we were compelled, when organizing the National Council, to elaborate a systematic and practical scheme for our military operations and organization.
I have already explained that it was not possible for us to allow the colonies by themselves to embark upon political activities, and this applied still more to our military movement, which we had to found upon a broad political basis and take under our control. The colonists themselves did not possess sufficient political discernment or moral authority for this purpose, as they depended too much upon the States in which they had taken up their residence. This was evident most of all in Russia, notably from the disputes which arose from our action in these matters. It was inevitable that there should have been, in any case, a difference of opinion between prisoners of war and colonists, and if it had not been settled by transferring the whole military movement to the broad basis of the policy directed by the National Council, it would have been a perpetual menace to the whole of our revolutionary movement.
At the moment when the National Council began its systematic work in matters relating to troops and prisoners of war, our brigade in Russia and our volunteers in France and England numbered slightly more than two thousand men. It was the task of the National Council to transform this movement into an enterprise of great political, diplomatic, and military scope. It would be wrong to underestimate the importance of the pioneer military work of our colonists in France, England, America, and, above all, in Russia. In the latter country the National Council exerted its influence upon the military undertakings, partly by Masaryk’s intervention and more decisively by sending Dürich and Štefánik to Petrograd and Kiev respectively.
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It was just after Masaryk’s visit to Briand that Štefánik proceeded on his first journey to Italy. Masaryk remained in Paris, partly to discuss Slavonic affairs and the proposed series of lectures at the Sorbonne with Professor Denis and his friends, partly to elaborate with us a common plan for our political and military work. Dürich paid no great attention to these political matters, maintaining a certain reserve, and so, in the course of February, during numerous conversations with Masaryk almost every day after our evening meal, we made
