This disciplined and highly motivated force, 50,000 strong, determined to continue the fight against the Central Powers even a thousand miles from their homes, now menaced both the Bolsheviks and the German forces stretched thinly across southern Russia. When Trotsky issued the order for the Czechs to be disarmed, it was assumed, not surprisingly, that he was acting on German instructions. Armed clashes between the Czechs and Red Guards broke out at railway junctions across Siberia.
