[1][2] The revolt, occurring in Volga, Ural, and Siberia regions along the Trans-Siberian Railway, was a reaction to a threat initiated by the Bolsheviks partly as a consequence of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

[8] On 18 February, before the Czechoslovaks had left Ukraine, the Central Powers launched Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front to force the Bolsheviks to accept its terms for peace.

In early March, the Legion defeated a numerically superior German force attempting to destroy it in the Battle of Bakhmach, fought northeast of Kiev.

After the Legion succeeded in leaving Ukraine eastbound, executing a fighting withdrawal, representatives of the Czechoslovak National Council continued to negotiate with Bolshevik authorities in Moscow and Penza to facilitate evacuation.

[12] The slow evacuation by Trans-Siberian Railway was exacerbated by transportation shortages: as agreed in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolsheviks prioritized the westbound repatriation of German, Austrian, and Hungarian POWs.

[15] This incident was eventually settled peacefully but it was used by the Bolshevik regime to order the disarmament of the Legion[14] as the episode had threatened Yekaterinburg, 140 miles away, and sparked wider hostilities throughout Siberia, in which the Bolsheviks steadily lost control over the railway and the region:[15] the Legion quickly occupied more cities on the Trans-Siberian Railway, including Petropavl, Kurgan, Novonikolaevsk, Mariinsk, Nizhneudinsk, and Kansk.

According to William Henry Chamberlin, The opposing fronts which grew up during the summer of 1918 from Perm, in the Northern Urals, to Orenburg, where the steppes of Asia begin, presented a curious checkerboard appearance in August.

After the coup against the Provisional All-Russian Government, and the installment of Alexander Kolchak's military dictatorship, Czechoslovaks were withdrawn from the front, and assigned the task of guarding the Trans-Siberian Railway.

In November, Austria-Hungary collapsed and World War I ended, intensifying the desire of Legion members to exit Russia, particularly as the new Czechoslovakia faced opposition by, and armed conflict with, its neighbors.

On 27 January 1919, Legion commander Jan Syrový claimed the Trans-Siberian Railway between Novonikolaevsk and Irkutsk as a Czechoslovak zone of operation, interfering with White Russian efforts in Siberia.