Sergei Wojciechowski Biography . Early life and career . He graduated from Technical High School in Velikiye Luki ( 1902 ) , Constantine Artillery School . [ Konstantinovskoe Artilleriiskoe Uchilishche ] , St . Petersburg ( 1904 ) and the Imperial Nicholas Military Academy ( 1912 ) . Wounded and was awarded several medals in the fighting in the Carpathians and the Dnieper basin . Czechoslovak Service in Russia . From December 1917 he was Commanding Officer 3rd Rifle Regiment ( of Jan Žižka z Trocnova ) ( took office in February 1918 ) . From May 1918 he was Senior military commander of the Czechoslovak Legion in the area of Chelyabinsk and was also a member of the Military Collegium of the Provisional Executive Committee of the Czecho - Slovak army in Russia : a body heading the Czechoslovak armed forces that opposed the Bolsheviks . During the night of 26 to 27 May 1918 , commanding the 2nd and 3rd Czechoslovak infantry regiments , he took Chelyabinsk with no losses . On 27 May 1918 he was appointed Commander of the army units of the Chelyabinsk and Ural front . As a result of hostilities in May - June 1918 in Chelyabinsk he was joined by the troops of the Siberian Tatar group of Czechoslovak troops under the command of Czech general Rudolph Gaida . On 11 June 1918 he was promoted , by decision of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Czechoslovak National Council , to the rank of colonel and was appointed to lead the Western Group of Forces ( 2nd and 3rd Czechoslovak Rifle Regiments and the Kurgan infantry battalion ) . In June 1918 he took Troitsk and Zlatoust , then in July was sent to the Urals . After taking Yekaterinburg on July 25 - he stayed in Yekaterinburg . In August – September 1918 his group was expanded by groups from the 2nd Infantry Division and was then fighting in the area of Yekaterinburg , Nizhny Tagil , Kungur and Tyumen . Colonel Wojciechowski personally led the battles to capture the Verkh - Neyvinsky plant , leading a group of Czechs . They moved along the east coast of Tavatuy Lake and took Nizhny Tagil . On 17 October 1918 " for distinction in combat and distinguished service " he was promoted by the Czechoslovak National Council to major - general and appointed commander of the Samara group of troops of the Government Directorate . He commanded defensive battles in the Volga region : not only did he stop the advance of the Red forces , but he threw them back across the Ik River , securing a firmer footing on the white Samara front . In an era of increasing contrasts between the command of the Czechoslovak army and the Supreme Ruler Aleksandr Kolchak he supported the latter . Army General under Admiral Kolchak . On 8 March 1919 he returned to the Russian service ( in the army of the Supreme ruler of Kolchak ) with the rank of major - general . He was appointed commander of the 2 - m Ufa Corps , which headed part of the White Russian forces in the spring offensive of 1919 , in the battles of Ufa , Zlatoust and Chelyabinsk . Major - general Wojciechowski was awarded the Order of St . George 4th degree in July 1919 for having captured Chelyabinsk , Troitsk , Chrysostom , and Yekaterinburg in 1918 . From August 1919 he was Commander of the Ufa group of troops . During the Tobolsk White offensive on 1 September 1919 despite the plight of his right flank , he completely fulfilled his task of flanking the 27th Red Infantry Division . Then he turned his force northwards during the battle and destroyed the enemy on the Siberian Army front , than let her go ahead , although it is early in the course of the failed counter - attack . During this period on 12 September 1919 Major - general Wojciechowski was awarded the Order of St . George in the 3rd degree . From 1 October 1919 he was Commander of the 2nd Army . As a supporter of strict discipline he personally shot and killed , on 20 November 1919 in the village of Ust - Tarka , Major - General P . P . Grivin for unauthorized abandonment of his front that forced the retreat of Wojciechowski ' s southern group . Then the troops appointed a new commander and he ordered them to return to the abandoned position . The Great Siberian Ice March . After the death of General Vladimir Kappel on 25 January 1920 during the Great Siberian Ice March , Major - General Wojciechowski succeeded him as Chief of the Eastern Front . He supervised the entrance of the White Army into Irkutsk and on 30 January 1920 destroyed the red troops in that area and on 1 February 1920 also took the suburb of Cherm . Later , he led fierce fighting near Irkutsk , where his army was weakened by an epidemic of typhus . Kolchak demanded the surrender of the reds and the gold reserves , and the supply of the white troops with food , fodder , and warm clothing . On hearing that Kolchak had been shot , Major - General Wojciechowski did not storm Irkutsk : instead two Infantry units skirted the city and the Angara river up to Lake Baikal and on Feb . 14 in a surprise attack floated troops across from the eastern shore . He brought out the remnants of Kolchak ' s troops across Lake Baikal . On 20 February 1920 , General Grigory Semyonov appointed him commander of the Russian eastern regions . From the 5th to 6 March 1920 , Major - General Wojciechowski successfully withdrew his forces from the area around Krasnoyarsk . But in May , 1920 , Wojciechowski was seconded to the Crimea to establish a connection with the Armed Forces of South Russia , becoming the Army Reserve of General Wrangel . In November 1920 , together with his troops he was evacuated to Constantinople , and then moved to Czechoslovakia . Army General of the Czechoslovak Republic . On 1 May 1921 he was appointed to serve in the Czechoslovak army and served in different posts in the following years as follows : On 30 December 1929 was promoted to the rank of Army General . In September and October 1938 he was in command of the 1st Czechoslovak Army . During the Munich crisis of 1938 he took an active anti - capitulatory position ( at that time one of the advocates of surrender was General Jan Syrový ) and for that in April 1939 he was dismissed . In 1939 - 1943 he was a member of the Russian Armed Services Union ( EMRO ) . In 1939 , after Germany ' s occupation of Czechoslovakia , he created and headed an underground organization called Obrana národa ( " Defence of the nation " ) . He was under surveillance by the Gestapo and was a member of the underground Czechoslovak government where he served as Minister of War . Post - War fate . Until May 1945 Wojciechowski was in Prague . On 12 May 1945 he was arrested by the Soviet counterintelligence SMERSH and 30 May 1945 sent to Moscow and held in Butyrka prison . The NKVD of the Soviet Union charged him with involvement in an " anti - Soviet organization " namely the Russian All - Military Union , which was aimed at an armed overthrow of Soviet power and the organization of terrorist acts against the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party and government " . He was convicted on 15 September 1945 to 10 years in prison . Until March 1946 he was held in Butyrka then in Unzha camp ( nearest station Sukhobezvodnaya on the Gorky Railway ) . From 25 May 1949 he was at the MVD Ozerlag ( Lake Labour Camp ) Special Camp No . 7 , Tayshet , Irkutsk Region . Due to poor health and old age he worked as a medical orderly in the camp hospital . He died in the camp on 7 April 1951 from " pulmonary tuberculosis and exhaustion " . He was buried in the cemetery of the Central Hospital Special Camp No . 1 , near the village of Shevchenko , Tayshet district of the Irkutsk region . The Czechoslovak government never protested against the imprisonment of Wojciechowski or other former adherents of the Russian White Guard . Decorations . Awarded by Imperial Russia : Awarded by Czechoslovakia : Awarded by France : Awarded by Yugoslavia : Awarded by Czech Republic :