There are moments in history when ordinary men become something larger than themselves. Not because they sought glory, riches, or conquest, but because they carried within them the hope of a people not yet free. Such was the story of the Czechoslovak Legion.
Before there was a nation called Czechoslovakia, there were Czech and Slovak immigrants scattered across the world: farmers on the plains of Nebraska, laborers in Chicago stockyards and miners in Pennsylvania. Many had left Moravia, Bohemia, and Slovakia under the heavy hand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They came to America seeking opportunity, but they never entirely stopped carrying the old country in their hearts.
Then came the First World War.
Suddenly, men who had once simply called themselves Moravians, Czechs, Slovaks, or even Austrian subjects began imagining something radical: a free and independent Czechoslovakia.
That dream would eventually become reality through the sacrifice of the Czechoslovak Legion, a remarkable military force that fought on three major fronts: France, Italy, and Russia.
For my own family, this history is not abstract. My great-grandfather, Jan Švagera of Moravian Wallachia, served in the French branch of the Legion. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, Karel Kunhart, the husband of Jan’s younger sister Božena, served in the Italian Legion. Two men from the same Moravian family, fighting in different corners of Europe for a nation that did not yet officially exist.
Their story is part of a much larger one.
A Nation Imagined Before It Existed
The remarkable thing about the Czechoslovak Legion is that these men were not defending an established homeland. They were fighting to create one.
As explored in Dreams of a Great Small Nation, by Kevin McNamara, the Czech and Slovak national awakening was never merely political. It was cultural, linguistic, musical, and deeply rooted in memory. Long before armies marched under a Czechoslovak banner, songs were sung. Folk tales were preserved. Village dialects endured. Families remembered who they were.
In Moravian villages like Rokytnice near Vsetín, and throughout Valašsko, identity was carried in language, song, land, family names, feast days, and memory. That memory mattered.
Many Czech and Slovak immigrants in America had become reasonably comfortable by the time World War I erupted. They owned farms, operated businesses, and raised families. Churches, fraternal halls, Sokol organizations and newspapers were established.
So what would convince a man living safely in America to cross the ocean and risk his life for a country that did not yet exist?
Perhaps freedom in America made them understand more clearly what their relatives back home did not have. Maybe they looked at their children and imagined a world where the Czech and Slovak peoples could stand among nations with their own flag, their own language, and their own future.
The Legion became a way of saying: We are not merely subjects of an empire, we are a people.
The French Legion: Jan Švagera’s Branch
The French branch of the Czechoslovak Legion was among the earliest organized expressions of the independence cause in Western Europe. Czech and Slovak volunteers in France, along with men who came from abroad, joined the Allied fight while hoping that their service would help prove the legitimacy of Czechoslovak independence.
The French Legionnaires wore French uniforms, carried French weapons, and served under French command, but their deeper loyalty was fixed on places like Prague, Brno, Vsetín, and all of the small Bohemian, Moravian, and Slovakian villages from which so many families had come.
This is where my great-grandfather, Jan Švagera, served.
Imagine the weight of that decision. A young man born in Rokytnice near Vsetín, raised beneath the shadow of the Beskydy Mountains, crosses the Atlantic to America, begins a new life, and then returns to Europe, voluntarily, to fight for a homeland that existed first as a dream.
There is something deeply Czech about that kind of loyalty.
One can imagine Jan carrying memories of Valašsko with him into France, songs, village speech, the faces of family members, and perhaps the sound of music drifting from some gathering back home. While artillery thundered across the Western Front, the old country must have lived inside him.
The French Legion was not merely a military unit. For men like Jan Švagera, it was an act of cultural faith.
The Italian Legion: Karel Kunhart’s Branch
While Jan Švagera served in France, his brother-in-law Karel Kunhart served in the Italian branch of the Czechoslovak Legion.
Karel was the husband of Jan’s younger sister, Božena. That detail makes the history feel much closer. It was not simply “the Legion” in a general historical sense. It was family. One man in France. Another in Italy. A sister and wife waiting somewhere in the shadow of war.
The Italian Legion was formed largely from Czech and Slovak prisoners of war who had first been conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. Many had no desire to fight for Vienna. Once captured by the Italians, they saw another possibility: to fight instead for the liberation of their own people.
The Italian Front was harsh, mountainous, and deadly. Soldiers endured cold, altitude, shellfire, hunger, and the constant risk of capture. For Czech and Slovak Legionnaires, the danger was even greater. If captured by Austro-Hungarian forces, they could be treated as traitors.
And yet they continued.
That makes Karel Kunhart’s service especially moving. He was not merely surviving the war. He was standing within it, choosing to bind his own fate to the hope that a small nation might be born from the collapse of an empire.
For Božena, this must have been almost impossible to carry. Her brother Jan served in France. Her husband Karel served in Italy. The dream of Czechoslovakia came into her family not as an abstract political idea, but as anxiety, prayer, separation, and sacrifice.
The Russian Legion: The Long Road Across Siberia
The most famous and dramatic branch of the Czechoslovak Legion was the Russian Legion.
Formed from Czech and Slovak volunteers and prisoners of war in Russia, the Russian Legion became legendary after the Bolshevik Revolution and the collapse of the Eastern Front. The Legionnaires found themselves stranded in the chaos of the Russian Civil War, far from home and surrounded by shifting political forces.
Their journey across Siberia became one of the most astonishing episodes of World War I. As they attempted to evacuate eastward toward Vladivostok, the Legion fought along the Trans-Siberian Railway and at times controlled vast stretches of it.
This odyssey turned the Czechoslovak cause into an international story. The Russian Legion showed the Allied powers that the Czech and Slovak independence movement was not merely theoretical. These were disciplined soldiers, capable of organization, sacrifice, and military effectiveness.
The Russian Legion helped make visible what men like Jan Švagera and Karel Kunhart were also proving in France and Italy: the Czechs and Slovaks were ready to stand as a nation.
Three Branches, One Dream
France, Italy, and Russia were very different fronts.
- In France, Legionnaires fought in the Western Allied war effort and helped give the Czechoslovak cause legitimacy in the eyes of France and the broader Allied world.
- In Italy, Legionnaires emerged from captivity and conscription, turning away from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and toward the dream of national freedom.
- In Russia, Legionnaires became internationally famous through their long and dangerous journey across Siberia during the Russian Civil War.
Different uniforms, battlefields, and hardships.
But one dream.
A great small nation.
Why This Story Still Matters
Today, it is easy to forget how improbable Czechoslovakia once seemed.
For centuries, empires had dominated Central Europe. Small nations were often swallowed, renamed, administered, and told to forget themselves. But the Legionnaires refused to believe that history belonged only to empires.
Small nations mattered too.
That is why the phrase Dreams of a Great Small Nation feels so fitting. The Czechoslovak dream was great not because it sought empire, but because it sought freedom. It was small only in the sense that small nations are often small on maps. In memory, sacrifice, culture, and courage, it was immense.
For descendants like myself, this is not only military history. It is family history.
Jan Švagera in France.
Karel Kunhart in Italy.
Božena waiting between them.
Behind them stood Rokytnice, Vsetín, Moravian Wallachia, and the families who had carried Czech language and memory across oceans and generations.
The Czechoslovak Legion reminds us that nations are not built only by politicians and diplomats. Sometimes they are built by immigrants, farmers, laborers, brothers, husbands, sisters, and sons.
Sometimes a nation begins as a song remembered from home.
Perhaps it begins as a name written on a military card.
Sometimes it begins when a man leaves comfort behind and says, I will fight for the homeland my children may one day know as free.
Related Reflections on Food for the Way
You may also enjoy these related reflections:
- The Call for Czechoslovak Volunteers in America
- Grandpa Svagera’s Return to Czechoslovakia
- The Old Horsak Place
- The Storyteller and Firekeeper
- Grandpa Svagera Growing Up in Bohemian Town
