Jaroslav Hašek

“ It is difficult to say just where our first brigade accomplished its most wonderful deeds, for all its units along the entire broken front held back the pressure of the gigantic German-Austrian might with such sang-froid that the equipment of the Russian units could be saved and artillery had a chance to pull out in time. Wherever our boys were stationed, not a single gun was lost. The first regiment by its fierce defense of the heights at Ostasevce made possible the destruction of the great army depots at Jezerna so that the Germans captured very little booty there ”

“ Think of soldiers who abandoned their stations and nonchalantly walked back in streams regardless of the fact that comrades who did not go would be soon overwhelmed by waves of Germans and Austrians, that in a few hours there would be but little islands of hopelessly outnumbered fighters, where there had been the strong Russian front. Such islands were the regiments of the first Czechoslovak brigade. They stood firm in a mighty dam and alone held back the German flood. From July 5th to July 15th Czechoslovak regiments threw back unaided the German attacks. ”

“ Every member of the Czechoslovak Brigade realized how much depended on our resistance and how the entire Russian army would be encouraged by a demonstration that the Germans could be held up. We made it possible that the masses of deceived soldiers got over their hypnotic state and stopped running away, after they perceived that some regiments were still facing the enemy and keeping him out of Russian territory. We talked with a man who ran away with the disorganized masses. ”