With the Czechoslovak Army in Russia.
By the Rev. Kenneth Miller.
Mr. Miller was until last year in charge of the Settlement House connected with the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church of New York. He it probably the only old stock American who can speak the Czech language fluently. He was sent to Russia in the summer of 1917 as a Y. M. C. A. secretary and has been the director of Y. M. C. A. work in the Czechoslovak army.
The story he sent to the Bohemian Review was written by him in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, on January 24, 1918. It took nine months to reach the United States. The reader should remember that Mr. Miller wrote the following long before America heard that there were Czechoslovak soldiers in Russia.
If every Bohemian in America could have the experience that I am having of living in the midst of the Czechoslovak army in Russia, the subscriptions to the work of the Bohemian National Alliance and to the Bohemian Liberty Loan would pour in so fast that the treasurer would have difficulty in counting them. And if every American could have a like experience there would arise throughout the length and breadth of the land such an insistent popular demand for the independence of Bohemia that President Wilson would be forced by the sheer weight of public opinion to include in his peace terms even more explicitly than he has already done the demand for the political freedom of the Czecho-Slavs.
Leaving America at a time when all the energy and enthusiasm of the nation was being turned into the successful prosecution of the war, and entertaining high hopes that Russia would yet play an important role in the war against German militarism, one can imagine my discouragement upon arriving in Russia to find that not only was Russia to be counted out of the actual warfare, but that the government had fallen into the hands of people who, wittingly or unwittingly, were playing into the hands of the German war-lords.
Not a bright spot did I discover in the whole situation until I arrived at Petrograd, and came in contact with some of the leaders of the Czech revolution movement in Russia, and with some of the officers and men from the Czechoslovak army.
I must confess that prior to my departure from America I was very dubious about the ultimate outcome of the Czechoslovak revolutionary movement. Now, however, all doubts are forever dispelled, and I am absolutely confident that the Czechoslovaks will, as an outcome of the war, secure their political independence, for which they have longed for generations, and which they so richly deserve.
Two considerations have led me to this firm convictions. The first is the news which is constantly received here in Russia of it ternal disorders in Austria, which are taking more and more the form of an open revolution, and in which the Bohemian patriots at home are taking a leading part. When Bohemian papers in Austria can print a map of the proposed Czechoslovak independent state, and Bohemian representatives in the Austrian parliament state openly that they will be satisfied with nothing less than complete political independence, one can be sure that the iron hand of Hapsburg autocracy is losing its grip upon the throat of the smaller nationalities in the empire, and that it will not be long before they tear themselves loose, and win their long desired freedom.
The second consideration which makes me absolutely confident that Bohemia will be free is the spirit of the men who form the Czechoslovak army. I first caught the spirit of this volunteer army at Petrograd in conversation with officers and men who had taken part in the famous charge at Zborov during the July offensive of the Russian army. We had received but little news of this glorious engagement in America, and hardly anything of the glorious part played by the Czechs.
I have heard the story now hundreds of times, and I never tire of listening to it because I see in it a most remarkable resemblance to the battles of the Hussites in the olden times. The reckless daring of the men who charged without being at all adequately armed; the quick thrust which took the Austrians by surprise; the panic of the enemy at the approach of the “red and white devils”, as they call the Czechs from the little ribbons they wear on their hats; the arrangement to play a game of football in Lvov the week following; the holy exaltation of the men combined with a fierce unrelenting hatred of the enemy are all elements which are familiar with the his-
