Rola Korpusu Czechosłowackiego w wojnie domowej w Rosji

• Authors: Dariusz Radziwiłłowicz

Title variants

EN

The Role of the Czechoslovakian Corps in the Russian Civil War

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The Czechoslovak units in Russia originated from the “Česká Družina” which was formed as early as in 1914 in Kiev. The inflow of volunteers who crossed the front line in the first months of the war was made up of four companies, and then in 1915 and 1916 further companies were formed, which were assigned to Russian divisions and functioned as reconnaissance subunits. The first larger unit formed from Czech and Slovak prisoners of war was an infantry regiment created in February 1915. In May it was re-formed as a brigade, and in autumn of 1916 a 50-thousand strong corps was created. It consisted of two infantry divisions. The baptism of fire for the Corps’s units was the battle of Zborow on the 2nd July 1917. After Bolshevik Russia signed the peace of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, Russia’s Bolshevik authorities concluded an agreement with the Czechs on the Corps’s evacuation through Vladivostok to France. In May 1918, Leon Trotsky issued the order to disarm the Corps, which was already in the course of evacuation by the Siberian railway trunk line. The Czechoslovaks rejected Trotsky’s demands and in late May-early June captured most railway junctions on the evacuation route, cutting off Moscow’s communication with Siberia and the Far East. When the Corps occupied Samara, deputies to the Russian Constituent Assembly (mainly Esers) formed an anti-Bolshevik government (the so-called “Komuch”). The Corps as an allied force connected with the Entente became, consequently, the most important anti-Bolshevik military force in the areas of the Volga Region and Siberia. When Komuch government was overthrown by Admiral Kolchak, the Corps’s units were for a longer time the main armed force of his army. At the end of 1918, the Czechoslovak Corps was withdrawn from the front and sent to protect the Trans-Siberian railway. After a series of “White” armies’ defeats at the end of 1919, the Corps started evacuation to Vladivostok. In 1920, the soldiers of the Czechoslovak Corps left the ports of the Far East and by sea and then through West European countries reached Czechoslovakia.

Keywords

EN

Russian history of the twentieth century; the civil war in Russia; the struggle against the Bolsheviks; Czechoslovak Corps

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warmińsko-Mazurskiego
• Journal: Przegląd Wschodnioeuropejski
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 1
• Pages: 107-127

Dates

published

2010

Contributors

author

Dariusz Radziwiłłowicz

• Warmia and Masury University in Olsztyn

Identifiers

ISSN

2081-1128