19.7. 1883 Legionnaire Josef Jiří Švec was born

Josef Jiří Švec became one of the icons of the first Czechoslovak foreign resistance. The native could not bear the weight of the moment and shot himself on October 25 at three o'clock in the morning.

He was born in Čenkov in the Jihlava region. After grammar school, he graduated from the teachers' institute in Soběslav and became a gym teacher. He was one of the promoters of the Sokol idea. In 1911, the Trebic Sokol sent him to Russia to spread its ideas. When the First World War broke out, he volunteered to join the Czech troop forming in Kiev. He started as a commander of the first platoon and successfully fought, for example, at Zborov.

For his heroism he was promoted to lieutenant and in mid-October 1918 he became commander of the entire 1st Division. Švec became one of the icons of the first Czechoslovak foreign resistance. The soldiers expressed their distrust of this otherwise popular officer during a stopover at the Aksakovo-Belebey station by refusing to get off the tepees at his order to move to the barracks in the town. In fact, the colonel did not want to and could not give the soldiers a guarantee that they would not be used in further fighting and that they would not be moved to the rear.

And the result? Well known. The shoemaker could not bear the weight of the moment and shot himself at 3 a.m. on October 25. "One can only speculate about the real reasons for the suicide, but the truth is closer to the claim that this veteran was too emotionally exhausted to endure the "betrayal" of his subordinates.of subordinates, the pressure of superiors and the weight of his position," writes Dalibor Vácha in his book Islands in the Storm - Everyday Life of the Czechoslovak Legions in the Russian Civil War.

Švec wrote in his farewell letter: "I cannot survive the disgrace that has befallen our troops, you are tearing down what has been built with tremendous obstacles for years."The death of Colonel Shvets shocked the Czechoslovak soldiers, and they finally carried out the order - to push the Bolshevik superiority from the Buzuluk-Bugulma line.

For the overall picture of the legions as such, another thing is important, namely the scene of both events - first the bequeathing resp. The refusal of obedience and the subsequent suicides. In both cases, the setting was a railway station. Even the shoemaker committed his last act in a carriage, though not in a dungeon but in an officer's classroom, where he failed to complete the call - the call to soldiers - just before his death.

Coincidentally, Švec's funeral took place on the same day that Prague celebrated the establishment of its independent state. "To the sound of their firing, thirty-five-year-old Josef Jiri Schvec, one of the heroes of the Battle of Zborov, is being laid in his grave in Chelyabinsk. Three days ago, on Friday, 25 October, Colonel Švec, commander of the 1st Division of the Czechoslovak Legions, shot himself at the Aksakovo railway station," Karel Pacner describes the events of that time in his book Fateful Moments of Czechoslovakia.

It was only a few weeks later that troops were beginning to be withdrawn from all the various overstretched fronts and theto guard the backbone of the entire anti-Bolshevik front, the supply artery - the legendary Trans-Siberian Highway.

Source:
Dalibor Vácha, Islands in the Storm - Daily Life of the Czechoslovak Legions in the Russian Civil War
www.wikipedia.org
Karel Pacner, Fateful Moments of Czechoslovakia
www.vysocina.eu