concentration at the stations was prohibited. They had to procure their
trains and their provisions, and they had constant trouble with the
Bolsheviks, because in every district there was a practically independent
Soviet Government with whom the Czechs had to negotiate. The first
detachments with the generalissimo of the army, General Diderichs, at the
head arrived in Vladivostok at the end of April, 1918. But the other
detachments were constantly held up by the Bolsheviks and had great trouble
in passing through.

They moved from Kieff _via_ Kursk, Tambov, Penza and Samara. The two
last-named towns lie on the line between Moscow and Tcheliabinsk at the
foot of the Urals, whence a direct line runs across Siberia to Vladivostok.

As we have already pointed out, the Bolsheviks agreed in principle to allow
our troops to leave Russia. Their commander-in-chief, General Muraviev,
allowed the Czechs free passage to France on February 16. The same
concession had been granted by the Moscow Soviet. On the whole the Czechs
were on tolerably good terms with the Bolsheviks. Professor Masaryk
rejected every plan directed against the Bolsheviks submitted to him even
by such of their political adversaries as could not justly be called
counter-revolutionaries. The Czecho-Slovak troops went still further; they
actually complied with the request of the Bolsheviks and partially
disarmed. The trouble only began in May, 1918, when the Bolsheviks yielded
to German intrigues and resolved to destroy our army.

Already at the beginning of May the Czechs had begun to feel embittered
against the Bolsheviks, because in defiance of the agreement their troops
were constantly being held up by local Soviets. At Tambov, for instance,
they were held up for a whole month. At Tcheliabinsk the Czechs had a
serious scuffle with Magyar ex-prisoners on May 26, and the Bolsheviks