could manage to place a large number of military units on the French front. Being permanently settled in Paris and in Western Europe, I directed the whole activity of the National Council and of the secretariat consistently and unremittingly in accordance with this factor. In this matter I never changed my point of view or my tactics throughout the war.
Further events gradually tended to confirm us in this policy. The Franco-Russian agreement for the transport of Russian troops to the Western front soon broke down for political and technical reasons. It was evident that Russia was unable to keep her promise. General Lokhvitsky, who was in command of the Russian troops in France, was greatly upset at this, and so was General Count Ignatyev, the Russian military attaché in Paris. In the conversations which I had with them they made no secret of the fact. When we mentioned to them the scheme for transporting a part of our prisoners of war to France they both emphatically approved of it, and they took the view that our army might in some way be linked up with the Russian troops in France, so that close co-operation could develop between them, thus increasing their influence and strengthening their authority. These were the arguments which they brought to bear on me, on Dürich, and on the National Council in general.
Seeing this, I was not slow to take advantage of their personal interest to secure support for our movement, and I began, through them, to influence the Russian Ambassador in Paris and the authorities in Petrograd direct. I did this because I was afraid that the opposition of the leading people in Russia might spoil our plan. I did not anticipate any difficulties from the French, because I saw the continually increasing shortage of troops on the French front. Through our relations with official circles, Štefánik and I had already received the unequivocal answer that if the Russian government gave its consent, France would promote the organization of the army in every possible way.
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It was under these circumstances that in the spring of 1916 the question of Dürich’s departure for Russia arose. On April 2nd Dürich informed me that he had received a message from Petrograd asking him to go there. On April 7th Masaryk telegraphed to me from London that it was time for Dürich to
