Joan Mcguire Mohr

Take a group of approximately 140,000 men, put them in the position of either having to fight for the wrong side in a war or deserting and go over to the other side, have the other side both welcome them and view them with suspicion, take those that are accepted by the other side and form them into incredibly efficient fighting units, overthrow a government, put these men in the position of having to evacuate by rail over a distance of more than 5,000 miles, toss in the entire gold supply of a nation, a Great Locomotive Chase* lasting for months and involving hundreds of cars and locomotives, war lords, war criminals, marauding bands of every political stripe and moral suasion, burning towns, shooting and looting, double and triple crosses by individuals and nations, and a housewife from San Diego** and you have what might sound like a movie script written by a Hollywood screen writer suffering from an overheated imagination.

In fact, what you have is a book documenting the history of the actions of the Czech and Slovak Legion in Russia between 1917 and 1922. These men left the Austro-Hungarian forces, went over to the Russians, fought for the Russians on the Eastern Front until the collapse of the Tsarist regime and then used the Trans-Siberian railway to withdraw to Vladivostok where they were ultimately evacuated by ships from several nations. Their withdrawal coincided with the rise of the Bolsheviks and the Legion presence on the Trans-Siberian (and their near complete control of that line from end to end) attracted the attention and political aspirations/ambitions/schemes of the Russian White Army, the Russian Red Army, Great Britain, the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia, France, Japan, and the United States. This stew of politics, intrigue, and double cross turned what should have been a straightforward withdrawal into an odyssey of epic proportions.

Courtesy of two “embedded” reporters, Herman Bernstein of the New York Herald and Carl Ackerman of the New York Times, their exploits were front page news around the world and elements of the Legion were welcomed in Washington D.C. and personally greeted by President Wilson…and then, due to a combination of failed aspirations on the part of Britain, France, etc. and a desire on the part of the new Soviet Union to forget a less than stellar episode in the history of that country they, and the entire effort were forgotten.

Fortunately for them and for the reader, Author Joan Mohr has done an excellent job of bringing this remarkable group of men and their unbelievable exploits to our attention once again. The book is well written and has the page turning pace of an adventure novel. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in 20th Century world history. (Test length - 225 pages, Total length - 254 pages)

*The Great Locomotive Chase was an event of one day duration (April 12, 1862) which occurred during the American Civil War on the Western and Atlantic Railroad and involved two locomotives – The General and The Texas – and a distance of approximately 100 miles.

** This epithet was directed to the author (she has a PhD in history) by an academic with an overwrought sense of self importance.… (más)