Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions/Organisation begun
V.
ORGANISATION BEGUN.
Continuing his story of the first year in Siberia, Captain “N.“ gave me a picture of what was happening in every prisoners’ camp in Russia and Siberia where Czecho-Slovaks formed important groups. They had no idea that they should some day later become the masters of the very regions where they lived as prisoners, occupying a line that stretched a distance of 8,000 kilometres (about 5,000 miles). They hoped some day to be brought back in an organised national army to fight against the Austrians or Germans. Meanwhile they continued to make friends of the Russian people, became popular with them wherever they were, and formed little local clubs to pass the time. Captain “N.“ proceeded with his story as follows:
We still enjoyed our liberty at Ishim at the end of 1915. and had learned to ignore the “Gnädige Frau Colonel.“ We formed an officers’ mess of our own and lived in comparative luxury on 1½), roubles per day. Our housekeeping was cheap, a hare for 3 kopecks, a chicken for 7 kopecks, 100 eggs for 60 kopecks, and a pound of flour for 3 or 4 kopecks. We found the cultured Russian families in the town very kind to us, and they invited us to their houses. They were very patriotic. They were fond of music, and as I play the violin well I had two young ladies in one Russian family as my pupils, and gave lessons in several other families. We formed a quartet, consisting of one first violin, two second violins, and an American harmonium. The young ladies who were sufficiently advanced sometimes joined us, and we gave musical evenings unknown to “Frau Colonel.“ Each officer had a family where he was the favourite guest and where he was at liberty to invite us, and in this way we gave a musical evening about once a week in turn in each family. Next we organised theatrical recitals, at which we made collections for the prisoners or some other public work.
We had thus settled down to a quiet routine life, waiting for the war to end, or for us to get a chance to join the Czecho-Slovak regiment or division, if ever it came to be formed, when we got a great shock. Our old colonel, with his German “frau,“ was removed, and another appointed. We expected to be under a better man, but the new one, Colonel Karpoff, was, if possible, worse than his predecessor. He ignored the order for our liberation, and placed us once more under restraint. Luckily his tyranny did not last long. After one month the crder came again that we should be free, and soon afterwards we were transferred from Ishim to Tjumen. Our stay at Ishim, though, was not in vain, for it became one of the centres which we afterwards had to deliver from the Bolsheviks and the German bands, and the people who knew us there received us on our return with jubilation. When our officers and men returned it was not with violins, bass fiddles, or harmoniums, but with rifles, machine-guns, and a train of artillery that sent the local Soviet scooting out of the town! We came not as humble captives and prisoners, but as liberators and conquerors.
DAWN OF LIBERTY.
Tjumen is a very important town on the Siberian fine. Our order to go there came in May, 1916. Here things for the first time assumed a brighter aspect for our national and patriotic aspirations. Tjumen was in command of a fine Russian patriot, Colonel Dimitrieff, the first good Russian we had met in command of a town. He received us with a warm, friendly smile, and told us at once, “I receive you as free men, not as prisoners of war, and I give you the liberty you so well deserve.“
He had heard of the Czecho-Slovaks. He spoke with enthusiasm of our regiments who had surrendered rather than continue to serve Austria, and said he would help and encourage us in the formation of our national army under the auspices of the Russian Government. These were the first encouraging words we had heard from a high officer since we had left the front. He authorised us to put off our uniform and to got about in civilian dress. He went further, and gave their freedom to our soldiers. They were allowed to look for work in the town, and soon found it. The colonel showed his confidence in us by appointing four of our officers as censors of all the mail that came to Siberia. Our “colony“ here soon increased. From being fifty officers at first, we soon were 200. The soldiers numbered about 2,000 and officers and men became popular with the inhabitants. Tjumen later also succumbed for a little while to the Bolshevik terror, but as at Ishim our men returned, and were welcomed as heroes and deliverers.
We got a fine big brick building, one of the largest at Tjumen, as our headquarters, and here we organised a big club and started a national Czecho-Slovak organisation. We contributed 10 per cent of our pay every month for propaganda among our men, and corresponded with Petrograd, Moscow, and Kieff. We learned at that time that the first national Czecho-Slovak organisations had been formed, at Petrograd, with, M. Čermák at its head, and General Červinka at Kieff. We followed the example. The Russian Czech, Pavlů, an editor at Petrograd, was our principal leader and organiser. He founded a weekly CzechoSlovak paper at Petrograd for all Czecho-Slovak prisoners, and we got it regularly. In this way we learned that many other local organisations had been formed, and that there was a general yearning in all our prisoner's camps to find a bond of union.
ACTIVE PROPAGANDA.
We seriously worked for our “national organisation,“ which had been started in Petrograd, Moscow, and Kieff, and which all our officers and men gradually joined. We had the great pleasure of having with us Dr. Straka, our great legal authority, who became a member of our first provisional Government in Russia. Dr. Straka prepared lectures on future Czecho-Slovak law, and on our national politics. He composed a pamphlet of 160 pages to be sent for propaganda purposes to all the Czecho-Slovak prisoners’ camps. We wrote out the copies by hand, every officer volunteering to make a copy. The pamphlet agitated for revolution against Austria and the breaking up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Our subscription to the Czecho-Slovak Government Fund amounted to 2,000 roubles per month. Lieutenant Z., who had been employed at the Town Hall, in Prague, wrote Russian well, and composed short articles to explain our aspirations for independence to the Russians. We copied his articles, and circulated them among the Russian families. He also contributed paragraphs to the local paper in Tjumen to explain the object for which we Czecho-Slovaks were agitating.
The number of our “prisoners“ who had voluntarily surrendered in most cases had greatly increased. We were already more than 100,000 at the beginning of 1916. A part of the 28th Regiment of Prague was reconstituted by Austria. They also surrendered on the Dukla Pass on April 3, 1915. The 36th Regiment of Mladá Boleslav surrendered likewise in May, 1915. Austria then struck them out of the list of regiments. At the end of 1915, our volunteers fighting with the Russian Army amounted to about one regiment. At Easter, in 1916, they already formed a brigade. It was time, therefore, to constitute our Provisional Government, and continue enrolling volunteers authority.
It is now time to revert to Captain “S’s“ story, which supplements that of his colleague in many particulars, and brings us up to the days of the Russian revolution in 1917. Captain “S.,“ whose story I left off at Kieff, proceeded:
I was kept only one day at Kieff, and our train started at once for Kursk, Dambov, Pensa, and Samara. Then I learned that we were to be sent south-east to Turkestan, but it made little differenee to us whether we were sent thither or to Siberia. Our train proceeded slowly to Orenburg, thence to Casalinsk, Turkestan, and Tashkent, where we arrived on April 21, after a journey of twenty days. Most of the country we traversed was flat, and Turkestan is a vast, sandy plain, with only scanty pasture for sheep, of which we saw numerous flocks. After leaving Orenburg we got into the country of the Kirghises, and began to see men with oblique eyes and general Mongolian features.
IN CHARGE OF A CAMP.
There were only fifteen Czecho-Slovaks in our convoy, and we got no special privileges. We travelled in a forth-class carriage, with sleeping accommodation on wooden shelves. At Tashkent we were told that we would have our liberty, but would have to take some employment. I was asked if I would undertake the direction of a prison camp at Samarkand, and I immediately consented. I had no idea ot the magnitude of the task or the weight of responsibility. I left the very next day. Tashkent was already full of prisoners, with many Czechs, and a lot more were coming after the fall of Przemysl. Convoys, with more than 11,000 men on board, were already due. Samarkand is 300 kilometres south, and I got there the same day. I stayed in the town, bought myself a civilian suit with the 100 kronen that I had in my belt the time of my surrender, and then drove in a carriage to the camp which I was to direct, about seven kilometres from the town. I was immediately placed in charge. The camp contained about 45,000 prisoners, 2,000 of whom were Czecho-Slovaks, the rest being Magyars, Austrians, and Ruthenians.
I had travelled to Samarkand with six other Czech officers, each of whom was also to be at the head of a camp. The Russians seemed to place great confidence in us Czechs, and we gave them nothing to complain of. My first work was to separate the Czechs, my countrymen, from the others and when I had done so I found employment for nearly all of them in field labour, with which they were very pleased. The responsibility of the camp was enormous. I had to see to every detail, the provisioning, the cooking, and the general discipline. I found that I could not do all that was required of me, even by getting up at five a. m. and working till nine and ten at night. The colonel was friendly enough to me and my Czechs, but he was even more kindly disposed towards the Hungarians and Austrians. He gave us all our liberty from eight a. m. to eight p. m., and the officers and men wandered about the country as they liked. Fishing was their principal pastime, as they spent the greater part of their day on the banks of the streams and near the ponds, which abounded in fine fish and trout.
All went well till one day eleven Magyars took flight. An order then came from the Governor of Turkestan to keep us all confined to the camp. It was a terrible hardship to us, and quarrels soon became frequent between my men and the other prisoners. The Germans especially were very provoking. They called us Russophiles and incited the others against us. They threatened any Austrians who spoke to us. I searched the room of some German officers once, and found boxes full of reports against us Czechs. I destroyed their papers and warned them.
Malaria was prevalent in the camp: many men suffered from it, and some died. I also got it, and for months was too weak to stand on my legs. In the autumn typhus also broke out, and we had cases of scurvy. Our provisions became uneatable. The bread was fairly good, but black, and the meat and fish were generally bad.
During the winter I organised all the Czechs, and we joined in our subscriptions to the National Organisation which had been started in Petrograd. We got the Czecho-Slovak review of Dr. Pavlů from Petrograd regularly, and knew what was being done in other CzechoSlovak camps. The population of Samarkand, about 70,000 mostly Sarthians, resembling the Persians, were indifferent to us. We got permission to go to town rarely, and then we had to be accompanied by a Russian soldier with his rifle and bayonet. At the end of April, 1916, orders came for all the Czecho-Slovaks to be transferred to Tashkent. About 160 officers and 1,500 men were all that was left of us. We started for Tashkent with a glad heart, as we had begun to detest the camp at Samarkand, and did not want to spend another summer there.
FORMATION OF REGIMENTS.
My compatriots at Tashkent had continued to enjoy their freedom. Three camps were formed there for Magyars, Austrians, Poles, and Ruthenians, and a fourth exclusively for Czecho-Slovaks. But a Czech officer directed each camp, and I was placed at the head of the Czechs, who numbered about 2,000. We at once organised a political association, and I was elected president. Our men were lodged at the barracks of the 5th Russian Regiment, which was at the front, and we had plenty of time for study, exercises, and sport. The few men who did not want to join our political association for the independence of Bohemia were sent to the other camps. There were not many of them. They had dissented only on technical principles, but when they learned that Petrograd had approved our association all came back to us.
An active propaganda was already afoot for our men to join the regiments that it was proposed to form at Kieff. In June, 1916, 700 of our men and thirty of our officers who had volunteered left for Kieff, either to join the “Družinas“ or to be incorporated in the regiments that were ultimately to form our first division. We gave them a great sendoff, and many others would have volunteered, but an order came that no more “Družinas“ were to be formed. I had also asked to go, but the camp took a refenderum, and begged me to stay, as they wanted me to remain president of their association.
We were in touch with our compatriots at Tjumen, Ishim, Gurgan, Omsk, Irkutsk, and numerous other camps, and we were astounded ourselves at the number of Czecho-Slovaks who had succeeded in escaping from Austrian service by surrendering wholesale at the front. The famous offensive of Brussiloff, in 1916, vastly increased our numbers, and we had reason to think that we had long exceeded the figure of 100,000 and might be near 200,000. This fired our imagination and stirred up all our patriotic feelings. We argued that if Russia would only permit us, there would now be a unique chance of forming a grea Czecho-Slovak army which would help to deal a decisive blow against Austria and win our independence. We worked with great zeal and enthusiasm for this end.
The hesitating policy of the Russian Government perplexed us. We tried everything to urge our cause. But our requests to be accepted for the formation of volunteer corps were nearly always refused. We were told that Russia needed workmen more than soldiers, and that employment in the munition factories was always open to us. We Czechs were, more over, esteemed as good workmen, better than the Russians. This induced me at the beginning of 1917 to ask to be sent to a munition works. I might learn any part of the work, become a foreman, or director of a works, in fact, anything where I might be more useful than staying where I was, I was accepted at once for the works of Rostock, on the Sea of Azoff.
I left Tashkent in February, 1917, and travelled in civilian clothes, being entirely released as a war prisoner. I crossed the Caspian Sea from Kranovotsko on a comfortable steamer to Baku, and travelled by train over the Caucasus with eleven other Czecho-Slovak officers. I got lo Rostock with my companions on March 20, a day before it was known the revolution had broken out in Petrograd. I just came in time to witness memorable scenes in the factories and in the town, and I never learned much about munition works or factories, bul saw a good deal of speech-making, idling, feasting, and eventually “fasting“.