Maurice Janin is a former student at the Saint Cyr Military Academy. In 1893, he was seconded to the Russian military mission, visiting France, and then became a graduate of the Moscow Military Academy. He participated in several official tours of Russia, including a stay in 1912 as an instructor at the Nikolai Nikolaevich Military Academy (St. Petersburg). At the beginning of World War I, he fought at the head of the brigade on the Marne and Isère and was called to headquarters. The French general Janin at that time was known as a hero.
Career heyday
In 1916, Maurice Janin was appointed head of the French military mission in Russia. On August 24, 1918, Marshal Foch made him commander in chief of the Allied forces in Russia and assigned him a mission to send Czech troops on Russian territory to Europe. Then the Czechoslovak Legion consisted of about 70,000 people (former Czech and Slovak prisoners of war released by Kerensky after the February Revolution), who were transferred to the command of France after a military agreement between the Czechoslovak National Council and the French government. The question of the repatriation of Czechoslovak forces to Europe in June 1918 became a determining factor in the intervention of the Allies in Siberia.
Czechoslovak Legion
Winston Churchill appoints Major General Knox at the head of the British military mission; the latter acts almost systematically independently, without prior consultation with its allied colleagues. General Janin, who takes office too late, controls only the French battalion and Czechoslovak forces. He and his deputy General Stefanik set off west of Lake Baikal; The French military mission has two hundred and five officers and nine hundred soldiers.
Civil War Intervention
On November 18, 1918, as a result of a coalition of white governments of Omsk and Samara, Kolchak’s power was abolished by a coup and replaced by a military dictatorship. At the suggestion of the Council of Ministers, Admiral Kolchak was appointed supreme head of all of Russia. On December 16, 1918, General Janine arrived in Omsk. In disagreement with Kolchak, he resigned as commander-in-chief of the allied forces in order to devote himself to the only Czechoslovak army corps. General Maurice Janin was convinced that the British had established Kolchak to satisfy their interests. In his report of December 19, he writes about the Omsk government as follows:
The admiral with great authority replaced him thanks to the kindness of the Englishman, who kindly gave him the stirrup. But will he be the best racer?
From now on, relations between Kolchak and Zhanen will continue to deteriorate, despite the diplomatic intervention of Paul Pellio.
General Janin - General without honor
At the beginning of the winter of 1919, the Bolshevik troops counterattacked and began their march east. Siberian white armies oppose weak resistance. Allies, including Maurice Zhanen and the whites, as well as many civilians, leave Omsk and accumulate in convoys on the Trans-Siberian line. On November 14, 1919, the Red Army entered Omsk. The relationship between Kolchak and the Czechoslovak soldiers who control the railway and railway stations becomes disgusting. Soon, the train of the high leader is immobilized in Nizhny, and then in Glaskov, in the suburbs of Irkutsk. On January 6, 1920, Kolchak resigned as supreme leader in favor of General Denikin and placed himself under the protection of the Allies.
Self-government of the whites
Having become uncontrollable, the Czechoslovak Corps has for several months supported various socialist-revolutionary uprisings that shake Siberia. On January 16, two Czech officers boarded the Kolchak train and handed it to the local authorities from the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The Czechs say that they act on the orders of the general without honor (such a nickname was given to General Janin). Kolchak is delivered to the Bolsheviks, who perform it on February 7. During the arrest of Admiral Kolchak, General Janine, as well as all the Allied commands, were several hundred kilometers further east. The protests are addressed to General Maurice Janin, who says that he did not have the means to prevent the tragedy. In February, a statement by the Czech detachment in Irkutsk justified the arrest of Admiral Kolchak:
We reported to Admiral Kolchak at the Political Center [...]. Admiral Kolchak could not expect to receive any refuge from the Czechoslovakians against whom he had committed a crime.
However, it is still not clear why General Janin betrayed Kolchak.
Resignation
When the news of what happened with Irkutsk reached Paris, the French government freed the general from the team and ordered him to return to France. Maurice Zhanen leaves Harbin in April 1920, carrying three suitcases and a chest with 311 imperial relics, documents and the latest photographs of the imperial family contained in Ipatiev’s villa. They were entrusted to him by General Dieterich and Pierre Guillard, a witness to the last moments of Nicholas II and his family.
After some rest, General Janin was appointed to a junior post.
He played a decisive role during the civil war in Russia.
Czechoslovakians - subordinates of Jean
When the First World War began, the Czechs and Slovaks living in the Russian Empire asked Emperor Nicholas II of Russia to organize national forces to fight Austria-Hungary. The king agreed to organize this army. No matter how ferocious Czechoslovakians may be, no matter how powerful Kolchak’s aviation may be, the French General Janin will render White invaluable assistance before betraying them. But it is later.
Background
The Czech Campaign began in 1915 and was incorporated into the Russian army. Since May 1915, this campaign began to recruit Slavic captives and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army from the territories of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia. In February 1916, it was the “Czechoslovak Strelcki Strelcky Regiment” (Československý Strelecky Pluk), and in May 1916 it was the “Czechoslovak Archery Brigade” (Československá Střelecká Brigada) with 7,300 people. Masaryk and Stefanik, leaders of the Czech and Slovak independence movements, came to Russia to help expand and organize this military force, and created an independent Czechoslovak army between spring and summer 1917. In September 1917, the brigade was transformed into the first rifle division (Hussite), which was combined with the second rifle division (created in July 1917) to become the Czechoslovak Corps in Russia (Československé vojsko in Russia), for a total of 40,000 men that were already the embryo of the national army.
The corps totaled up to 65,000 people.
The war against the Bolsheviks
After the Russian revolution, the Bolshevik government concluded a separate treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and it was decided to evacuate the bodies of Czechs and Slovaks to France in order to join other Czechoslovak troops and continue the war. Due to the blockade on the Western European front, German and Austrian forces had to be evacuated by the port of Vladivostok for the United States through Siberia.
End of the epic
The slow evacuation of the Trans-Siberian Railway slowed down due to supply problems, and in accordance with the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Bolsheviks had to repatriate German, Austrian and Hungarian prisoners of war from Siberia. In May 1918, Czechs and Slovaks intercepted a Hungarian train in Chelyabinsk and shot down a soldier who threw a shell in their direction. The local Bolshevik government placed the suspects in custody, but their companions occupied the railway station, and then the city.