# The Czechoslovak anabasis across Russia and Siberia/Chapter 1

I
The birth of the legions
IN his delightful play “The Winter’s Tale,” Shakespeare imagined the “kingdom of Bohemia” to lie somewhere in the South, on a charming shore. This pleasant though somewhat fanastic conception indicates that even in the 16th century Western Europe was ignorant of the geographical situation of the Czechoslovak nation. Nor does the fact apply only to the 16th century. In the autumn of 1914 the general public of Western Europe had no very clear ideas about the Czechoslovak nation and what it expected from the War.
Nevertheless, the English newspapers of the period printed reports of riots in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, and though these reports were not always accurate, they opened the eye of the world to the fact that the Czechoslovak nation was not content to remain within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The Slavs of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia were not satisfied, either with the German policy of Vienna or with the Magyar policy of Budapest, which resulted respectively in the oppression in the non-German majority of Austria and of the non-Magyar majority of Hungary. The old Habsburg monarchy which had arisen at the time of the Turkish invasions of the Balkan peninsula and Central Europe as a bulwark ​guarding Europe against the menace of the Janissaries, had become, in modern times, an antiquated political formation held together only by the army and the bureaucracy, and not by the mutual interests and cultural and economic development of its component nationalities. Moreover, the behaviour of the dynasty, which was noted for its faithlessness, filled the nationalities with disgust for an Empire which was to them not a mother but a cruel stepmother. In the second half of the 19th century the Emperor Francis Joseph had undertaken to acknowledge, at his solemn coronation as King of Bohemia the time-honoured rights of the people and lands, which together with Hungary and the Austrian lands, had in 1526 laid the foundation of the later Austria-Hungary by uniting of their own free will. Yet shortly afterwards the same ruler revoked the confirmation, given under his own hand, of the royal rescript and refused justice to the Czechs, in spite of the fact that the brutally-exploited Bohemian lands with their flourishing agricultural and industrial life, formed one of the most valuable parts of the territory of the Monarchy.
Shakespeare’s “kingdom of Bohemia” did not border on the sea even in mediæval times; it lay in the very heart of Europe and preserved for centuries its own special character, tradition and independence. A thousand years ago (in 929) a Bohemian prince, Saint Václav (Wenceslaus), the patron saint of the nation, laid the solid foundation of a Christian civilization which spread eastward into the Slav countries of Poland and Russia. The Czechoslovak nation, the westernmost branch of the Slavs, maintained its own language in the face of the powerful German influence ​which, forcing its way to the east and south, engulfed the Slav tribes on the Elbe and in the Baltic region. The Czechoslovaks developed a national civilization, and, under their king Charles I, who as Charles IV was also Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, their country became the centre from which the Renaissance spread through Central Europe; largely owing to the influence of the celebrated University of Prague, which is the oldest of all the German and Slav universities. Under Charles’ son and successor, Václav IV, and long before the appearance of Luther and Calvin, the rector of Prague University, Jan Hus (John Hus), gave the first powerful impulse to the Reformation, of which he was the first great martyr. For fifteen years the Czech Hussites held out against the overwhelming forces of mediæval Rome and defended their country by force of arms. Later, their distinguished king Jiří (George) of Poděbrady by his wise policy reconciled the Pope and the rest of Europe with the “heretics” and laid the foundations of a new and peaceful evolution of the Kingdom of Bohemia. At his death a Habsburg became king by popular election, but the family soon displayed such religious intolerance that they drove the nation into rebellion, and finally into open revolt, which was crushed in the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague, in 1620. Czech autonomy was almost completely abolished and the idea rose at Vienna that the former independent state might be converted into a province of Austria-Hungary, into a province without political rights, at the mercy of bureaucrats, and surrendered to forcible Germanization.
But the Czechoslovak people forgot neither their language nor their former independence. During the ​Great War, which was started by Austria-Hungary without the consent of her Parliament and without the slightest enthusiasm on the part of her non-German and non-Magyar peoples, they gave the world clearly to understand that their sympathies lay with Britain, France, Serbia, and Russia, and not with their own government, which for them meant nothing but political thraldom and economic exploitation. In Russia and France, in England, Serbia, and all the Allied countries to which before the War fate had led Czechoslovak labourers, these men, artisans, engineers, and other workers, young and old, volunteered for service in the armies of the Allies. They were not acting as traitors to the Monarchy which had so often broken its pledged word, but were struggling for the freedom of their own nation, for the recovery of its former political independence, and for its liberation from the “gaol of nationalities,” as the Austro-Hungarian Empire was called by the whole civilized world. In Russia and France Czechoslovak legions were formed and fought under their own national colours on the side of the Allies, sharing their aims for a more equitable reorganization of Europe and of the world. They were opposed to the Prussian militarism of the Emperor William II and his imperialistic dreams of a Germany extending from Berlin to Baghdad, and they ardently desired the independence of their nation. The Czechs and Slovaks, by the compulsory Austro-Hungarian mobilization, were called to colours alien to their hearts and as prisoners in Austro-Hungarian uniforms, came to Russia or France, or later to Italy, in each of which countries they found military units of their countrymen already formed. Can they ​be blamed for wishing to join their ranks and fight for a happier future for their native country? Soldiers, who as prisoners of war, had the opportunity of staying safely in their camps until the end of the War, volunteered to fight on the side of the Allies for the common ideal. In Russia the Czechoslovak legions grew from a battalion of the first volunteers in August, 1914, to a regiment in 1915, a brigade in 1916, and at last in 1917 to a whole army corps of two divisions and one reserve brigade. This corps formed a miniature army complete with all the various branches, with its own staff, and with all the words of command in Czech. The demoralization of the Russian army after the first revolution did not affect it. It did not succumb to the Russian revolutionary chaos and disorganization. It became an island in the storm, an island of discipline and order in the wild confusion which shook the old Russian Empire to its very foundations. Even when Kerensky’s army became disorganized, the Czechoslovak army of volunteers continued to grow under the command of T. G. Masaryk, who was in Russia in those stormy days during the summer and winter of 1917.
It was not easy to resist the formidable impact of the Russian revolution and its influence on the Slav mind. But in the face of Russian anarchy the Czechoslovaks involved their ideal of an independent, coherent and creative democratic state, founded on justice for all, which was to be an important factor of peace and equilibrium in Central Europe, and a bulwark against the mania for imperial expansion. They remained true to their ideal, even when Kerensky’s government was overthrown by the impact of the Bolsheviks, who ​gained the upper hand in Russia in the early days of November, 1917.
The Bolsheviks cancelled the Russian treaties with the Allies and began at once to treat with the Central Powers on the question of a separate peace. Yet to the last moment the Czechoslovak army held out on the Russian front against the Germans and were ready to fight against the common enemy. Not until the ignominious and, for Russia, humiliating peace of Brest-Litovsk and the great invasion by the German and Austro-Hungarian armies of the Ukraine and Western Russia which ensued in the spring of 1918, was the small Czechoslovak army corps forced to beat a retreat eastwards, a retreat that was not uncontested. At Zhitomir in Volhynia and at Kiev the rearguard had many fights against the Germans. In the great battle at Bakhmach the whole Czechoslovak army corps fought its way after a hard struggle, but without incurring heavy losses, through the surrounding lines of the enemy. From there it was able to continue by rail in a huge convoy of about eighty trains, and to leave the Ukraine, which at that time was under the control of the Central Powers, for what was already Soviet territory farther east. As early as the autumn of 1917 the commanders of the Czechoslovak troops declared their neutrality in the party strife and civil war in Russia. It was emphasized that their aim was to recover Czechoslovak independence, and that they hoped to realize it by fighting on the side of the Allies against the Central Powers. They assured the Soviet Government, on whose territory they were, that they were not enemies, and asked only for permission to proceed through Soviet territory to Vladivostok, ​whence, according to previous agreements made with the Allies and especially with France, they were to be brought to the western battle-fields of Europe, there to continue their struggle for the freedom of their people and for the common interests of all the Allies.
In a telegram dispatched by Stalin on March 26, 1918, the Soviet Government informed the Czechoslovak representatives then in Penza, south of Moscow, that it consented to the passing of the legions through Russian territory to Vladivostok. But it demanded their complete disarmament and made various other conditions. The Czechoslovaks, to prove their peaceful intentions, and to secure the means of leaving at the earliest opportunity a country for whose people they felt a brotherly love, accepted these terms, in spite of their disappointing nature. They yearned for a more civilized atmosphere; they were weary of the mad scenes of terrorism, anarchy and Asiatic savagery. And so their échelons began their long pilgrimage of nearly 6,000 miles.
But the Soviet Government did not fulfil its promises with regard to the transport of the legionaries. Soon after Stalin’s telegram was received hostilities began between the 70,000 Czechoslovaks and the Red Army.