The Czech Legion Revisited* Few Tales of Russia in World War I
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ROWAN A. WILLIAMS (Annapolis, Md., U.S.A.) The Czech Legion Revisited* Few tales of Russia in World War I are more widely known than that of the Czechoslovak Legion. Truly classic Greek in its pathos-the idealism of youth, the stubborn Slavic durability, the bitter cold of those Siberian winters, and the eventual triumph over adversity-all these ingredients have suggested exo- tic words like "anabasis," "saga," and "odyssey." To a great extent, however, the whole experience was a continuum of events long in course. Czechs began migrating into Russia about 1870, and by the outbreak of the Great War about 65,000 had taken up permanent residence in the empire. The war suddenly made enemy aliens of these peaceable settlers, for many had disregarded any invitation to seek naturalization. Moreover, there were those who were by birthright subjects of the tsar, yet bearing such unmistakably Czech names as ?ermák, Zizka, and Hus. Aliens and first generation immi- grants alike were subject to conscription, which raised the question of their treatment should they be captured by the Central Powers. This was the prin- cipal consideration that drew together the Russo-Czechs into a body calling itself "the Union of Czechoslovak Organizations in Russia," or more simply "The Union."i It was this Union, or rather its military commission at Kiev, which persuaded the Imperial Army to condone the first all-Czech military unit of about 350 men, self-styled the Ceskd Druzina, established 20 August 1914. Organized into three companies, the Czechs left for the Ukrainian front on 22 October. The men were attached to combat units for reconnaissance behind the Aus- trian lines and for propaganda work among the thousands of Slavic soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian forces.2 The Druzina, as originally conceived, existed only as a minuscule organiza- tion, totally integrated into the vast Russian army. Under these circumstances, the main drive behind the formation of a Czech national army came not from *This is a revised version of a paper delivered by the author at the Tenth National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, October, 1978. 1. Victor M. Fic, Revolutionary War for Independence and the Russian Question (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1977), pp. 1-8. Hereafter the Russo-Czechgroup will be referred to as "The Union." 2. Ibid., pp. 5-6. Some 13 percent of the Austro-HungarianArmy were Czechs, 4 per- cent Slovaks.Gerburg Thunig-Nittner,DieTschechoslowakische Legion in Russland (Wies- baden : Otto Harrassowitz, 1970), p. 5. 21 Russia, but from within the homeland itself. Like other peoples of East Cen- tral Europe, the Czechs, both Bohemians and Moravians; Slovaks, and Ruthe- nians had for countless generations been suffering from a crisis in self-identity. The dream of panslavism still persisted among them, infinitely complicated by almost every other "ism" of the time.3 Many patriots considered the Bohemian state able to exist only as part of a reformed triple monarchy. Such a one was Karel Kramdf, leader of The Young Czechs.4 Dear to his heart was the image of an empire dominated by the Slav majority.5 Though the ghost of the revolutionary federalism of 1848 did exist before the outbreak of war in 1914, it existed more as an ideology, a "general sentimentality," than as a pragmatic political movement.6 Of course there are extremists in all political credos, but here the "captive nations" of the Habs- burgs were over-endowed. In Serbia, there was Gavrilo Princip, in Bohemia there was Vaclav Klofac, chairman of the National Socialist Party. Klofad yearned to establish a network of saboteurs in the Bohemian crown lands. In January, 1914, Klofac visited St. Petersburg, where with this end in mind he had interviews with the Russian foreign minister and the chief of the gene- ral staff.77 With the coming of the war, however, a different spirit took root that was immediately apparent. True, most of the Czech political parties still pursued their traditional but there were notable Anti-Austrian objectives8 exceptions. ' sentiment was chiefly expressed by 6migr6s in France, Russia, and the United States,9 but there were instances of disloyalty within the empire itself.10 Thomas G. Masaryk, writing long after the event, tells us that he viewed the war as a heaven-sent opportunity for Czech nationalism. To this end he re- moved himself to Geneva, where he began to work for the establishment of a Czechoslovak state. Always the realist, Masaryk's first concern was the mili- tary aspect of sovereignty. "In any case," he declared in February, 1915, "nei- 3. Although thoroughly rooted in the world of Kant, Locke, and Hume, Thomas Gar- rigue Masaryk in 1915 wrote that "the Bohemian people ... are thoroughly Russophile," and in the same memorandum noted that "a Russian dynasty, in whatever form, would be most popular." Hans Kohn, Pan-Slavism:Its History and Ideology (New York: Vin- tage Books, 1953, 1960), p. 227. 4. ToM., pp. 234-35. Kramá1:swife was Russian, and he owned property in the Cri- mea ; J. F. N. Bradley, La Légion tchdcoslovaque en Russie, 1914-1920 (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1965), p. 22. 5. ZbynSk A. B. Zeman, The Break-up of the Habsburg Empire 1914-1918 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961; reprinted New York: Octagon Books, 1977), p. 16. 6. Bradley, La Légion, p. 9. 7. Zeman, p. 18. ' 8. Ibid., p. 46. 9. Thunig-Nittner, p. 9, S. Harrison Thomson, Czechoslovakia in European History, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953; reprinted Hamden, Ct.: Archon Books, 1965), pp. 289-90. ' 10. For example, in Prague. Zeman, p. 51. .