During the First World War of 1914–1918, the allies of the bloc of Entente on the Eastern front was the Russian Empire and the Romanian Kingdom entered the war in August 1916. One of the areas of allied cooperation was the transfer of Romanian side of the Austrian prisoners of Romanian nationality, was taken prisoner by the Russian army and expressed willingness to volunteer for the Romanian army. The process of transferring the Transylvanian Romanians was long and drawn out. Only after the February revolution was the formation of Transylvanian battalions modeled on the already existing Czech-Slovak units started. It was the Transylvanian units that opened the page of foreign intervention in Soviet Russia, attempting to occupy the capital of Bessarabia, Kishinev, on January 7, 1918.