The Cursed Highway

When the Czechoslovak army in Russia began to withdraw from the anti-Bolshevik fronts at the turn of 1918–1919, the soldiers believed they would soon be going home. This was not the case. Long, weary months of a “small” but all the more bloody war for the vital Trans-Siberian Railway awaited them. This book deals not only with the military operations along the railway but also with the decline in morale within the army, including the “Czechoslovak uprising” in Irkutsk in the spring of 1919, which almost led to a civil war among the legionaries. The demanding daily life in the Siberian taiga and the first ship transports back to their homeland are not overlooked either. For most legionaries, however, 1919 was not their last year in Russia, as many of them did not leave for their homeland until a year later.