak frankly, all but a very few of the Americans in Siberia considered that the Czechs were justified in their attitude. The Czechs expected us to come to their assistance; the Americans expected to go, wanted to go and were ready to go. The Czechs needed our help, and needed it badly. Ambassador Morris urged them to keep on fighting; and since he was regarded as the mouthpiece of the Administration his words were construed by Czechs and Americans alike to mean that he would not ask them to keep on fighting, unless Americans were to be sent to their assistance.

They never were sent. The Administration probably knew what it was doing, when it prevented our forces from going to the help of the Czechs; but it never told the Czechs, and it never told the Americans either. Quite naturally, the Czechs did not have a very high opinion of the American policy there. At any rate it did not take either a careful or keen observer to discover that the manner in which the Czechs saluted the Americans was an accurate barometer of their feeling toward them.”

Every Czechoslovak is proud of those brave men of his race who played such a noble part in Siberia. And when one reads scurrilous remarks in radical sheets about those hard-fisted, straight-hitting men, it is comforting to remember that every correspondent and every observer who came in contact with the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia had nothing but highest praise for their deeds and their behaviour.

Fully a half of the American soldiers are back from France, and it is announced that most, if not all, of the rest will be brought home by July. Of the Czechoslovak volunteers from America only a few invalids have returned; the great majority are still serving under the colors of the new republic, menaced as it is on nearly all sides by German and Magyar intrigues. At home the soldiers who fought on the side of the Allies in France, Italy and Russia, are known as legionaries, to distinguish them from men who had to serve in the Austrian army till the end.

Just like Americans, so do the returning Czechoslovaks bring back quite a few complaints. A sober and fair-minded description of conditions under which the Czechoslovak army was trained and fought is given in the “Americké Dělnické Listy” of Cleveland by J. Škaloud, a baker by trade and a socialist by conviction.

“Today, when it is all behind us and when we have reached our goal, we must say: we do not regret that we went to France and took a share in the fighting. It was necessary; without it our people could not have been liberated. But let me say emphatically: even this war of liberation, as we saw it from the inside, convinced most of us that it is necessary to do away with militarism altogether. With the exception of a few men who wanted to make a career of army life we were all strengthened in our antimilitaristic convictions.

“The German army could be smashed only by an army equally as good. But the principal army opposing it, namely the French army, is established on principles and traditions that remind us too much of the Austrian ways; especially in the matter of discipline. These French military styles were to be transferred bodily into our army, but the French succeeded only partially in imposing them on us. As to general living conditions in France, and especially social conditions, an overwhelming majority of the boys who marched to Bohemia in January said: We do not want our republic modeled after France. It must be very different, more democratic, socially more free.

“Our surprise perhaps would not have been so great, if we had become acquainted first with Paris, for we used to identify France with Paris. But we landed in the provinces, where the people are very backward compared with the country people of Bohemia: poor people, subject to clericalism, suffering from the ravages of alcohol and low morality, with deplorable living conditions. Of course one ought to remember that especially as far as low morality is concerned the war lasting for four years had exhausted the normal soundness of the French people. But it seemed to us that even before the war the general level was not much higher.

“Our army was composed of the most varied elements. The kernel was formed by brothers