small detachments which had considerable difficulty in keeping in touch
with each other. Nevertheless the fates were favourable to them. They were
victorious almost everywhere, thanks to their wonderful spirit and
discipline.

The first victories gained by the Czecho-Slovaks over the Bolsheviks were
at Penza and Samara. Penza was captured by them after three days' fighting
at the end of May. Later the Czecho-Slovaks also took Sysran on the Volga,
Kazan with its large arsenal, Simbirsk and Yekaterinburg, connecting
Tcheliabinsk with Petrograd, and occupied practically the whole
Volga region.

In Siberia they defeated a considerable force of German-Magyar ex-prisoners
in Krasnoyarsk and Omsk and established themselves firmly in Udinsk. On
June 29, 15,000 Czecho-Slovaks under General Diderichs, after handing an
ultimatum to the Bolsheviks at Vladivostok, occupied the city without much
resistance. Only at one spot fighting took place and some 160 Bolsheviks
were killed. The Czecho-Slovaks, assisted by Japanese and Allied troops,
then proceeded to the north and north-west, while the Bolsheviks and German
prisoners retreated to Chabarovsk. In September the Czech and Allied troops
from Vladivostok joined hands with the Czecho-Slovaks from Irkutsk and
Western Siberia, and thus gained control over practically the whole
trans-Siberian railway. By this means they have done great service to the
Allies, especially to Great Britain, by defending the East against the
German invaders. Furthermore, it was the Czecho-Slovaks' bold action which
induced Japan and America at last to intervene in Russia and for the sake
of Russia, and it was their control of the Siberian railway which made such
intervention possible. Let us hope that their action will lead to the
regeneration and salvation of the Russian nation.