Then the Revolution came, and, as the prisoners were freed, the Czechs and Slovaks flocked to their own colors, and I with them. If I live forever I shall never forget how I felt when I found myself among my own people, our red and white flag waving over us, and heard the band play our "Kde domov muj." When we had to swear our oath of loyalty to Francis Joseph before leaving Austria-Hungary, all Czech and Slovak soldiers mumbled the words. When we swore the oath of obedience to Prof. Masaryk, "the little father," as we called him, who had come to Russia, we shouted it so joyously and loudly that the people from around came to see what all the noise was about. CHAPTER XIII UNCLE JOZEF'S STORY CONTINUED I WAS so happy now. Every morning I awakened with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. For were we not going to free our dear, our native land, of the usurper? We again sang our native songs, which we had not been allowed to sing in the land of our birth; sang them so often that we came to be known as "The Singing Czecho-Slovaks." Whatever state we came from, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, or Slovakia, we were quite united now, and had only one word for each other and that word was "Brother." And in the spirit in which we sang, we also fought. No longer did the Germans and Magyars call us cowards. They now called us "red and white devils," because of the colors on our hats. At the famous charge at Zborov, there was almost a religious exaltation as we marched to the field singing the glorious hymn of the Hussites: "All Ye Warriors of God." Here we captured sixty-two officers, and three thousand one hundred and fifty soldiers, fifteen guns and many machine guns, turning most of the latter against the enemy. But our bravery did little good, the Russians were deserting the army so fast. In 1917, I was slightly wounded. This prevented my taking part in the terrible battle at Tarnapol, in Galicia, where our men were entirely abandoned by the Russian troops. It was a wonderful charge they made, the men rushing in where danger was thickest and resisting to the last, and the officers blowing out their brains rather than surrender. When the Germans invaded Bessarabia, before preparing to resist them, we bound ourselves by a most sacred oath: "In the name of our national honor, in the name of all that is most dear to us as men and as Czecho-Slovaks, with full realization of this step, we swear to fight alongside of our allies to the last drop of our blood, against all of our enemies, until we have obtained complete liberation of our Czecho-Slovak nation, until the Czech and Slovak lands are reunited into a free and independent Czecho-Slovak state, until our nation is absolutely mistress of her destinies. "We solemnly promise, whatever may be the danger and whatever may be the circumstances, without fear and hesitation, never to abandon the sacred goal of our fight.