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The Fighting Czecho-Slovaks: Czechs

Willing to join the Czechs.

This Czechish heart centre of virile independence acted as a powerful magnet wherever their bands moved. All through Russia and Siberia, there are refugee groups from Poland, Lithuania, Courland and the Riga District. These people have no love for the Germans who drove them from their homes nor for the Junkers of their own communities who handed their lands over to the Germans rather than have them divided by the Bolsheviks. Germany is finding that there is finding that there is a difference between saving landed proprietors from hostile peasants and workingmen and the huge task of enslaving these same peasants under the Prussian yoke. Hundreds of these elements in Russia's great refugee population wanted to enter the Czech expedition, but these fighters were compelled to keep their army small, compact and homogeneous. Transportation was insufficient. Even Czech artisaus were refused a place in the trains unless they could pass rigid examinations. The willingness of other forces to unite with the Czechs may well be counted on when the call for them comes in Siberia and Russia.