Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Great War M.M. group of six attributed to Gunner F. Gajdosik, a Czech Legionnaire who latterly served in a Reserve Battalion of the Russian Legion

Czech War Cross 1918; Czech Revolutionary Medal 1918; Czech Victory Medal 1914-19, re-issue type 1 variety; Czech F.I.D.A.C. Medal for Veterans of the Great War; Czech Commemorative Cross for Volunteers 1918-19; Great Britain, Military Medal, G.V.R., unnamed as awarded to foreign nationals, generally good very fine (6) £450-550

Sold with the recipient’s original Czech Legion certificate of service, dated at Prague on 13 January 1923, from which some of the following details have been extracted:

Frantisek Gajdosik was born at Halenkovice, a small farming village in central Moravia, not far from Slovakia, in August 1892. Recruited into the Austro-Hungarian Army shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, he served on the Eastern Front, but as with like-minded soldiers who resented serving under the auspices of a foreign power, he deserted. Most probably held in assorted P.O.W. camps, and used for labour purposes by the Russians, he signed-up for the Czechoslovak Legion in July 1917, during the third wave of recruiting around the time of the battle of Zborov. Severely wounded in the following year, he was discharged from combat duties in March 1918 and ended his career in a Reserve Battalion of the Russian Legion, latterly being employed as an administrator charged with assisting the return of Legionnaires via Port Vladivostock to their new home - the Czechoslovakian Republic. He is belioeved to have died in 1954.

While no verification had yet been found for the award of his M.M., it is worth noting that Abbott and Tamplin estimate some 320 such decorations were bestowed on Czech Legionnaires; also sold with a series of copy photographs which are believed to have been made from originals in possession of the recipient’s family, among them a group of Czech Legionnaires including Gajdosik wearing his M.M.