1891-1904 Construction of the trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok (9,000 Km long). 1911 October / November Republican uprising in China against the Qings. December At the beginning of the new year, the Chinese, who are already in command of mainland Mongolia, occupy the town of Urga but are ousted from the capital of external Mongolia, which becomes independent with the name of autonomous Mongolia. 1914 August Outburst of the First World War. 1917 March - (February according to the Russian orthodox Julian calendar). Nicolas II abdicates and is replaced by a provisional republican government. 6th and 7th November - (24th and 25th October according to the Russian calendar) October Revolution: the new regime is overthrown by Lenin’s Bolsheviks. 1918 January Creation of the Red Army. First counter-revolutionary fights in Eastern Siberia by the ataman Semenov and the baron von Ungern-Sternberg. 3rd March Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Bolsheviks stop the war in the West against Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria. March / April Landing of an allied expedition that intervenes in Eastern Siberia. May Provisional government of Transbaikalia set up by Semenov and Ungern. 27th May Uprising by the Czech Legion against the Red Army in Chelyabinsk (Urals). 45,000 Czech soldiers who had been initially pressganged by Austria and later reintegrated in the tsarist army soon get the trans-Siberian railway under control. 29th June The Czech and white Russian troops recapture Vladivostok. 18th November The admiral Kolchak, former chief of the imperial fleet in the Black Sea, takes command of the government of Western Siberia in Omsk with the help of the allied forces. Semenov and Ungern refuse to ally themselves again with the “supreme regent”, who has managed to recover the gold of the Tsars including 650 million golden rubles and jewels valued 500 millions piled up in the carriages of an armour-plated train. The Romanov treasure will be contested by Corto Maltese, too. December Start of “Corto Maltese in Siberia”. 1919 February Pan-Mongolian meetings organised by Semenov and Ungern aiming at creating a Great Mongolia. October / December The Chinese return to Urga. The Mongolian autonomy is over. Suke Bator and Tchoï Balsan set up a Mongolian nationalist movement. 1920 7th February Left on his own by the Allies and betrayed by the Czech Legion, the admiral Kolchak is shot in Irkutsk (Siberia). April End of “Corto Maltese in Siberia”. October / November Ungern besieges Urga but is driven back by the Chinese. 1921 February / July Ungern gets Urga under control. He becomes the right-hand man of a Mongolian lamaist dignitary who, after having been released by the Chinese, has become the “divine emperor”. 17th September Handed over to the enemies by some of his men, Ungern is shot in Novonikolajevsk (today’s Novosibirsk).