COSSACK PLEDGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18991, 16 April 1936, Page 10

COSSACK PLEDGE

"ONLY GIVE THE ALARM" FIGHT EAST AND WEST LONDON", March 21. Cossack horsemen, clad in the uniform of Tsarist days, decided at a great rally held at Rostoff-on-Don to send a formal request to M. Stalin to 1)0 allowed to serve as "Red" Cossack

cavalry. They also asked that their villages might be allowed once again to form a special reserve and pledged themselves to the service of the Soviet with the words:— "Let Japanese generals, Polish squires, and German Fascists . know, that our Cossack steeds are sturdy,- our sabres sharp, and that our bullets hit the mark. Only give the alarm, Comrade Stalin, and we shall swoop, like hawks to defend our Fatherland's frontiers. And not only we, but our wives and mothers. We swear that the entire, Cossack population of our

townships shall form a mighty reserve for the Red Army, and if an enemy dare attack we shall, in the ranks of the invincible Red Army, ride them down and hack 'them to pieces on their own soil, exterminating them both on the east and the west for ever,'.' Before the request to M. Stalin was decided upon, the Cossacks were addressed by Marshal Budionny, Inspec-tor-General of Cavalry, and a former Cossack non - commissioned officer. Afterwards they rode past the saluting base, brandishing their long sabres.