The march of the seventy thousand

the long version

An account of the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia during World War One. Czechs and Slovaks formed units in the Czarist Russian Army as well as the French and Italian. After Russia had taken many Czechs and Slovaks as POWs from the Austro-Hungarian Army they requested to join these units. Eventually they became an army independent of the Russians and under the authority of the Czechoslovak National Council. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Soviet Union planned to return the former POWs to Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovak Legion rebelled and fought the Red Army and the White Army on their way to Vladivostok.