The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Delegation to Siberia

DELEGATION TO SIBERIA.

During June the pitiable situation of the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia has been forcibly brought to the attention of their countrymen in America. A number of couriers passed through this country recently on their way to Bohemia; they voiced eloquently the complaints of their comrades who were left behind with no definite word, as to when they would get back to their families. Letters from Y. M. C. A. workers were to the same effect: the boys believe that they have been forgotten, that nobody is interested in their fate, that their own government sends them nothing but vague promises. They cannot under stand, why they are not recalled, since they are doing no fighting any longer. Above all they cannot understand, why they get no news from home. The majority of them have been away from their homes for nearly, five years; many were caught by the outbreak of the war, as they were finishing their three year service in the Austrian army, so that they have been eight years under arms. And although the Czechoslovak Republic has been in existence since October 28, they have not received a single letter from home; they have not yet received a single newspaper from the old country. They do not even get any regular bulletins of events in the liberated fatherland, so that with the exception of an occasional brief cable that reaches Omsk they hear nothing of what goes on in the Czechoslovak Republic.

The boys would not be human, if they did not kick; and one does not envy the lot of their leaders who are trying to keep them contented and preserve discipline. At the same time the difficulties of the Czechoslovak government with regard to the Siberian situation are enormous; it cannot recall 55,000 veterans from Siberia without the approval of the principal Allied and associated governments. And even if the Czechoslovak government assumed to do so, it could not get ships for the transport of an army half way around the world without active co-operation of these same governments. What has been done so far to improve the tense situation consists in the transportation of invalided soldiers home; some 1550 were carried home around India by boat, and 100 just passed through the United States. About 4000 more men, chiefly veterans over 42 years, are now on the way to the United States from Vladivostok. But the main body numbering still over 50,000, remains on the Siberian rail road between Omsk and Irkutsk living in box cars and chasing bolshevik bands into the depths of Siberian forests.

There is not much that Czechoslovak organizations in America can do to relieve a situation that can be relieved properly only by the return of the boys home. But as they are much nearer to Siberia than the people in the old country, they decided to do what was in their power. The American Czechoslovak Board at its meeting in Chicago on June 9 asked two visiting journalists from Prague, Mr. Vincenc Červinka and Mr. Gustav Šmejc, to go to Siberia and talk to the boys there, rather than continue their talks in the United States. While the Czechoslovak people in the United States are eager to hear of the situation in the new republic from first-hand witnesses, the boys in Siberia need the news more. The two editors consented to take the trip which will keep them from their families far longer, than they planned, and immediately cabled to the Czechoslovak peace delegates in Paris for a message to the army, as definite as circumstances permit, as to when the transportation of the Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia home would begin.

The two Prague journalists will be joined by delegates of the three principal Czechoslovak organizations in America, Joseph Martinek for the Bohemian National Alliance, John Straka for the National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics, and Joža Žák Marušiák for the Slovak League. The delegation will sail from San Francisco on July 17 and will take with them a considerable sum of money for tobacco and other gifts to the boys.