The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1918. ALLIES FROM CENTRAL EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 263, 26 July 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JULY 20, 1918. ALLIES FROM CENTRAL EUROPE

At a direct view the arrangement the Allies are understood to have concluded with the Czccho-Slovaks in regard to intervention in Siberia is one of the most extraordinary which history records, As it has been outlined, it is an arrangement under which the Allies will freely trust, a body of former Austro-Hungarian soldiers to carry out on their behalf tho dclicalo mission of repelling German f;i:hemca > in the- East and promoting the political regeneration of tho Russian people.' The working scope of the mission is limited only temporarily to Siberia. It will fall short of its intended purpose if it-s effects arc not felt ultimately to the remotest confines of what used to be the Russian Empire. In order that Russia may be preserved from becoming a German province it is urgently accessary that the Allies should actively aid and stimulate whatever patriotic forccs in that country have survived the calamities and disorders of the revolution. For a time it denied that the only way to promote these objects was to send to Siberia a military expedition of Japanese and other troops, which, as it moved westward, would draw together the orderly sections of the Russian population and create the settled conditions in which it would be possible to render Russia the economic assistance she so badly needs. The bold initiative of tho Czecho-Slovaks by which they have already made themselves a power in Siberia has raised somewhat more hopeful prospects. These former soldiers of the Dual Monarchy are Slavs, and on that account arc initially better qualified than any Japanese or other Allied expedition could possibly be to rouse the dormant spirit of the Russian nation. At the same time they have given such proofs of their quality, not only jn Siberia, but as loading actors in a widespread movement of liberation, as to afford substantial grounds for a belief that jt ( is safe to trust them to administer and protect the assistance the Allies hope to render Russia. IP, as rccent reports declare, the Allies have dccidcd to make use of their own forces in Siberia only to the extent of establishing a secure base at Vladivostok, and to leave the further development of the enterprise to the Czecho-Slovaks, there is little doubt that they are taking the course which in the circumstances promises the best and most satisfactory results. Though tihe Czccho-Slovaks are in a literal sense deserters from tho Austro-Hungar-ian ranks they are not ordinary deserters. They arc, in fact, worthy representatives of an enslaved nation which sees in this war a golden opportunity of achieving the independent freedom it has been denied for centuries. The Czecho-Slovak movement in Siberia is not an isolated phenomena, but one which is to-day paralleled in various theatres of war, notably in France and on the Italian front where Czechoslovak troops are upholding their own eauf:o and thai; of the fin I rule both in national corps and as volunteers in one or other ot the Allied armies.

In spite of all that tyranny has done to extinguish their separate identity the Czecho-Slovaks arc a nation in everything but enjoyment of the freedom which is a nation's birthright. Czechs and Slovaks are for practical purposes one stock. Tho principal distinction between them is that in 1867 tho Slovaks

were handed over to the tender mercies' of the Magyars, while thi'ir Czecho kinsmen remained under Austrian misrule. At the present day tho two branches of the race number in the aggregate nine million souls—nearly one-fifth of the population of the Dual Monarchy— and the war had hardly begun before it became evident that the Czecho-Slovaks were bent on revolt. It is a full explanation of the policy tlicy have unflinchingly pursued in spite of savage intimidation and terrorism that, being determined to achieve freedom, they have nothing in common with their tyrants and are heart and soul with the Entente, in its determination to establish world conditions in which all nations will be able to live safe and free. For the Czecho-Slovaks in their home territories, as for other subject races in the Dual Monarchy, the period of tho Avar has been one of martyrdom. Their men enrolled and sent to the front have from the outset refused to fight for the cause of the Germans and Magyars. Kept at all times under close observation, at the front as well as behind tho lines, and in spite of such devices as the inclusion of forty per cent, of German or Magyar troops in their service battalions, the Czechoslovak soldiers have been intent from first to last upon passing from the Austro-Hun-ganan to the Entente ranks, and have done so in hundreds of thousands. It has ken truly said that the. more fact of men going through all the dangers of desertion at the front and then entering the ranks of the "enemy" army, with the knowledge that, if taken prisoner, th-cy would be shot out of hand, is a. sufficient test of the ardour with which tho Czechs desire their liberation and light for it. It was in these circumstances that the Czechoslovaks who have now taken up the task of restoring order in Siberia entered Russia. What manner of men they are may be gathered from a description given by a British correspondent of a detachment of Czecho-Slovak troops whom ho visited in Italy.

I have never (lie observes) seen finer, sturdier men. As ono of their officers faced a steel-helmctcd line of tliern and shouted a command, their bayonets came out with a rattle and were driven in with a si ern precision that bodes i o good to t.he Germans, Austrians, or Magyars they meet. They seemed in wonderful spirits, and their officers say (hat this good humour is a sign of exuberant delight. Every man feels that an effective reconstitiition of their nation is at long last near. When they first found themsolvcs up against German-Austrian Iroops they could scarcely be contained, and their first patrol went out singing. The I\o Man's Land between them and the Austrians was difficult indented ground, and they took advantage of every inequality, leaping up every now and then and crying some insult at the enemy. Only once have Austrian palrollers dared to attack them, and they retired when the Czechs firod their first shot in reply. Most of those I saw were exiles- from Bohemia" proper nnd the Slovak provinces. The men are very with fine. op"u. honest faces. Such is their onlhnsinsni that I hey have lonnr kept training in the hopes that some owivwtunity iviobt oreui- to serve a»ninst Austria, and so when the constitution of their army wns decided on l.lioy were soon roadv for the ranks. Officers with wlmm T r-wlce esnressM their deep irrefUude to Ttalv for ni° manner in which she Ims taken tni= ijreit new movement to her heart, and said they would never forect it.

Even if its material value were slight, the spontaneous co-operation of these Slav subjects of the Dual Monarchy would be a splendid vindication of the Entente cause. But iu actual fact the Czecho-blo-vaks arc in the forefront of a movement which directly and indirectly brings >1 great accession of strength to the Entente and correspondingly weakens the Germanic Alliance and tends to ina'ko its hopes of world domination vain. In its total scope •the movement is a growing revolt amonist the subject raccs of the Hapsburg Empire as a whole. These raccs number in all thirty million souls as against twenty million Ger-man-Austrians and Magyars by whom they are oppresscd-Austna-Hungary is a- house in which twenty masters rule over thirty slaves. The Southern Slavs, of whom some six and i\ half millions live under Hapsburg rule, have followed the example of the Czccho-Slovaks _in taking every opportunity of making common cause with the Entente, and have sent many thousands of fine soldiers to reinforce the Serbian Army which is fighting gallantly on the southern confines of its invaded country. The Poles and other raccs also are increasingly restive, and as a, whole the forces making for the disruption of the Dual Monarchy are gathering head. Bearing these facts and the conditions or.fc of which tbey arise in vi'.ul it is easy to assess at - their real value 'hypocritical professions like that lately made by Count Czeenin that Austria is less guilty than Germany, and is even predestined for the role of mediator. The truth is that the political conditions ruling 111 Aus-tria-Hungary are largely _ those which the Central Empires in conjunction have sought to impose upon a great part of the world, and that the efforts of the German-Mag-yar oligarchy .to maintain and perpetuate these conditions had as much as Germany's unscrupulous ambitions to do with casting Europe into the maclstroin of war. The overthrow of this vile tyranny is an essential condition of a just and stable peace,_ and few things are of better promise as they bear upon the war and the settlement to follow than the developing revolt of the oppressed . races of the Dual Monarchy and their readiness when opportunity serves to whole-heart-edly co-operate with the Entente. The Gzecho-Slovak enterprise in Siberia is a conspicuous, but ,by no means isolated, example of (he spirit by which these races -are animated.