Czechoslovakian Inter-Allied Victory Medal 1914-1918

 

World War I.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

This medal was instituted in June 1919 as a result of an international agreement at the Inter-allied Peace Conference immediately preceding the Treaty of Versailles which was signed in June 1919.

 

The basic design - a ‘Winged Victory’ - and ‘rainbow’ ribbon was adopted by Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Union of South Africa and the USA. Siam and Japan also issued the medal but with a different design - although the ribbon matched that of the others.

 

Approximately 90,000 medals were awarded.

 

 

The medal is circular, 36mm in diameter and was struck in bronze. The obverse of this medal depicts a winged figure of Victory, a laurel branch in her right hand held above her head and upright sword in her right hand, linden leaves (the Czech national tree). At her feet the designers mark; ‘O SPANIEL’.

 

The reverse depicts a central shield bearing the two-tailed lion of Bohemia, coat of arms of Slovakia with patriarchal (two lateral arms) cross imposed on its breast, decorated with linden leaves, the dates; ‘1914-1918’ on a ribbon to either side. It contains the inscription; ‘SVETOVA VALKA ZA CIVILISACI’, (The Great War for Civilisation).

 

The medal was suspended by a ring through a laterally pierced mount fixed to the top of the medal.

 

This medal was issued un-named.

 

 

 

The ribbon is 37mm wide and is the silk moiré rainbow coloured design common to all the Inter-Allied Victory Medals issued by the First World War Allies.

 

 

None were authorised for this medal.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

 

* It should be noted that the values quoted above reflect the average price that a medal dealer may expect to sell this medal for - please see the ‘things you should know’ web page for more details about valuing medals.

 

 

This section contains information on:-

 

- Czech And Slovak Forces During World War I.

- The Entente Powers.

 

Czech And Slovak Forces During World War I - At the outbreak of World War I, the Czechs and Slovaks showed little enthusiasm for fighting for their respective enemies, the Germans and the Hungarians, against fellow Slavs, the Russians and the Serbs.

 

Large numbers of Czechs and Slovaks defected on the Russian front and formed the Czechoslovak Legion, organised by Milan Rastislav Štefánik (a Slovak astronomer, general of the French army and a war hero).

 

The Czechoslovak Legion were a volunteer armed force composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting together with the Entente powers during World War I. Their goal was to win the Allies' support for the independence of Bohemia and Moravia from the Austrian Empire and of Slovak territories of the Kingdom of Hungary, which were then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the help of émigré intellectuals and politicians such as Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, they grew into a force of tens of thousands.

 

In Russia, they took part in several battles of the war, including Zborov and Bakhmach, and were heavily involved in the Russian Civil War fighting Bolsheviks, at times controlling most of the Trans-Siberian railway and several major cities in Siberia.

 

After three years of existence as a small unit in the Imperial Russian Army, the Legion in Russia was instituted in 1917, with other troops fighting in France since the beginning of the war as the 'Nazdar' company, and similar units later emerging in Italy and Serbia. Originally an all-volunteer force, these formations were later strengthened by Czech and Slovak prisoners of war or deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army.

 

The vast majority of the legionaries were Czechs, with Slovaks making up 7.4% of the force in Russia, 3% in Italy and 16% in France. The term 'Legion' was not widely used during the war but was adopted shortly afterward. It is primarily based on their French connection as they were thought of as related to the French Foreign Legion.

 

As the war progressed, the 'Legions' founder Masaryk went to western Europe and began propagating the idea that the Austro-Hungarian Empire should be dismembered and that Czechoslovakia should be an independent state.

 

In 1916, together with Edvard Beneš and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Masaryk created the Czechoslovak National Council. Masaryk in the United States, Štefánik in France, and Beneš in France and Britain then worked to gain Allied recognition. When secret talks between the Allies and Austrian emperor Charles I collapsed, the Allies recognized the Czechoslovak National Council in the summer of 1918 as the supreme organ of a future Czechoslovak government.

 

On May 31, 1918, Czech and Slovak representatives in the United States signed the Pittsburgh Agreement endorsing a plan for a unified Czecho-Slovak state in which Slovakia would have its own assembly. In early October 1918, Germany and Austria proposed peace negotiations.

 

On October 18, while in the United States, Masaryk issued a declaration of Czechoslovak independence. Masaryk insisted that the new Czechoslovak state include the historic Bohemian Kingdom, containing the German-populated borderland.

 

On October 21, however, German deputies from Bohemia joined other German and Austrian deputies in the Austrian parliament in declaring an independent German-Austrian state. Following the abdication of Charles I on November 11, Czech troops took control of borderlands.

 

Hungary withdrew from the Habsburg empire on November 1. The new liberal-democratic government of Hungary under Count Mihály Károlyi attempted to retain Slovakia. With Allied approval, the Czechs occupied Slovakia, and the Hungarians were forced to withdraw.

 

The Czechs and Allies agreed on the Danube and Ipeľ rivers as the boundary between Hungary and Slovakia; a large Hungarian minority, occupying the fertile plain of the Danube, would be included in the new state.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Entente Powers - The Entente Powers or Allies were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the French Republic, the British Empire and the Russian Empire; Italy ended its alliance with the Central Powers and entered the war on the side of the Entente in 1915. Japan, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania and the Czechoslovak legions were secondary members of the Entente.

 

The United States declared war on Germany in 1917 on the grounds that Germany violated U.S. neutrality by attacking international shipping and because of the Zimmermann Telegram sent to Mexico.

 

The U.S. entered the war as an ‘associated power’, rather than a formal ally of France and the United Kingdom, in order to avoid ‘foreign entanglements’. Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, neither declared war.

 

Although the Dominions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire made significant contributions to the Allied war effort, they did not have independent foreign policies during World War I. Operational control of British Empire forces was in the hands of the five-member British War Cabinet (BWC).

 

However, the Dominion governments controlled recruiting, and did remove personnel from front-line duties as they saw fit.

 

From early 1917 the BWC was superseded by the Imperial War Cabinet, which had Dominion representation. The Australian Corps and Canadian Corps were placed for the first time under the command of Australian and Canadian Lieutenant Generals John Monash and Arthur Currie, respectively, who reported in turn to British generals.

 

In April 1918, operational control of all Entente forces on the Western Front passed to the new supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch.

 

The only countries represented in the 1918 armistice which ended the combat were Britain, France and Germany.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.