but I was surprised that neither Korniloff nor Brusiloff, despite their admiration for our lads, dared to change a resolution taken in wholly different circumstances. It became clear to me why the Tsar’s promises had not been kept and why, when the Regulations for our army were finally sanctioned, they had been at variance with our political programme. From Vienna I received trustworthy information that people there knew of and rejoiced over the resistance of the Russian authorities, and over the way in which things were being put off. Our lads attributed to Austrian bribery this systematic obstruction on the part of the Russian civil and military authorities; and the possibility that Austro-Hungarian influences were at work was often discussed in the Russian branch of our National Council. The presence of the same influences was suspected in the dissensions between our parties in Russia, and in the formation of Dürich’s National Council—unknown to Dürich himself—for its organizer, Priklonsky, was publicly accused, even by Russians, of being in Hungarian pay. He had been Consul at Budapest before the war and was seen there again after the Revolution. Štefánik mentioned to me what he thought well-founded suspicions of one of our people at Kieff—the one and only case of alleged treason. I doubted it, and Štefánik promised me written proof. This proof was probably burned when his aeroplane crashed near Bratislava after the war, though I am still unconvinced that it was conclusive.
Organization.
When I had got to know the situation and the principal people I drew up a plan of my own. Our task was to build up the army or, as we called it in Russia, the “Corpus,” out of the original Družina, which had been transformed, first, into a brigade and then into a division with the nucleus of a second division in it. My plan foreshadowed the creation of a “Corpus” and preparation for a second “Corpus,” since plenty of prisoners volunteered for service. I took up the work where Štefánik had left it. Against the Russian idea of making a political, propagandist army, he had upheld our view that we needed a real army, as big as possible, and that it must be sent to France. Upon this we had agreed as soon as Briand had recognized us and our anti-Austrian programme at the beginning of 1916.
But the work was greatly impeded by the variety and number of authorities with which we had to deal. At Petro-
