On reaching Cognac I found that our troops, especially the officers, were in a despondent mood and showed signs of resentment against the National Council. Several weeks of uncertainty had produced a demoralizing effect; the unsettled financial conditions, the surplus of officers, and certain unfair arrangements with regard to the promotion or appointment of those who had already been officers; the disappointment prevailing in a corps of about 120 officers and cadets who had come from Russia on the understanding that they would serve in France as privates, and would wait until they obtained their nominations—all this was now intensified by a fresh disappointment. First of all, the French Ministry of War had decided that the command was to be restricted to French officers, the Czechs being allowed only to act as their assistants, and to learn their duties gradually. Our newly arrived officers from Serbia added to the number of those who were dissatisfied, or of those against whom a grievance was harboured by the officers not yet appointed, and then, to make matters worse, our officers had discovered that the process of appointment and the general procedure in France were far more difficult and far stricter than in Russia, and that they would not therefore be in charge of their companies, battalions, or regiments for very long.
The French Ministry of War had thus refused to grant our officers the same standing in the army as they had had in Russia, on the grounds that the fighting on the Eastern front was different from that in France, and that our officers were not qualified to prepare troops for the front. They were therefore to start from the beginning again under the leadership of French officers and then, in the course of time, they could be made independent. The feeling which this aroused among our officers was such that it was ready to break out at any moment. Such was the situation which I found on my arrival at Cognac, and it showed me what difficulties we were likely to encounter in organizing our army.
Owing to its political status the National Council was compelled to accept the ruling of the Ministry of War. In the first place, I had admitted that it was a reasonable one as far as the chief points were concerned, and besides this we had no particular interest in having our troops sent to the front at an early date. From our point of view it was more important to wait until our forces were sufficiently numerous to enable us
