Kronika československé vojenské mise v Kanadě (1941-1943)

Abstract

In June 1940 the Czechoslovak military unts were evacuated to great Britain and then their leaders looked for the new sources to complete their numbers. It seemed easy to send a call-up mission to North America because there lived the biggest colony of the Czechoslovaks in those times. In spring of 1941 the group of officers was created and its destination was Canada. They should recruit around one thousand voluntaries there. Montréal became the seat of the mission. The group started to develop different kinds of activities, f.e. they undertook many journeys to the biggest countryman centres, the cooperated with the countryman oragnisations, press and radio. This mission was not so successful because the younger generation of countrymen had lost the personal relationship to their country, the health condition of the voluntaries was unsatisfactory and there were also some administrative troubles to secure the families of recruits etc. If we compare this mission with the same Canadian mission of the other European countries occupied by the Nazi Germany (the Poles, French, Dutch, Norwegean, Belgians etc.) it must be said that the Czechoslovaks were relatively successful.