the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government a declaration against Dürich’s National Council and in favour of my leadership; and, in a lengthy document addressed to the Provisional Government, it proposed that I should represent the Czechoslovak nation in international affairs while the “League” would represent the Czechs and Slovaks in Russia. This was a repetition of the constitutional error into which the Czechs of Kieff had originally fallen. The “Association” also hastened to present to the President of the Duma a memorandum hotly attacking Stürmer and Dürich—a right-about-turn that did not astonish me on the part of this section of our people. Had not Priklonsky, of the Russian Foreign Office, who had been a warm supporter of Dürich not so long before, threatened immediately after the Revolution to have him locked up!
Nevertheless, Gutchkoff, Minister for War in the Provisional Government, upheld the old decisions against us, refused the “League’s” application for a Czechoslovak army and ordered that our skilled workmen should be drafted into the factories which were working for the defence of Russia. On the other hand, Milyukoff, the Foreign Minister, supported our cause. On March 20 he asked Gutchkoff to assent to the League’s “application; the question of unitary leadership could stand over until I came. He demanded further, on March 22, that Dürich’s National Council should be dissolved. Four days later Gutchkoff agreed. Finally, on April 24, the Military Council of the Provisional Government confirmed the “Regulations for the Organization of the Czechoslovak Army.” On the basis of these Regulations, General Červinka, as President of a Commission ad hoc, began to form the army in May, after the General Staff had instructed the Military Districts to permit recruiting among our prisoners. Thus I reached Petrograd in May at exactly the right time.
Russian Anomalies.
In the West we had long been recognized. In agreement with the Russian Ambassador in Paris, the Entente had declared our liberation to be one of its chief war aims; yet, in Russia itself, we only received recognition—and then indirectly at the twelfth hour, thanks to the Revolution. Why this crying anomaly?
The sober account I have given-in broad outline, omitting details shows that the Russian civil and military authorities, beginning with the Tsar, failed to carry out their promises
