m divided by the
Bolsheviks. Germany 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 artisans 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.

[Sidenote: The National Assembly of Bohemia.]

[Sidenote: Attractive decorations of the cars.]

The General Staff train on which I rode carried, in addition to the cars
for officers and men, a hall for the National Assembly meetings, a
complete printing outfit, a photographic dark-room, with full equipment
for still and motion pictures, a bakery, kitchens and a laundry. It was
on this moving train, all parts of which were connected by telephone
with the car of the commanding officer, that the plans for a New Bohemia
were being worked out. A daily four-page newspaper was published on the
General Staff train. It gave the ideals of the expedition, the current
news translated into Czechish, lessons in French for the use of the
forces on landing in France, and quotations from Professor Masaryk.
About four thousand copies of this paper were printed every day and
distributed not only among the Czechs but among many of the Austrian war
prisoners, who were thus informed of the ambitious plans these fighting
independents saw before them. Their trains showed their versatility and
love for decoration and home-making. Not only were they clean, but
hundreds of the cars were decorated with life-size drawings, and with
quaint designs in evergreens. To enable the men to find their friends, a
roster of the occupants of the car was printed on the red flanks of
their freight wagons. On the roofs, model aeroplanes and wind-mills spun
in the breeze. A Czech train reminded me of a picnic, and, aside from
the earnestness, it was.

[Sidenote: Study and athletic contests.]

For some travelers, the Trans-Siberian trip is monotonous. It was not
for the Czechs. They read and studied. They were always busy--even
before their clashes with the Bolsheviks began to take up some time. The