The Czechoslovak Legion were volunteer armed forces consisting predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the side of the Entente powers during World War I and the White Army during the Russian Civil War until November 1919. Their goal was to win the support of the Allied Powers for the independence of Lands of the Bohemian Crown from the Austrian Empire and of Slovak territories from the Kingdom of Hungary, which were then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the help of émigré intellectuals and politicians such as the Czech Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and the Slovak Milan Rastislav Štefánik, they grew into a force over 100,000 strong.
Walerian Czuma was a Polish general and military commander. He is notable for his command over a Polish unit in Siberia during the Russian Civil War, and the commander of the defence of Warsaw during the siege in 1939.
The Battle of Komarów, or the Zamość Ring, was one of the most important battles of the Polish-Soviet War. It took place between 20 August and 2 September 1920, near the village of Komarowo near Zamość. It was the last large battle in Europe in which cavalry was used as such and not as mounted infantry.
The Russian Civil War spread to the east in May 1918, with a series of revolts along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway, on the part of the Czechoslovak Legion and officers of the Russian Army. Provisional anti-Bolshevik local governments were formed in many parts of Siberia and other eastern regions during that summer. The Red Army mounted a counter-offensive in the autumn of 1918. Throughout the winter and spring of 1918/1919, the White Army had dominance over this front. In the summer of 1919, and from then onward, the Red Army defeated the White commander Aleksandr Kolchak. The White Army collapsed in the East as well as on other fronts throughout the winter of 1919/1920. Smaller-scale conflicts in the region went on until as late as 1923.
The Siberian intervention or Siberian expedition of 1918–1922 was the dispatch of troops of the Entente powers to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by the western powers, Japan, and China to support White Russian forces and the Czechoslovak Legion against Soviet Russia and its allies during the Russian Civil War. The Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy Siberia even after other Allied forces withdrew in 1920.
Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterikhs served as a general in the Imperial Russian Army and subsequently became a key figure in the monarchist White movement in Siberia and the Russian Far East area during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923.
The Great Siberian Ice March was the name given to the 2000-kilometer winter retreat of Admiral Kolchak's Siberian Army from Omsk to Chita, in the course of the Russian Civil War between 14 November 1919 and March 1920.
1st Polish Corps in Russia was a military formation formed on 24 July 1917 in Minsk from Polish and Lithuanian personnel serving in the Western and Northern Fronts of the Russian Army.
Kazimierz Rumsza was a Polish general.
Sergey Nikolayevich Voytsekhovsky was a Colonel of the Imperial Russian Army, Major-General in the White movement, and Czechoslovak Army general. He was a participant in the Great Siberian Ice March.
During the Polish–Soviet War fought from February 1919 to October 1920 between Soviet Russia and the Second Polish Republic – in the aftermath of World War I in Europe – the Polish order of battle included broad disposition of personnel, strength, organization, and command structure.
The revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion comprised the armed actions of the Czechoslovak Legion in the Russian Civil War against Bolshevik authorities, beginning in May 1918 and persisting through evacuation of the Legion from Siberia to Europe in 1920. The revolt, occurring in Volga, Ural, and Siberia regions along the Trans-Siberian Railway, was a reaction to a threat initiated by the Bolsheviks partly as a consequence of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. One major secondary consequence of victories by the Legion over the Bolsheviks was to catalyze anti-Bolshevik activity in Siberia, particularly of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly, and to provide a major boost for the anti-Bolshevik or White forces, likely protracting the Russian Civil War.
Polish Armed Forces in the East around World War I is a term used for several Polish military formations formed in Russia and operating in the period of 1914–1920. Early formations were part of the Imperial Russian Army. Later, during the Russian Revolution, the Polish formations were mainly allied to the White Russian forces and the Western powers. All the formations were eventually incorporated into the Polish Army by 1920.
Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was a Russian military leader and polar explorer who held the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia from 1918 to 1920 during the Russian Civil War, though his actual control over Russian territory was limited. Previously, he served in the Imperial Russian Navy and fought in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
The Battle of Borkowo took place on 14–15 August 1920, during the Polish–Soviet War. Polish Army's Siberian Brigade, commanded by Colonel Kazimierz Rumsza, clashed with Red Army's 11th and 16th Rifle Divisions. Polish Siberian Brigade was supported by subunits of 9th and 18th Infantry Divisions. The battle took place near the village of Borkowo, where Poles defended the Wkra river crossings.
The First Krechowce Uhlan Regiment was a mounted unit of the Polish Army, active in the Second Polish Republic. Its traditions were continued during World War II, by a regiment of the same name, which was part of Polish Armed Forces in the West. The First Krechowce Uhlan Regiment was formed in 1915, as a unit of the Imperial Russian Army. It fought in World War I, Polish–Soviet War and the Invasion of Poland, as part of Suwalska Cavalry Brigade. Until 1939, the regiment was stationed in Augustów. It ceased to exist in 1947. The first commander of the regiment was a Tsarist officer of Polish ethnicity, Colonel Bolesław Mościcki, who was killed in 1918 near Luninets. The last commander was Colonel Leon Strzelecki.
The 4th Eastern Siberian Corps was formed in September 1918. On the orders of the Major General P. P. Ivanov-Rinov, the commander of the Siberian Army, on 17 September 1918, A. V. Ellerts-Usov, the commander of the Irkutsk military district, took over the corps. The Corps was one of the main formations of the Siberian Army during the Russian Civil War.
The Chita Operations were a series of military engagements fought in the Russian Civil War. On 10 April 1920, the army of the Far Eastern Republic (FER) launched the first operation, aiming at destroying the White Movement's Chita holdup in east Transbaikal which prevented it from connecting with its allies in Primorsky Krai. The first operation ended three days later, a second offensive likewise failed to achieve its final objectives. Fighting continued, however neither side could boast significant territorial gains. On 15 July, the FER signed the Gongota Agreement of 1920 with Japan, the latter's withdrawal from Transbaikal severely weakened the Whites. The FER army was restructured and reinforced by its new commander Genrich Eiche, while morale under Grigory Semyonov's White units plummeted. On 1 October, Eiche launched the final Chita operation, by the end of the month the area of the Chita holdup had been subjugated.
The Russian State was a White Army anti-Bolshevik state proclaimed by the Act of the Ufa State Conference of September 23, 1918, “On the formation of the all-Russian supreme power” in the name of “restoring state unity and independence of Russia” affected by the revolutionary events of 1917, the October Revolution and the signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.
The West Siberian rebellion was the largest of the Russian peasant uprisings against the nascent Bolshevik state. It began in early 1921 and was defeated at the end of 1922, due in part to the brutal repression of the militarily superior Red Army, and the famine that the region suffered.
