THE CZECHO-SLOVAKS IN SIBERIA.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—I have found to-day (July 29th) in the North China Daily News—as telegraphed from Shanghai—what I have been looking for in our Press for weeks : a demand that we shall be repre- sented with the Czecho-Slovak forces now on the Siberian Railway. In the autumn of 1914 I was in Russia, and from the outbreak of the war Sir John Hanbury-Williams, Captain Blair, and, I think, two other English officers, represented us with a Russian army of several millions. At the beginning of October Lord Kitchener, wishing to be in close touch with the Russian War Office, sent three Russian-speaking officers, a Major of Artillery, a Captain, and a Lieutenant of the Yeomanry, to Petrograd. They had an office in the Russian War Office, and telegraphed to him twice daily what was important. These three officers, as well as those I have named, are well known 4 name and personally to such survivors of the Russian General Staff as may yet be fighting agaillot the Germans, and would he able to keep their leaders
in touch with the Allies. We are daily expecting to hear that considerable Japanese forces have been landed, and while it is essential that not a battalion of English or American troops be diverted from the West to the Far East; it is the more important that the existing forces on the Siberian Railway should be strengthened by the presence of accredited representatives of our Government. The advantages to the Allies of doing this at once, if indeed such officers are not now en route, are too obvious to mention. Interference with the military plans of such leaders as Semenoff would not be attempted, but the Allied forces in the Far East will need, and have needed, to be co-ordinated and brought into touch with the rest of the Allies in Europe and America.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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