to derive political capital from their military functions. But for our officers this decision of the Ministry was a severe blow. Their conclusion was that in actual fact we had no independent army in France, and this provided the malcontents with a plausible reason for starting agitation against the National Council, and arousing mistrust of its political leadership. A number of officers regarded the proposed arrangement as a personal humiliation to them in the eyes of the troops whom they had hitherto been commanding.
It can be well imagined that I had a difficult time at Cognac during my negotiations with Husák and all the rest. It is only fair to add that Husdk himself, although he did not approve of what was being done by the Ministry, realized how matters were, and helped me to pacify the others. In order to achieve this it became necessary to use much personal influence, and also to give a long account of our actual situation in France. I spent three days at Cognac for this purpose, and our officers then resigned themselves to the situation. Nevertheless, they continued to be dissatisfied with Paris for a long time to come. The troops objected that we were arbitrarily carrying out the plans of the French Government with regard to them, irrespective of their own wishes. I knew that this was the case, but I would not give way. The French military authorities at first regarded with suspicion everything which emanated from Bolshevik Russia. They felt misgivings because of the brotherly spirit among our troops, and there were a number of usages which they regarded as the germs of military Soviets. On a number of occasions they told me their opinions of these matters. The Russian Army, especially since the revolution, had been regarded by them with considerable reserve, and this attitude was intensified in the case of our volunteers who had originally been organized in that army. They expressed an altogether non-committal opinion of their technical knowledge. The fact was that they had practically no acquaintance with us, and were cautiously observing how the conditions in our army would develop.
Our troops had arrived from Russia at the time of the Bolshevik revolution, and during the first weeks of their stay in Cognac even the population displayed an exasperating mistrust of them. This, however, did not last long.
This juncture was a decisive one for me. The time was now approaching when decisions of far-reaching political scope
