File No. 861.00/2531
The Military Attaché in Russia (Ruggles) to the Secretary of War
[Copy received from War Department, May 17.]
24. Forty-six thousand Czecho-Slovak troops have been sent from the Ukraine and detachments are scattered between Samara and Vladivostok. About 6,000 have reached latter place and will embark there. All at Omsk and west at places mentioned have been ordered to return and will be sent to Archangel and Murmansk. None yet at last two places named. About 2,500 Serbian troops have passed here via [en] route Murmansk. About one-third of all above-mentioned troops are armed with rifles. They also have about 100 machine guns. None of the Czecho-Slovak troops employed to be used for policing railroads and probably not in case of intervention unless requested by Russia. The movement is financed mostly by France, the balance by Russia. They are commanded by their own officers and board of Russian officers of the general staff who control their movements. French officers have been assigned. It is intention of French Government to send these troops to France at the earliest possible moment. The number of these troops is being daily increased by voluntary enlistments from among 40,000 other Czecho-Slovak prisoners of war in Siberia in spite of efforts of Bolshevik government to induce them to enlist in Red Guards. These efforts meet with little success.