Austro-Hungarians retake Czernowitz again
- Category:
- Military operations
- Front:
- Eastern Front
- Date:
- 17 February 1915
- Author:
- Natalia
- Battle:
- Winter Battle in the Carpathians
- Tags:
- Austria-Hungary, Russia, Bukovina
On the afternoon of 17 February 1915 Austro-Hungarian troops occupied Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina. For the second time the city returned to Austrian hands. The first time it had been retaken in October 1914 by Colonel Eduard Fischer’s improvised units, but at the end of November the Russians occupied it again. Now a regular army entered the city.
The offensive in Bukovina
The capture of Czernowitz was the greatest success of the eastern wing of the winter offensive in the Carpathians. While in the central Carpathians the Austro-Hungarian attack was bogged down in snow, in Bukovina and Pokuttia the group of General Karl Pflanzer-Baltin, reinforced by divisions brought from other fronts, was on the attack. Its way was opened in the second half of January by the Battle of Kirlibaba, in which Polish legionaries also fought. The Russians held only small forces in Bukovina and had to fall back. According to press reports of the time, around 11 February the Austrians reached the line of the Siret river, taking Suceava, Rădăuți and Siret on the way. The left wing turned through Vyzhnytsia and Kuty towards Galicia, and from the Hungarian side units came over the Yablunytsia Pass and took Delatyn.
On 16 February, after two days of fighting, Austro-Hungarian troops captured Kolomyia. According to the Vienna communiqué they took about 2,000 prisoners there and prevented the Russians from blowing up the bridge over the Prut. Threatened from the west, the Russian units in Bukovina withdrew behind the Prut.
Entering the city
Czernowitz was no longer defended. According to the Austro-Hungarian staff communiqué of 18 February, imperial troops had occupied the city the previous afternoon, and the Russians had left in the direction of Novoselytsia, on the border of Russian Bessarabia. The Vienna press reported that in the evening cavalry rode into the city, enthusiastically welcomed by the inhabitants, and that a great deal of Russian military equipment had been left in Czernowitz. The second Russian occupation had lasted less than three months. According to the accounts of Jewish residents it was especially hard for them, full of requisitions, looting and violence.
What came next
The Russians did not accept the loss of Bukovina and eastern Galicia. New forces were moved to this sector of the front from the Kingdom of Poland, and from them the Ninth Army of General Platon Lechitsky was formed. In March its attack halted Pflanzer-Baltin’s offensive, and the front settled on the Dniester and the Prut, a short distance north and east of Czernowitz. The city itself, however, remained in Austrian hands for more than a year, until June 1916, when the Russians took it for the third time during the Brusilov Offensive.
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