January 12, 1919

General Stefanik, the strange little stargazer with the pale face, the emaciated frame, and the burning eyes, lunched with me again today and he gave me vivid details of the march of the Czechoslovak legions from the plains of the Ukraine to the shores of the Pacific in which he played a notable part. The Czechs, generally spoken of as liberated prisoners of war although actually many of them were patriotic deserters from the Austrian regiments, were being armed to serve against the Germans when the Russian Empire fell and the succeeding government changed its policy of assistance to the Allies to one of peace at any price. This placed the Czechs in a difficult position, and soon the inevitable incident occurred which led to hostilities.

They were quartered in a prison camp near Tchelyabinsk, and nearby were many German prisoners. In an affray a Czech soldier was wounded, and his comrades killed the aggressor. The German and Magyar prisoners joined in the resulting riot and many were killed on both sides. The local Bolsheviki sided with the Germans, but the Czechs were successful in securing arms and soon they had wrested possession of the town from the Soviet. There was no possible help to be expected from the outside, but unaided the legion advanced to Penza and captured that important town. Meeting with but little real opposition, they proceeded down the Volga and, after capturing Samara and Kazan, they crossed the Urals.

From now on the attitude of the Soviets is difficult to define, much less to describe; after some desultory fighting an order came from the Moscow Soviet, signed by a certain Stalin,¹ ordering the local authorities to give the Legion free passage to Vladivostok; but several days later came a telegram (which the Czechs intercepted) from the same untrustworthy source, ordering that the refugees should be stopped, disarmed, and transported to a concentration camp near Archangel.

There followed now inconclusive skirmishes and desultory negotiations which are equally difficult to follow. At one point Stefanik admits a brigade of Czechs agreed to give up their arms on the ground that these weapons were Russian property distributed at a time when Russia was still an ally of the Western Powers. At this critical moment America and Japan came to an agreement (August 3, 1918) “to render the Czechoslovaks (in Siberia) such assistance and help as might be possible to combat the former Austrian-German war prisoners who were attacking them.”

“That was the original purpose of the American Siberian expedition about which so much misinformation is in circulation,” Stefanik insisted. “As a counterstroke the Soviets asked the German high command to send arms to their former soldiers, now prisoners; but doubtless, with the best will in the world, this they were unable to do, and so the great mass of our legionaries continued their long trek across Siberia.”

Stefanik frankly admits that some, although not many, of the Czechs fell away from the flag. “It was a most difficult and a very complicated situation,” he explained. “Here they were starving and hopeless, thousands of miles away from home and succor. They had always hated imperialism, and here the men who had overcome the Tsars were tempting them with their attractive ideologies. Some but not many succumbed and were swallowed up by the Soviets. But the main body resisted the temptations and now they are on the Pacific coast awaiting the coming of the transports which will bring them home to where they are as greatly needed as they were on the Western Front in 1918. [Following the Armistice there was a letdown and the transports were slow in assembling. The first contingent of the Czechs did not sail until December, 1919, and their repatriation was not concluded until well on into 1920.] And they are not idle; in that benighted land of eastern Siberia they are bringing in the light of a new day. They are organizing workingmen’s clubs, peasant’s banks, and a postal system. They are doing much good; those poor Russian serfs are profiting by their presence.”

One of the charges against the Czech legionaries which is listened to in our present atmosphere, so receptive to muckraking, makes Stefanik very angry. It is the charge that indirectly they were responsible for the murder of the Tsar and his luckless family in Ekaterinburg on July 16, 1918. “As a matter of fact, our people did not reach that place until nine days after the murders were committed,” said Stefanik. “And they had not the slightest intention of liberating the Tsar or in any way taking part in Russian politics. They were simply straining every energy to reach their distant homes.” I have no doubt that Stefanik is quite correct in this statement. His people wished to remain aloof from the internal struggle, but I am afraid the local Soviet which, with or without orders from Moscow, committed the foul deed were not convinced of this.