Posted on 05/28/2018 11:52:22 AM PDT by KC Burke
RUSSIA’S CZECHOSLOVAK LEGION of World War One was an army without a country.
The 60,000-man unit, raised between 1915 and 1917, was made up of Czech and Slovak patriots keen to free their ancestral homeland from Austrian rule. By taking up arms in the name of the Russian Tsar, the men of the unit hoped that after the war the great powers would reward them with statehood.
But when in 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power following the collapse of Russia’s Romanov dynasty and then made a separate peace with the Central Powers, the Czechoslovak Legion suddenly found itself trapped deep inside an unwelcoming country. With nowhere to run, the unit fought its way across 9,000 kilometers of Siberian wilderness towards the Pacific port city of Vladivostok… and hopefully freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at militaryhistorynow.com ...
That was covered by the author as well, and also up in the Archangel / Murmansk area but these were much smaller forces with very limited impact on the forces of Lenin trying to consolidate his happenstance victory.
Indeed. This story would make a fantastic movie.
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Remember the way the sunlight shines through the heroine’s hair as she stands up in the stadium during The Natural? Roy doesn’t even see her but he knows the virtues he struggles to achieve and senses her.
The women that were with the Czechs included wives and children by the time the
journey ended. I know my woman with the golden hair keeps me inspired. It is hard to hold men’s attention so you have to cut us a little slack.
The “Russians” that took Prague were dressed in German Army uniforms and were remnants of Vasloff’s Army who chased the SS units left to secure Prague out. They then surrendered Prague to a Czech delegation. Who once surrounded by the Stalinist forces allowed them to take the Vasloff group as prisoners and most if not all wound up being executed as traitors. Most of them were probably Ukrainians that fought with the Germans against the Russians .
Another good link
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/czechoslovak_legions_russian_empire
Yes, I remember, and one does what one must for the story. But really, they all probably had lice.
Great museum! Thank you for your work on it.
There were decades where 75% of their collection could not be shown until the restoration of the memorial and the new space added. The complexity of the restoration was something that most people had little understanding of what it took to accomplish.
All the old artillery pieces really spoke to me as I learned some drafting discipline from an old Architect buddy of my dad’s in the 60s when I was a kid. He would pass the time telling me WWI stories when he was a Lt in the artillery.
I can’t sell the ones I have.
LOL
Thanks, I have no background on any of that.
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