Czernowitz in the First World War

Czernowitz, Czerniowce in Polish, was the capital of Austrian Bukovina, the easternmost crown land of Austria-Hungary. It lay on the Prut, right on the border with Russia and Romania, and that is why no large city of the monarchy changed hands so often in this war. Between 1914 and 1917 the Russians took it three times, and the Austrians recovered it three times. The longest spell, more than a year, was in Russian hands after the Brusilov offensive. In November 1918, after the collapse of the monarchy, the Romanians entered it.

An open city (1914)

Before the war Czernowitz had about 87,000 inhabitants and was one of the most multinational cities of the monarchy. Jews formed the largest group, alongside Germans, Romanians, Ukrainians and Poles, and German was spoken in the offices and at the university. When at the end of August 1914 the Austro-Hungarian armies lost the battles in eastern Galicia, Bukovina was left almost undefended. On 31 August the governor, Count Meran, left the province, and rearguards blew up the bridges over the Prut. The city was declared open. According to the Bukovina memorial book, between three and five thousand Jews fled it in the last two days before the Russians entered.

The mayor, Salo Weisselberger, stayed at his post and at the beginning of September handed Czernowitz over to the Russians without a fight. The Russian commander demanded a contribution of six hundred thousand roubles in gold from the city and took hostages, and later deported several prominent citizens deep into Russia, among them the mayor himself. The Orthodox Archbishop of Bukovina, Vladimir de Repta, to whom the occupiers had entrusted the care of the population, moved the Torah scrolls of the city’s synagogue to his residence and kept them safe until the end of the war.

A city on the front line (1914–1915)

In the south of the province, in the mountains, Colonel Eduard Fischer of the gendarmerie gathered gendarmes, customs guards and volunteers. Around 20–22 October his improvised units retook Czernowitz, but they could not hold it when the Russians, freed from the fighting on the Vistula and the San, came back to the Prut. The second occupation began at the end of November; sources date its start differently, and the British chronology records it prematurely, as early as 28 October.

This time a regular army recovered the city. During the Winter Battle in the Carpathians the group of General Karl Pflanzer-Baltin advanced through Bukovina and on 17 February 1915 entered Czernowitz. The front settled on the Dniester and the Prut, not far from the city. To its north-east, in June 1915, the II Brigade of the Polish Legions fought, and for the following months it held trenches near Rarańcza.

The third occupation (1916–1917)

In June 1916 the Brusilov offensive shattered the Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army. On 17 June the Russian Ninth Army of General Platon Lechitsky broke into the bridgehead on the Prut, crossed the river during the night, and on the morning of 18 June the Russians entered the city for the third time. It was now ruled by a Russian governor, and after the February Revolution by a commissar of the Provisional Government. The Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Tkachuk judges that the occupation administration never won the support of the local population, and that frequent repressions and restrictions undermined its authority.

The Russians lost the city after the collapse of their last offensive. After the counter-offensive in Eastern Galicia the Eighth Army had to fall back, although Lavr Kornilov ordered it to defend Czernowitz for at least six days. On 3 August 1917 Austro-Hungarian troops entered the city, with Archduke Joseph August riding at the head of the 5th Infantry Division. On 6 August Emperor Charles I visited it and promoted the commander of the Seventh Army, Hermann Kövess, to field marshal.

1918

At the beginning of 1918 the Polish Auxiliary Corps was quartered around the city. From its billets near Czernowitz its II Brigade set out in mid-February to break through at Rarańcza to the Russian side, in protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Ukraine.

In the autumn, as the monarchy fell apart, both Romanians and Ukrainians laid claim to Bukovina. On 6 November the Ukrainians took power in Czernowitz, but on 11 November the Romanian 8th Division entered it, and the Ukrainian authorities left the city without a fight. On 28 November the General Congress of Bukovina, meeting here, voted to unite the province with Romania. Most representatives of the Ukrainians and the Jews took no part in the proceedings. The new borders were confirmed by the Treaty of Saint-Germain of 10 September 1919, and Czernowitz, as Cernăuți, remained in Romania until 1940.