Czechoslovak Legions - an important chapter in history of Czechoslovakia

This chapter of history connected with founding of Czechoslovakia in 1918 had in the time of World War I and after the war an important international impact.

From wiki:
The Czechoslovak Legion (Czech: Československé legie; Slovak: Československé légie) were volunteer armed forces composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the side of the Entente powers during World War I. Their goal was to win the support of the Allied Powers for the independence of Bohemia and Moravia from the Austrian Empire and of Slovak territories from the Kingdom of Hungary, which were then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the help of émigré intellectuals and politicians such as the Czech Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Slovak Milan Rastislav Štefánik, they grew into a force of over 100,000 strong.

Czechoslovak Legions remembrance in France

The members of Czechoslovak legions recruited during WWI also in France and Italy.
The Czechoslovak Legion is a designation used for the volunteer foreign military resistance units of the Czechs and Slovaks during the first World War (and the Russian civil war). The legions were made up of Czech and Slovak compatriots living abroad and former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, who, after being captured by the armies of the agreement, decided to voluntarily join the ranks of the legions and desert to the enemy troops, with whom they then fought against the troops of the central powers, that is, against Czech and Moravian soldiers loyal to the emperor.

Czechoslovak Legions stamps in Russia

The Russian October Revolution seriously changed the situation of the legions. The country fell into chaos, the Soviets initially worked only locally and regionally; they partially refused the access of the Council of People's Commissars and the interim government formed from Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. The legions now supplied themselves by forcible requisition in the face of the disintegration of the tsarist army.

In Russia, Legions took part in several victorious battles of the war, including the Zborov and Bakhmach against the Central Powers, and were heavily involved in the Russian Civil War fighting Bolsheviks, at times controlling the entire Trans-Siberian railway and several major cities in Siberia.

During the winter of 1918–1919, the Czechoslovak troops were redeployed from the front to guard the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway between Novonikolaevsk and Irkutsk from partisan attacks. Alongside other legions formed from Polish, Romanian and Yugoslav POWs in Siberia, the Czechoslovaks defended the Kolchak government's only supply route for the duration of 1919.
In 1920 dozens of Czechoslovak trains were still west of Irkutsk. On 1 March 1920, the last Czechoslovak train passed through that city.The total number of people evacuated with the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia was almost 70 000.After their return to Czechoslovakia, many formed the core of the new Czechoslovak Army.

For those fighting and passing through newly founded Soviet Union it was extremely uneasy to get home to the newly established Czechoslovakia. The direction of navigation of military transports (including those with invalids) was twofold: Either around the Chinese, Indian and Arab-Egyptian coasts and the Suez Canal to Trieste, Italy, or around Japan, across the Pacific Ocean and further through America, either through the Panama Canal, or by rail from Vancouver through Canada or from San Francisco through the United States to the Atlantic Ocean.

Czechoslovak Legion troops in Vladivostok

If you find this chapter of history interesting you can find much more on it here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_Legion

        Thanks for reading

                                       Margaret