The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/How the Czechoslovak army in Russia is growing

HOW THE CZECHOSLOVAK ARMY IN RUSSIA IS GROWING.

 

There has been a good deal of speculation as to the real numbers of the Czechoslovak Army in Russia. It is difficult to say what the number is at this time, for recruits are joining it all the time. When this army started on its romantic march in April of this year, it consisted of fifty thousand men, more or less armed and equipped and under thorough discipline. There was fifty thousand more men, prisoners of war, scattered throughout the vast regions of Russia and Siberia, whose applications to join the army had been received, but who were unable to reach the concentration camps. Then there were many thousands more, men who could not make up their minds, but who have since joined their comrades on the six thousand mile march to Vladivostok.

A Bohemian living in Detroit received a letter from his brother who is now in Vladivostok. This letter gives an indication of how the army was growing on its long journey through Siberia. This man says:

“Dear Brother, Sister-in-Law and Friends: I have to tell you that I am no longer at my former station, but that I am now a volunteer in the Czechoslovak Army.

“Conditions in Russia in the last few months be came extremely bad for the prisoners of war. Factories where we were formerly employed are shut down. Men who worked on the big domains have been taken back to the prison camps and the population were told that they must not take prisoners out for work. And then the constant fights in the cities. I was three times under fire, when street fighting broke out without the slightest warning. It was great luck that I escaped alive. Many Russians and prisoners have perished in this way. And then the famine. It was impossible to buy anything to eat in most of the cities, especially no bread. I considered for a long time what I had better do, when the Germans were pouring in on Russia from many directions. If I stayed where I was, I would have been in the midst of fighting, for Russian Red Guards opposed the Germans. Our soldiers were leaving the Ukraine in trains, and the Germans occupied the territory right behind them.

Fortunately I saved some money and had a good deal of warm underwear, shoes, clothing and a fur coat, for I used to travel in cattle cars and on top of coal cars during the severe freezing weather that was in February. My nose and lips were all blistered by frost and I lived on bread and tea. All the time I was going further away from my old place, and wherever I went, there were thousands of Russian soldiers going home and thousands of refugees from territories where there was fighting. In all the cities I looked for a job, but could not get anything. I did not care for the villages; they are not like our villages, just huts made of straw and no chance for work. They do not cultivate the ground as we do.

What should I do? Go home and fight for the German cause? Never that. Since I have to fight, I will fight for our liberty and the liberty of the whole world. As I happened to be in one of the depots a train was going by with our soldiers. In every car was a stove, the boys were singing and in one car I saw a gipsy. Tears ran down my cheeks, when I realized that a gipsy was going to fight for the liberty of my country. In that moment I made my decision. So here I am going again to the battlefields with a peaceful mind.

Hearty greetings fromANTHONY.”

 

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