An Eye-witness from Russia/Chapter 3
III.
Rise of the Czecho-Slovak Movement.
[Mr. Rickman went to Russia in the autumn of 1916 to carry on relief work under the Friends' War Victims' Relief Committee. In July, 1918, he left the town of Buzuluk, in the Samara government, and travelled across Siberia, in close touch with the Czecho-Slovaks during their slow advance.]
The characteristic feature of the Czecho-Slovak movement in Russia and Siberia is the intense national feeling among the officers and men which led them to desert from the Austro-German Armies. Practically all the troops deserted and many of the officers fled from their country in the last days of July, 1914, rather than fight on behalf of the Austro-German Government. Apparently it was a feature of the Austrian army that Czech battalions should be commanded by officers who were not of Czech nationality. In the same way Italian troops were not officered by Italians, because the Imperial Government was afraid that national feeling might override Imperial loyalty. Talking with Czechs, one hears again and again of the plots which were schemed and carried out on the eastern front, when officers were shot and battalions in the night quietly slipped over to friendly Russia, carrying with them sometimes full equipment, leaving dangerous gaps in the Austrian line.
The Imperial Russian Government, however glad it might be to have a break in the line of the enemy, did not receive these deserters from Imperial rule with the welcome which they had expected, and for the most part the Czechs who had thus seriously compromised their position at home were admitted into Russia only as prisoners. Under the Provisional Government their position noticeably improved; under Kerensky's they received the welcome and recognition so long delayed. They were organised again as fighting battalions, and became the backbone of Kerensky's army and the chief factor in his advance. When the armies of the new Russian Republic melted away, these Czecho-Slovak visitors were the only effective fighting force left, and it was by them that the Ukraine was held.
The French Offer.
When it appeared that fighting could not be resumed effectively on the eastern front the French offered to take the Czecho-Slovaks, via America, to the western front, promising them a pleasant journey round the world and a welcome at the other end. As evidence of good faith they sent money to Russia for their pay and for new equipment, leaving it to the Czechs themselves to arrange the details of the expenditure of this money. The Bolsheviks promised transport across Russia and Siberia on condition that the arms and the men should travel on different trains. An allowance of one rifle per waggon was permitted.
The slow journey began. The disorganisation of the railways at that time and the small number of locomotives contributed to make the transport of 60,000 men over a stretch of 6,000 miles of line a very serious problem. In order not to hold up normal traffic, the trains were released slowly, so that there should be about 200 miles between each train and the next. Each of these trains had to be hauled over three mountain ranges, and the number of special locomotives available for this purpose was very limited. Life on such a journey as this was monotonous to a degree. Living on freight cars often held up days at a time at wayside stations, out of touch with civilisation and their comrades, it was natural that the troops should be brought to a condition of nervous irritability for which there seemed no remedy. Naturally active and holding in their minds all the time the ideal of fighting for and liberating their country from the hated German rule, they showed the impatience of youth and the suspiciousness of an oppressed people. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had placed the Bolsheviks in a bad position, and they suspected them of being in the pay of the Germans and of deliberately retarding their progress on the 20,000-mile journey to the French front.
There were grounds, perhaps, for this suspicion. Trotsky had hoped that if they were delayed long enough in free Russia they would come to see the Bolshevik position and would be as unwilling to fight for French capitalists as they were to fight fer Austro-German Imperial rule. While Trotsky was spreading Bolshevik propaganda among the troops, the Social Revolutionary Right and many who were frankly reactionary also employed propaganda. The latter group played on the anti-German passion of the Czechs as much as Trotsky appealed to the sense of international brotherhood and to the pacifist attitude. Some of the Czechs were afraid of being trapped by the Bolsheviks and handed over to Germany. On what grounds this fear was based I was quite unable to discover.
The Czech Rising.
Owing to the prolonged inaction of the men_and to the tense atmosphere caused by so much propaganda, conditions were ripe for an outbreak. Towards the middle of May a disturbance occurred in Penza, and the town fell into the hands of the enemy, as at Jericho, at the blast of a trumpet. The Czecho-Slovaks seized ammunition and pressed on to Suizran. The Bolshevik guard at the great bridge over the Volga were surprised in the night, and Samara followed in the course of a few days.
The course of events in Tchelyabinsk is characteristic of the uprising. A Magyar prisoner of war, a servant of the railways, had a dispute with some Czechs. In the fight which followed the Magyar was killed, and the authorities of the town protested and imprisoned the men who had killed him. There were two trainloads of Czechs in the Tchelyabinsk station at the time, and the men on them felt that their national honour was at stake owing to this imprisonment. They seemed to see in this the guiding hand of Germany and a clear evidence that the Bolsheviks intended to stop their journey. They demanded that the civil authorities should release their comrades, and followed their demand immediately by a demonstration of force. They shot about a dozen of the militia who were guarding the town, rushed the magazine, and captured all the arms and ammunition. This was done with a force of not more than 100 rifles, but it must be remembered that in Tchelyabinsk there was not at that time a Bolshevik force, but only a few platoons of militia.
At this point the Czech National Council and their French advisers recommended that matters should quiet down and that the Czechs should hand over the town again to the Bolsheviks. This course, after severe comment and much irritation, was adopted, and they returned to their trains expecting to proceed. But on that day they heard that fighting had occurred between the Bolsheviks and the Czechs at several points on the line. Orders had come through from Major Gaida that all telegraph stations were to be seized, and no messages sent except by Czech officers. The town was recaptured i in a few hours by the Czechs.
Fighting continued all along the Siberian line, and towards the end of June Irkutsk fell into the hands of the Czechs. Soon after this happened Colonel Emerson, of the American Railroad Commission, arrived in the city and tried to arbitrate between the Czechs and the Bolsheviks. As a condition of armistice the Czechs gave up Irkutsk to the Bolsheviks. The period of armistice came to an end without a decision of peace, because the suspicion was again aroused that the Czechs were being held up by the Bolsheviks at the instigation of Germany.
In Manchuria.
In Russia and Siberia the political situation was simple in the extreme compared with that which existed in Manchuria. General Horvat, who had been appointed governor of Kharbin by the Tsar, and who was vice-president of the Chinese Eastern Railway, had kept the old régime element in such a strong position that Bolshevism never got a hold in Manchuria. The General exerted his personal power in every direction. _He would not permit the Czechs who were already in Vladivostok to come to the assistance of their comrades in Central Siberia by means of his direct Trans-Manchurian line, and the burden of the military operations, therefore, in the capture of Tchita and Verkne Udinsk fell upon General Gaida, who was embarrassed by difficulties of transport and long lines of communication in unfriendly territory, and this action of General Horvat probably delayed the opening of the Trans-Siberian line for several weeks. The Bolsheviks, in retiring from the Trans-Baikal region, were forced to take the northern route by the Amur, where they were met by Japanese, Chinese, and American troops, or else to lay down their arms and go south, scattering themselves in North China. General Horvat, in his capacity as dictator in Manchuria, was able to show his sympathy now to one party, now to another. In the second week of September General Simeonoff was in favour, but the Allies were not. Later on the Allies were in favour, but Simeonoff was not recognised, and the struggle to maintain a balance of power exercised the minds of all diplomats except the American, who were content to wait until all these "natives" should settle their affairs in their own way.
The political situation in Vladivostok caused the greatest anxiety to all parties. In the early morning of July 3 the Czechs attacked the town from the surrounding hills and drove the Bolsheviks into the central square. At that moment the Bolsheviks were surprised by machine-gun fire from the roof of the British Consulate, H.M.S. Suffolk having contributed the guns and, we heard, also the men. The Bolsheviks regarded this as an act of war, and used it as a means of propaganda. The Allies and the Czechs took the town, put the Bolshevik civil authorities in prison, and declared that they would give the town a free election without the possibility of Bolshevik coercion. The Bolshevik civil authorities who were in prison were returned at the election, and the Allies and Russians who were co-operating stated that as the men who had been elected were serving their sentences in prison a new Government would have to be constituted. This action was used by the Bolsheviks for the purposes of propaganda. On the 12th of August a state of war was declared between Great Britain and the Government of Central Russia, and the Bolsheviks used as an argument for recruiting the fact that their enemies were attempting to dictate the form of government which should be adopted by the Russian people.