[Sidenote: How the Czechs came to control Siberia.]
The democracy of the Czech army and the ease with which it made friends continually surprise me. The officer who induced me to join them was a mere lieutenant, yet he never consulted anyone about taking me in. Was I not an American? Each day some officer was told off to arrange matters with the station masters. They moved their trains without bluff or bl.u.s.ter. Sometimes the Soviets hindered them in order to get what guns and supplies they could. But not till weeks after they started did any Soviet have the temerity to try to stop or disarm the men. The Russian ma.s.ses were quickly won to friendship for the Czechs and the only force that tried to interfere was the Bolshevik battalions who acted under orders from distant points, where the man who gave the order enjoyed comparative safety. The way that their control of Siberia through an attempt to disarm them came about is as romantic as any feature of their story.
[Sidenote: They have pa.s.ses to leave the country.]
The presence of forty thousand well-disciplined Czech soldiers whose loyalty to the cause of freedom was stronger than that of the rapidly changing Russian proletariat made it seem desirable to the Bolshevik authorities to rid the country of men so willing to fight and so little subject to the extreme socialistic doctrines then rife in Russia. Both Lenine and Trotzky by agreement with Professor Masaryk furnished these men with pa.s.ses for leaving the country and in spite of the chaotic condition of transportation ample rolling stock, amounting to about sixty trains of forty freight cars each, was placed at their disposal or secured by the Czechs through their own efforts. Arrangements had already been made with representatives of the French Government so that plenty of money was provided for provisioning, equipping and transporting a minimum of forty thousand men over about six thousand miles.
[Sidenote: Military equipment being taken away.]
[Sidenote: The Czechs resist.]
Before these trains had gone far one local Soviet after another had insisted on their leaving behind the armored motor cars, aeroplanes, machine-guns and other military equipment which had been allotted to them by the Russian Government during the Kerensky offensive. By the time Penza--one day"s run west of the Volga--was reached, after machine-guns had been mounted on the engines in fighting their way through the Germanized Ukrainian districts, the arms of each train had been reduced to 140 rifles and ammunition. But the Czechs knew enough about Russian conditions to realize the necessity for at least one gun to a man and when the Bolsheviki, early in June, started to disarm them, guns and rifles appeared from secret hiding places, to the extreme consternation of the disarmers.
[Sidenote: Siberian Soviets delay the Czechs.]
[Sidenote: The Czechs overcome their captors.]
The reason for their being in the district of the Urals is one part of the romance of their adventurous life. Out across Siberia, near the Manchurian frontier, during April and May, the Cossack General s.e.m.e.noff was operating. He had closed to traffic the Trans-Siberian line by way of Harbin, so that the first twelve thousand Czechs had had to use the single track Amur Railway line to the north by way of Khabarovsk. By May 4 an international proletariat army thoroughly mercenary in character and numbering possibly three thousand men, largely Austrian prisoners of war, was enlisted to repulse s.e.m.e.noff from the region of the railway junction at Karuimskaya. Obviously since it was known that the Czechs were financed by France and that France favored intervention in Siberia it was indiscreet to allow thousands of Czech soldiers whose bravery was unquestioned to pa.s.s within fourteen miles of the army under the command of s.e.m.e.noff. Fict.i.tious floods on the Amur and some well-founded stories of the poor condition of the single track Amur line were conjured up by the Siberian Soviets as a reason for temporarily preventing the Czechs from proceeding to France. The only real service performed by s.e.m.e.noff"s provocative army of mercenaries and Chinese and j.a.panese irregulars, was the indirect one of detaining the Czechs in Siberia, a service on which the Cossack leader never figured. There is no question but that to get to France was the sincere desire of the Czechs and there was no suggestion that their forces could be or desired to be used in Siberia.
Having left the Austrian army rather than fire on their brother Slavs the Czechs could scarcely be expected to have much enthusiasm for fighting Russians over an ill-defined intervention program through thousands of miles of Siberia. Chafing under the enforced delay, these soldiers insisted that they be allowed to proceed to France. This seemed out of the question to the Bolsheviki whose only alternative was to disarm them. The Czechs who had carefully avoided any aggression upon Russians until then, immediately set up a stout resistance, quickly overcoming their would-be captors and thus almost miraculously putting the small force which had then probably reached one hundred thousand men in control of thousands of miles of railway reaching from Novo Nikolayevsk to Tcheliabinsk and thence along the two branches leading to Ekaterinburg and Zlatoust. This virtually established an economic boundary between Siberia and Russia along the line of the Urals, since the unsettled condition of the country makes the railway the only practicable line of communication.
[Sidenote: How control of the railway is secured.]
[Sidenote: The Russian peasants friendly.]
The control of the railways was easily secured. At each of the important stations Czech trains held the sidings. Due to the delay the trains which should have been en route to France piled up at the stations, and even in European Russia at Samara, Simbirsk and Suizran, a sufficient number of Czechs held the station points to make their capture by Bolsheviki forces a difficult matter. The Czechs made no attempt to seize the towns located some distance from the stations or any other territory. They wanted only to make secure their railroad travel. The high prices which they paid for their necessarily large supplies of provisions and the fact that they paid cash while the Bolshevik forces and Soviets often requisitioned food supplies, likewise their good cheer and personal magnetism, won for them the friendship of the peasant and artisan cla.s.ses in many of the villages so that when the clash came only such Bolshevik forces as were definitely put to the task of disarming them were actually hostile. The easy-going and friendly Russian peasant, supine under the violent political changes, is a traditional friend and an unwilling enemy. This characteristic, which the Allied Governments have harshly criticized, may be counted upon to work to the advantage of the Allies under any fair scheme for economic aid and peaceful penetration which does not give grounds upon which active German propaganda could construct open hostility.
One may well wonder why the hundreds of thousands of Austrian war prisoners in Siberia have not blown up tunnels, destroyed tracks and otherwise tried to stop the Czech expedition. It may be that the Austrians secretly admired these men and were too tired of war to take the initiative in Siberia.
[Sidenote: Seizure of Vladivostok.]
[Sidenote: The people welcome the Czechs.]
The seizure of Vladivostok by the Czechs was characteristic. From their arrival, they attracted the attention and admiration of the people, many of whom were planning an anti-Bolshevik demonstration. Every ship commander in the harbor had his men ready for landing parties in case of trouble. But there was no disorder on the day of the demonstration and not till a month later did a Bolshevik disturbance give the Czechs a chance to free an anti-Bolshevik city from its oppressors. j.a.panese, Chinese, English or Americans from the war-ships could have done it. But when the Czechs did it, a Slavic, Russian-speaking people gained control of a city that gladly welcomed their intervention. The same idea explains their marvelous success in Russia. Having braved death rather than fight Russians, the Czechs can now fight oppressive Russian elements without having their motives misunderstood or their plans opposed.
[Sidenote: Marriages of war prisoners and peasant women.]
Siberia has afforded an interesting race study ever since the Teuton prisoners began to arrive. From the very first, German and Austrian prisoners mated with the st.u.r.dy peasant women of Siberia and settled to a happy and unhampered life in the undeveloped lands of the great plains. Some of the women had husbands at the front, but _nichevo_ never means "never mind" to a greater extent than it does in Russian marital affairs. A man"s a man for a" that, and there was little trouble until the two parents of different nationality and language discussed which language the children should be taught. German and Russian produce the same tow-headed stock. With the downfall of the Russian army the Russian husband sometimes returned and though quite willing to a.s.sume responsibility for the new offspring, insisted on asking the Austrian subst.i.tute at his bed and board to leave. As often as not the Austrian left. There were always a better farm and frau to be had elsewhere, and some Russian women are tiresome anyway.
[Sidenote: Many Austrians do not go home.]
When conditions are like this in Siberia, why should an Austrian return to a hungry country to fight a heroic enemy? A happy home in Siberia, which some other man has founded, or starvation in Austria? No wonder the Austrians in Siberia are a mercenary and unpatriotic lot. I saw many in the Bolshevik army. Most of those I talked with were under arms for the sake of the 200 rubles per month, equipment and food they were paid by the Bolsheviks, without, as they told me, planning to run any unnecessary chances of losing their lives in actual fighting against the Czechs or any other enemy of the Bolsheviks for that amount of money, if they could avoid it; not a very difficult matter.
Allied military support of the Czechs in Siberia is not j.a.panese intervention, and sentiment in Russia and Siberia against intervention to-day is now what it was six months ago. If the Bolsheviki do not represent the people of Russia, the only way the Russian people can develop confidence in themselves, and strength, is to throw off the Bolsheviki. The Archangel and Siberian regions have started such moves.
Siberia seems ready to welcome the Czechs, and if the Allied forces in Siberia keep themselves sufficiently in the background, Siberia will probably welcome the friends of the Czechs. The Allies have failed in Russia in the past because they have trusted upon material equipment rather than upon education of the people in the ideals of our cause. A certain amount of military intervention is necessary in Siberia if we are to protect the Czechs and protect the supplies which an economic mission would furnish. The danger lies in taking the control of that military intervention out of the hands of the Czechs. If my observation among all cla.s.ses in Siberia counts for anything, the day the non-Slavic forces of the Allies, especially the j.a.panese, whom the Russians despise, move ahead of the Czechs who have already the confidence of the Russians as no Allied army could, that day the Allied army will encounter difficulties. This may spell tragedy for the cause of democracy.
[Sidenote: Siberia differs from Russia.]
In general the Volga divides Siberia, the home of the freedom-seeking exile, from Russia, in which for years German ideas have been encouraged to the exclusion of French and English. Whole sections of Russia and Siberia will starve this winter. If we follow the Czechs into Siberia with economic aid, repairing and consolidating the railroad lines behind them, installing modern methods of distribution we can then say to the stricken people--"Some of you are starving, but this is in spite of all the aid we can give." But across the Volga in Russia the people will say to Germany--"We are starving because you took our food, because you forced disorganization which has ruined us." Spring will allow the intelligent Russian peasant to compare such Americanism with the blight of Prussianism. Never fear that the object lesson will be in vain!
[Sidenote: A nucleus for the forces of freedom.]
Can the Czechs become an actual nucleus for the forces of freedom in Russia and Siberia? They already are. The extent of their influence in Siberia, in the region of the Don and in the heart of the Central Powers themselves, is only limited by the support they receive from the Allies and the restraint of the latter in independent action. The fate of history may depend on the working out of the Czecho-Slovak miracle--a plain gift of fortune to the cause of freedom.
Copyright, Asia, Journal of the American Asiatic a.s.sociation, September, 1918.
The spirit which animated the American soldiers in France was a revelation to the Allies, although it was precisely the spirit which Americans at home knew would inspire them when they reached the actual fighting line. Some instances of this spirit, and of experiences on the American firing line, are told in the following pages.
SIX DAYS ON THE AMERICAN FIRING LINE
CORPORAL H.J. BURBACH
"We have arrived!"
[Sidenote: We reach the front.]
The French Army officer, who, skilled through years of actual artillery service on the French fronts, had been my instructor through weeks of training, and my guide up to the Front, stood still and spoke most casually, as if our destination had been a Chicago restaurant.
[Sidenote: My comrades are hidden in the fog.]
"Yes, sir." I tried to be as casual, but could not disguise the excitement that filled me. "Shall--the guns--" and I stopped, startled at the tone of my own voice. It sounded as if it were coming from some person a dozen feet away. And as I stood there a sense of elation, that was possibly partly fear, swept over me. I looked about me, toward the direction of the French officer who had spoken, toward the fellows of my battery who had accompanied me up to the Front. I say toward their direction, for I could not see my comrades--the fog that had come over the land at sunset was too heavy to allow one to see an arm"s length.
The officer snickered.
"Is this all that there is to it? Are we really on the firing line?" I asked aloud. "Why, it"s as quiet here as the Michigan woods!"
The officer laughed again.
"At this minute, yes," he said; then, "Wait here, I will be back directly, and no noise!"
[Sidenote: The firing line seems a lonely place.]
He went off through the fog, and I have never experienced such a feeling of loneliness as swept over me at that minute--loneliness, and I really believe disappointment,--for I had imagined the firing line to be a place of constant terror.
"Gee, this is what we"ve been training for all these months!" I heard one of the fellows say. "Well, all I"ve got to say is it won"t be so quiet over on the Boches" land when we get started," and they all laughed.
[Sidenote: An experience of many sensations.]
It is absolutely impossible to describe the sensations that come over a fellow when he realizes that he is going under fire. I think that you pa.s.s through various stages that include every sensation in life. You are frightened, you are glad to get into the fight. You are anxious to begin--you wish you had a few weeks" longer training to become a better shot.
I am not sure how long we stood there waiting for the return of the French officer who was tutoring us for our baptism of fire, but suddenly he was at my side.