am not complaining of this, but merely placing the fact on record. It will help to throw an accurate light upon our movement abroad. In the literature dealing with our struggle for independence there are detailed accounts of all these matters. I will therefore make no further reference to these hardships, disappointments, and struggles. I will add a few words on the subject from a political point of view.
When in September 1916 we began our systematic movement among the prisoners of war in France, and shortly afterwards in Italy, we could reckon with tens of thousands of such prisoners. In Russia their number certainly exceeded 50,000; in Italy there were more than 10,000; and in France about 4,000. We thus had the opportunity of forming an army containing tens of thousands. In Russia the movement among the prisoners was already in progress, while in the West the recent successes of the National Council had led us to expect equally rapid results.
The character of this movement was, of course, the same in all the Allied countries. It encountered the same difficulties and followed the same procedure. Accordingly, what I have to say about the organization of the prisoners in France will, in general outlines, apply to all the Allied countries.
This is a subject which most strikingly illustrates how ignorant the Allied Government and political circles were of conditions in Austria-Hungary. And although, in the course of time, they began to realize that preferential treatment should be given to our prisoners, and that it was possible even to use them for military and political purposes, we nevertheless for a very long time, and in many cases up to the end of the war, encountered complete lack of understanding on the part of subordinate officials and local authorities. It was a gigantic task to overcome all these obstacles. Our prisoners must have been endowed with superhuman patience to achieve what they did, without giving up hope or surrendering to complete despair.
In addition to this ignorance and lack of understanding, the mistrust and fear of spies which influenced the Allied authorities for so long, prevented us for a considerable time from achieving any noteworthy success. There were prejudices or principles of international law with which the Government circles opposed our endeavours with regard to the prisoners. Certain very authoritative quarters where conservatism, legitimism, and monarchism were rampant, harboured fear of our revolutionary tendencies. It was in Italy and Russia where these motives
