We already told the first part of their tale, of their formation as technically part of
the French Foreign Legion, but in the field as battle units eventually fighting for the
Entente in the west, the east, and the south.
However, that tale was by no means finished, and I’ll continue it today- Czechoslovak
Legions, Part Two!
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a second Great War special episode about the Czechoslovak
Legions.
When we left off, Russia was just about to officially leave the war.
Although an armistice had been signed months earlier, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed
in March 1918.
Ukraine had signed a separate peace a month earlier.
This left the Russian Czechoslovak Legion in a pretty tough spot.
See, in 1918, as we saw in part one, the 1st Czechoslovakian Brigade and the Czechoslovak
Military Forces would see heavy action on the Western and Italian Fronts.
Thomas Masaryk had by 1918 set up an autonomous Czechoslovak Corps of over 40,000 men in Russia
and those guys wanted very much to go west and help in the fight, even with Russia out
of the war, and after the Battle of Zborov in 1917; they had a heck of a good international
reputation.
But they were kind of trapped.
They couldn’t go west or south without running into enemies, it was also now too dangerous
for them to go north to Murmansk and Archangel, so the only thing left to do was to cross
all of Russia, crossing Siberia and making their way to Vladivostok, and then going all
the way around the world to France.
This they began to do.
Masaryk and the men had gotten Bolshevik Ukrainian permission to cross Ukraine in February, but
there was a new wrinkle.
The German army launched an offensive on the Eastern Front to force the Russian Bolshevik
government to accept Draconian peace terms, and that army of course did not want the Legion
evacuated.
This led to the Battle of Bakhmach in mid March.
The town was a major railway hub and the Germans reached it March 8th.
The Legion was in danger of being surrounded, and captured Legionnaires were summarily executed
by the Central powers as traitors to Austria-Hungary, so it was a tough situation.
Over the following five days, though, the Legion defeated two German divisions in bloody
battle and the Germans then negotiated a truce, which allowed for the legions to bring their
armored trains through Bakhmach and on to Chelyabinsk.
On their journey, the Legion encountered many German and Austrian former prisoners of war,
who were heading east to their own lands to fight, and this caused big tensions in general,
but also because both sides needed the train tracks for their own use.
The going was slow.
When the Legions left Ukraine and entered Soviet Russia, they had to negotiate with
the Bolshevik authorities there.
This led to the Penza Agreement on March 25th, under which the Legions were to give up most
of their weapons in exchange for unmolested passage to the east coast.
It was actually Josef Stalin who drafted the agreement, and as civilians, the Legionnaires
could carry some weapons for self-defense.
Still, tensions were running incredibly high since neither side trusted the other.
The Bolsheviks suspected the Legion would join the White Russians in the Civil War.
The Legion leadership was wary of the Czechoslovak Communists, a part of the Bolsheviks in Russia,
maybe trying to subvert the men.
They also figured the Central Powers were pressuring the Bolsheviks to stall them as
much as possible.
There was a shortage of locomotives, the railways themselves were often in terrible shape, and
the Legions had to negotiate with local Soviets- committees- again and again and again.
It all blew up in May.
There was an incident in Chelyabinsk the 14th.
The Legion was heading east and former Hungarian POWs were heading west.
A chunk of metal or stone thrown by a Hungarian either wounded or killed a legionnaire- sources
differ.
Some Legionnaires then stopped the Hungarian train and apparently killed the perpetrator.
This causes the local Soviet to arrest the Legionnaires, which in turn causes the Legion-
by now strung out along the whole stretch of the Trans-Siberian railway- to occupy Chelyabinsk
and free those arrested, who faced execution.
So on May 21st, Leon Trotsky, after discussion with Lenin, gives the order to Russia to disarm
or kill any member of the Czechoslovak Legion on sight.
So the Legion was now at war with Soviet Russia and the Red Army, and fighting erupted at
points all along the railway.
The Revolt of the Legions lasted for the rest of the spring and summer.
The Czechoslovakians occupied numerous cities on the route eastward across Siberia, even
as White Russians overthrew Bolsheviks authority in local capitals like Omsk.
By the end of June, the Whites controlled the railway from Lake Baikal to the Ural Mountains,
and over the summer Bolshevik power in Siberia was destroyed.
The Bolsheviks had, however, executed the former Tsar and his family in Ekaterineburg,
less than a week before the Legion arrived and occupied the town.
Side note- the Bolsheviks may have thought a rescue was imminent, but I have no information
that the legion even knew they were there.
Anyhow, when Kazan was captured on August 5th, so was an imperial gold reserve, but
by the beginning of the autumn, morale had dropped heavily among the Legions.
The Red Army, growing ever stronger, had begun its counter offensive, retaking Kazan in September,
the Legions had no reliable reinforcements and were not themselves growing in number,
in any case they were not even fighting the war they wished to fight, and when an independent
Czechoslovakia was created October 28th, they wanted to simply go home.
A coup in Omsk installed a dictatorship under Alexander Kolchak in charge of White Russia,
and over the next year the Legion guarded the railway- Kolchak’s only real supply
route- from partisan attacks.
As 1919 wore on, though, Kolchak’s armies retreated from the advancing Reds, and when
Omsk fell in November, the White army and thousands of refugees began the Great Siberian
Ice March eastward.
The Legions then declared their neutrality, but when Kolchak was stranded on the railway
and his bodyguard deserted, Allied representatives ordered the Legion to get him to Vladivostok.
Instead, they turned him over to the local government in Irkutsk.
The Whites accused the Legion as traitors.
In February 1920, Kolchak was executed by the Cheka, and the Legion signed an armistice
with the Red Army, which allowed unmolested passage to Vladivostok to finally go home.
The first transport ship left already in December 1919, and the last in September 1920.
In all, 67,630 people were evacuated on 36 ships.
They took two main paths- the Southern path, China, Hong Kong, Ceylon, Arabia, Egypt, and
Trieste, or the journey around the world, Japan, the Pacific, Vancouver or the Panama
Canal, and across the Atlantic to Europe.
And after that?
They became the core of the Czechoslovakian army, and soon fought the Hungarians and the
Poles, successfully defending the borders of their new nation, of which Tomas Masaryk
became first President.
Many of them became schoolteachers when not at war, oddly enough.
A lot of monuments were built to the Legion, though the majority of them were destroyed
in the Nazi occupation and the Communists weren’t in any hurry to rebuild them.
Since 1989, some have been restored.
Their legacy for their nation is a strong and proud one and their tale, particular those
who served in Russia, a remarkable one.
From small beginnings, by 1918 the Czechoslovak Legions, on whichever front they served, were
a large and valuable fighting force, with an international reputation for excellence.
The adventures across Russia and the Russian Civil War were a lot more complicated than
I had time to cover today, and it’s just a fabulous story of a bizarre and chaotic
period of history; you should very much look it up yourself to dig deeper, you won’t
regret it.
We want to thank Jack Salthouse, Jakub Weberschinke and the Czechoslovak Legion Association for
helping us putting this episode together.
If you haven’t seen the first part about the beginnings of the Czechoslovak Legions,
you can click right here for that.
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See you next time.