29 JUNE 1918, Page 2

The Czeoho-Slovak soldiers who were captured or who deserted from

the Austrian armies during the Russian campaigns have organized themselves in hands, and are making their way across Siberia in order to reach America and proceed thence to the Western Front. Fifteen thousand of them have reached Vladivostok. One detachment had a pitched battle at Irkutsk with a body of Bolsheviks and German prisoners who treacherously attaoked them. Other detachments are said to be in control of the Siberian Railway between the Ural Mountains and Irkutsk. The anarchy prevailing in Russia makes such things possible. The. German forces which have overrun Southern Russia are known to be very small, but they have driven the Bolshevik mobs before them like chaff before the wind. It seems a pity that the Czeoho-Slovaks could not stay in Siberia to form a nucleus for the respectable elements who wish to be rid of their Bolshevik tyrants.