At the same time, however, it was reported that the Bolshevik Government, having completed its military preparations, was inaugurating an advance against our legionaries.
At the beginning of October 1918 our troops on the Volga front realized that in their exposed position they would not be able to hold out for long against the pressure of the Bolsheviks. They were disappointed because no help had arrived from the Japanese or the rest of the Allies, and they saw that the anti-Bolshevik Russians were incapable of rallying for any firm resistance which might lead to a restoration of the Russian State authority. It was under these circumstances that on October 4th our troops began to retreat, first from Syzran then from Kazan and Samara. Our army was now wearied and discouraged, but the turn of the tide on the Western front in Europe, the recognition of the National Council in Paris as a Government, and the collapse of the Central Powers at the beginning of November 1918 saved the situation.
Koltchak’s coup d’état on November 18, 1918, removed our troops from military co-operation with the Russians. Not wishing to bear any responsibility for the internal events in Siberia, they gradually left the Volga front, handing it over to the Russians, and retaining only the railway for their own purposes. At the end of December the Czechoslovaks had definitely withdrawn from the Volga area. On December 30th Ufa was lost, and at the beginning of 1919 Generals Štefánik and Janin withdrew all our troops from the Russian anti-Bolshevik front. By this time, too, the Czechoslovaks, knowing that the war was at an end, and that their country had been liberated, were anxious to reach home with as little delay as possible.
The above is a concise account of our Siberian anabasis. It was a remarkable exploit from a military and a human point of view, while in a political respect it was of great significance. In Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia our common soldiers had joined the Austro-Hungarian regiments, they had then passed over to the ranks of the Russians, and after severe hardships and sufferings the greater part of them, amid the chaos of revolution, had entered the improvised volunteer organizations, in which for some time they fought against the very people whom they had just left. Then, under the auspices of their great leader, they set out on their march across the vast spaces of Russia and Siberia; they occupied close upon 8,000 kilometres of railway, little by little, fighting against all kinds of
