Weekly journal-miner., 1918-09-04
CZECH -SLOVAK ARMY STARTS ON.
 JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD ID. REACH FRENCH FIGHTING FRONT.
Crusade Ends in Saving Siberia From The Germans And Holding Trans
 Siberian Railroad for the Allies
By Harvey O. Higgins.

One or lnc SlIdllSCSl ana most lnON- ing stories of the war has just reach ed Washington. It is the official ac- count of how an army of 50OO0 men from the Russian front, when Russia had made peace, started to make their way around the world to the fighting line in France, and ended by saving Siberia from the Germans and hold ing the 5000 miles of Siberian railroad for the Allies against the Germans. the Austrians. and the Rus sian Reds" alike. It is a story of one of those miraculous marches that seem beyond endurance and achieve victories that are beyond belief. And it is the story of the wreck of all the German plans in Eastern Russia and the probable salvation of the whole Russian situation for the Allies. It has been brought to Washington by the emissaries of that army, the revo- lutionary army of the Czecho-Slovaks. The leader of their revolution, Prof. Masaryk, has his headquarters in the capital. They have come across the world to report to him.
 The Czecho-Slovaks are one of the oppressed races that have been strug- gling for centuries against Germans and Austrians and Magyars. When this present war broke out, thousands of them escaped across the border into Russia and took service against Austria Thousands more, drafted into the Austrian armies. deserted across the lines. There were perhaps 100000 of them in Russia when the Russian army collapsed. And one army of 50,000 of them under its own leaders still held its lines in the Ukraine after the Ukrainians made peace with Germany.
 When the Bolshevist government at, Moscow also signed the peace of Brest-Litovsk, this army was left toI the mercy Of the Germans. The Aust rian Emperor sent them an offer of amnesty if they would return to Aus tria and promise of autonomy for their people upon their return. They refused to treat with a government that had betrayed them too often. They decided to fall back to the Trans-S;berian railway, to negotiate with the Bolshevilli for a passage across Siberia to Nladivostok, and there 10 obtain ships from the Allies to carry them to France They had no sooner come to this decision than they learned that while the Austrians were trying to hold them with offers of amnesty, German army had been sent to cut them off from the rail road in their rear
 They were well supplied with muni- lions of war. They had gathered to- gether in their camp the equipment of the Russian armies that had desert~ ed their lines after the revolution
 But, like the Russians themselves, they had no food. no shoes. no fodder for their horses, TO proper clothing, no camp kitchens. They looked like an army of tramps, in tatters, their feet bound in rags. They were, in fact, an army of intelligent patriots, revolutionary idcalists, of whom eighty per cent were university men. Every company carried a library of several hundred volumes. They pub 1ishcd every day, even crossing Siberia, a daily newspaper of eight pages. And it was their intelligence that saved them. outwittcd the Ger mans. the .Austrians, the Bolsheviki, overcame all their difficulties and ended by dominating the continent through which. at first, they asked only safe passage.
 Their horses were too weak to pull their wagons They pulled the wag- ons themselves and ate the horse meat They lived on dogs. cats, and frogs. "When we came to pond, " they say, ''thc frogs greeted Us with a chorus. When we passed, there was not frog to be heard" They roasted barley to make themselves coffee, and rolled it out with bottles to crush 5t. and when they had drunk the cof- fee they ate the grounds. They did not try to loot the peasants. Their intelligence saved them from that disaster. They knew they could not fight their way through hostile na- ton. and when they camc to a village and the natives refused them food, they gathered in the market place and stood patiently in silence, sometimes from morning 10 nightfall, until the villagers relentcd and took pity on them Then they paid for what was brought them and went on with the assurance that their comrades who were following them would receive good treatment When they could get grain they carried it with them till they came to a windmill, where they ground it. They say: We did not need toothpaste. The millstones were SO soft that the flour came out half dirt II kept our teeth sharp
 In that way. they approached the