Reading about the artist George Lax, I came across his painting “Czechoslovak Army Entering Vladivostok”. And I was like — 😳 Moreover, the flag in the painting is Polish!
I started to look into it. It’s known that Czechoslovakia didn’t exist until 1918, but there were Czechoslovaks. During World War I, Czech immigrants living in Russia organized themselves into national battalions in Kiev under the command of Russian officers. Additionally, captive Czechs and Slovaks who expressed a desire to fight against Germany and Austria-Hungary joined them. They fought successfully, but then the October Revolution of 1917 occurred, causing problems for the Czechs who supported the Provisional Government at that time. In France, plans were being made to create Czechoslovakia, and it was decided to help the Czechs in Russia reach France to form the Czechoslovak Legion. They then refused to help Kiev, and on January 26 (February 8), Kiev was captured by Soviet forces.
The Czechoslovaks were based in various places — Chelyabinsk, Penza, the Carpathians, Kemerovo, Irkutsk, Vladivostok. In addition to reaching France, they also faced problems moving west — an ideological conflict matured and the Red Guards began disarming the legionnaires. The direct path to France was blocked, and even the northern route through Murmansk and Arkhangelsk (and then by sea around Scandinavia) was very dangerous due to German submarines actively pirating in Soviet territorial waters. Ultimately, it was decided to send the legionnaires via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok and further via the Pacific and Indian Oceans to Europe. Appreciate the scale!
From there, a lot happened that halted the Red expansion in the eastern territories, and our Czechoslovaks were very much involved. More details can be read through the link below.
The Czechoslovak Army and the Red Army were quite “at daggers drawn”, but money resolved everything: a truce was reached. The Czechs handed over gold to the Bolsheviks in exchange for unhindered departure to Vladivostok. The first ships with Czechoslovaks left in December 1919. In total, over 72,000 people were shipped to Europe on 42 ships. The last arrived in Czechoslovakia in November 1920, as the civil war in the European part of the former Russian Empire was coming to an end. More than 4,000 legionnaires died or went missing in Russia.
And the flag in the painting—a flag of the Bohemian Kingdom of the Czechs, which officially ceased to exist in 1918 by transforming into Czechoslovakia.
https://foma.ru/zalozhniki-chuzhoy-voynyi.html
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 