as our people from Bohemia and Slovakia who had been in Russia when the war broke out, put all their hopes in official Russia. Not until they had got to know what official Russia really was, and after the Revolution had opened their eyes, did they change their views. All the greater is the merit of the Petrograd colony whose members kept an open mind throughout, particularly during Stürmer’s administration, and were steadfast in the conviction that our struggle for independence must bear a uniform character. Three names deserve special mention—those of Pavlu, Čermák and Klecanda. To this policy our prisoners rallied; and, at the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, even before the Revolution, voices from our camps called for uniformity of action under the Paris National Council. The way our prisoners organized themselves politically in the various camps, and gave expression to their views in all kinds of memoranda which they addressed both to the “League” and to the Russian Government, is the more significant because the camps were isolated and the action they took was, I believe, taken independently.
Military Difficulties.
In Petrograd my first care was to get my bearings and to learn in detail what had happened since 1914 in relation to our military affairs. True, I had received, from time to time, written and oral reports besides the news from Štefánik; but now I was in a position to go more closely into things. What I knew of official Russia had never led me to expect any great readiness on its part in helping to create our army; and, naturally, the reverses of 1914 and 1915 had not increased Russian eagerness to trouble about any non-Russian formations. Yet, in 1916, with Brusiloff’s offensive, hope had revived, and France had supported our movement in Russia through Štefánik. When Brusiloff failed, pessimism set in again and, with it, indifference towards any new undertaking. The Russians were estranged, moreover, by the haziness of our own people as to what they really wanted and by the unsavoury quarrels between them. Frankly, I often wondered that the Russians had so much patience with us.
On behalf of the Czechs at Kieff, Dr. Vondrák had laid before the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the War Office a scheme for a Czech army. This scheme asked the Russian Government to recognize the “League” as the representative of the Czech people, for its authors never seem to
