page_title: Army of the Czech Republic
section_title: Czechoslovakia
hierarchical_section_title: Army of the Czech Republic / History / Czechoslovakia
caption_attribution_description: Czech army Sgt. Van Kmecik and Croatian army Master Sgt. Bravko Horvat discuss patrol routes while patrolling through the woods during a military advisory team training exercise at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, Dec. 10, 2012. MATs and police advisory team rotations are designed to replicate the Afghanistan operational environment while preparing teams for counterinsurgency and improvised explosive device operations with the ability to train, advise and enable the Afghanistan National Army and the Afghanistan National Police. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tristan Bolden/Released) VIPER COMBAT CAMERA USAREUR Photo by Spc. Tristan Bolden Date Taken:12.10.2012 Location:HOHENFELS, BW, DE Read more: www.dvidshub.net/image/800266/military-and-police-advisor...
context_page_description: The Army of the Czech Republic, also known as the Czech Army or Czech Armed Forces, is the military service responsible for the defence of the Czech Republic in compliance with international obligations and treaties on collective defence. It is also set to support peacekeeping, rescue and humanitarian operations both within the national territory and abroad. Armed Forces consist of the General Staff, the Land Forces, the Air Force and support units.
  From the late 1940s to 1989, the extensive Czechoslovak People's Army formed one of the pillars of the Warsaw Pact military alliance. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic is completing a major reorganisation and reduction of the armed forces, which intensified after the Czech Republic joined NATO on 12 March 1999.
  As defined by the Czech Law No. 219/1999 Coll., the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic are the military forces of the Czech Republic. They consist of the Army of the Czech Republic, the Military Office of President of the Republic and the Castle Guard.
context_section_description: The Czechoslovak Armed Forces were originally formed on 30 June 1918 when 6,000 members of the Czechoslovak Legion in France, which had been established in 1914, took oath and received a battle banner in Darney, France, thus preceding the official declaration of Czechoslovak independence by four months. There were also 50 000 legion soldiers in Russia at that time. The military achievements of the Czechoslovak legions on the French, Italian and especially Russian front became one of the main arguments that the Czechoslovak pro-independence leaders, especially for T. G. Masaryk in America,  could use to gain the support for the country's independence by the Allies of World War I.
  In 1938, servicemen of the Czechoslovak Army and the State Defense Guard fought in an undeclared border war against the German-backed Sudetendeutsches Freikorps as well as Polish and Hungarian paramilitary forces. As a result of the Munich Agreement, areas heavily populated by ethnic German speaking people were incorporated into the Third Reich and military aged men living there were subject to being drafted into the Wehrmacht. Following the Czechoslovakia's complete annexation in 1939 and creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Protectorate's government possessed its own armed force, the Government Army (6,500 men), tasked with public security and rearguard duties. On the other side of the conflict, a number of Czechoslovak units and formations served with the Polish Army (Czechoslovak Legion), the French Army, the Royal Air Force, the British Army (the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade), and the Red Army (I Corps). Four Czech and Slovak-manned RAF squadrons were transferred to Czechoslovak control in late 1945.
  From 1954 until 1990, the Army was known as the Czechoslovak People's Army (ČSLA). Although the ČSLA, as formed in 1945, included both Soviet- and British-equipped/trained expatriate troops, the "Western" soldiers had been purged from the ČSLA after 1948 when the communists took power. The ČSLA offered no resistance to the invasion mounted by the Soviets in 1968 in reaction to the "Prague Spring", and was extensively reorganized by the Soviets following the re-imposition of communist rule in Prague.
  Of the approximately 201,000 personnel on active duty in the ČSLA in 1987, about 145,000, or about 72 percent, served in the ground forces (commonly referred to as the army). About 100,000 of these were conscripts. There were two military districts, Western and Eastern. A 1989 listing of forces shows two Czechoslovak armies in the west, the 1st Army at Příbram with one tank division and three motor rifle divisions, the 4th Army at Písek with two tank divisions and two motor rifle divisions. In the Eastern Military District, there were two tank divisions, the 13th and 14th, with a supervisory headquarters at Trenčín in the Slovak part of the country.
  During the Cold War, the ČSLA was equipped primarily with Soviet arms, although certain arms like the OT-64 SKOT armored personnel carrier, the L-29 Delfín and L-39 Albatros aircraft, the P-27 Pancéřovka antitank rocket launcher, the vz. 58 assault rifle or the Uk vz. 59 machine gun were of Czechoslovak design.
caption: Croatian Army soldier discusses patrol routes with a Czech Army soldier (left)
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