THE MARCH OF THE CZECHO-SLOVAKS THROUGH SIBERIA

By far the most picturesque of the events occurring in Russia during June and July, 1918, was the so-called Czecho-Slovak movement.

In the earlier periods of the war, but especially after the first revolution, in March, 1917, great numbers of Czechs, or Bohemians, and Slovaks, in the Austrian Army, had surrendered to the Russians voluntarily, on account of their hatred of Austria. The Bohemians and Slovaks are Slavs by race, so closely allied racially to the Russians that they are able to converse together with little difficulty. Whole regiments of them had come over to the Russians, en masse, and were enrolled as special regiments in the Russian Army.

Shortly before the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference the French Government requested the Lenine Cabinet to equip and send on their way for the western front these Slavic soldiers of the Russian Army. This request was granted by the Soviet Government, and the Czechs and Slovaks, said to number 100,000, were allowed to retain their arms and entrain for France, via the Siberian Railroad.

At this time the Czecho-Slovak troops were decidedly not opposed to the Bolsheviki; on the contrary, most of them were known to be Socialists, and their sympathies were inclined to be in favor of all radical Russians. Upon hearing that this large body of soldiers was to leave Russia for the western front, Germany, naturally, raised a strong protest after the signing of the peace treaty. By this time the Czecho-Slovaks were en route on Siberian territory.

As to the cause of the friction which arose between them and the Soviet Government forces, there are two versions. One side contends that German pressure forced the Bolsheviki to endeavor to disarm the Czecho-Slovaks and intern them again. This effort was violently resisted and led to open hostilities.

The Bolsheviki affirm that the request of the French Government was not made in good faith; that behind it was an intrigue whose object was to make of the Czecho-Slovaks an armed force which should be the nucleus of an uprising against the Soviet in Russia. At an opportune moment the Czecho-Slovaks were to attack the Red Guards, hoping to rally around them all the anti-Bolsheviki forces in Russia, and so cause an overthrow of the Soviet.

Whatever the truth may be, open hostilities began on May 26, 1918, when Czecho-Slovak forces began operations in the Volga district and in Siberia simultaneously. Early in June, 1918, they had taken possession of a considerable stretch of territory in the Volga district, including several important towns. At about the same time some thousands of them, arriving at the terminus of the railroad, in Vladivostok, precipitated an uprising there and took possession of the city. On June 9 and 10, 1918, they occupied Samara and advanced to Ufa, in the Urals, where they were able to seize the railroads by which European Russia obtained its food supplies from Siberia. By the middle of June, 1918, they were in control of the southern section of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, from Samara to Chelyabinsk, the northern branch from Chelyabinsk to Ekaterinburg, and the main line on the east of Novonikolaiefsk. Some weeks later they held the railroad from Chelyabinsk, in the Ural Mountains, to Krasnoyarsk, a distance of 1,300 miles, as well as its eastern terminus, while scattered units of the Czecho-Slovak army stretched clear across Siberia.

On June 30, 1918, a pitched battle was fought with the Red Guards at the important city of Irkutsk, in Siberia, from which the local Bolshevist soviet was ousted. On the same day the last of the Bolsheviki were driven out of Vladivostok, the fighting being so severe that the Japanese and English warships in the harbor were obliged to land marines to protect the Allied consulates. Having established themselves in Vladivostok, the Czecho-Slovaks advanced into the Amur region and took Nikolaiefsky, on the Amur River, besides a number of other towns. By the middle of July, 1918, most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad was in the hands of the Czecho-Slovaks.

Meanwhile the Czecho-Slovaks in the Volga region were also engaged in heavy fighting with the Soviet troops. On July 9, 1918, the Soviet Government announced that it had delivered a heavy defeat to the Czecho-Slovaks at Bugulma, the enemy fleeing in the direction of Samara. Another dispatch stated that Muraviev, the commander of a large force of Soviet troops, suddenly decided to go over to the enemy and march with them on Moscow. When his soldiers refused to obey him, he committed suicide.

The commander in chief of the Czecho-Slovak forces in Russia is the Russian General Dieterichs, who was chief of staff under Dukhonin, after the fall of Kerensky. In a statement addressed to the American representative of the Finnish People's Republic, the Czech Socialist Federation of the United States insisted that the Czecho-Slovak movement in Russia was in no way connected with counter-revolutionary intrigues tending toward a reestablishment of the autocracy, or of a constitutional monarchy, the great majority of the Czecho-Slovaks being themselves Socialists. Professor Masaryk, representing the movement in Washington, says:

"Our army is struggling against the external foe. We are the guests of our brothers in Russia and we will not interfere in their internal affairs."

On July 10, 1918, a new, autonomous Siberian Government was proclaimed, with headquarters at Novonikolaiefsk, on the River Ob. The new government, while anti-Bolshevist, is radical in character and is based on universal suffrage and a constituent assembly representing all classes of the population.

On the same date, July 10, 1918, General Horvath, vice president of the Chinese Eastern Railroad, proclaimed himself military dictator of another government of Siberia. He established his headquarters at Harbin.