Russians retake Czernowitz

The British chronology of the war records under the date of 28 October 1914 the reoccupation of Czernowitz by Russian troops. The capital of Bukovina had returned to Austrian hands only a week earlier. Around 20–21 October it had been retaken by improvised units of the gendarmerie colonel Eduard Fischer, made up of gendarmes, Landsturm and volunteers.

Which date?

Local Bukovinian and Jewish sources, as well as Ukrainian and Russian histories of the city, do not confirm a Russian return at the end of October. According to them the Austrians held Czernowitz for more than a month, and the second Russian occupation began only in the second half of November. Its start is dated variously: to 20, 26, 27 or 28 November. It is possible, then, that the British chronicle shifted an event of 28 November by a month, or at least that it recorded it on the basis of premature reports.

The Russians return

Fischer’s small forces could defend Bukovina as long as the main Russian armies were busy in Galicia and on the Vistula. The situation changed at the turn of October and November, when the Central Powers lost the battle on the middle Vistula and the Austro-Hungarian troops began to fall back from the San. The Russians could then once again send forces south, to the Prut. Fischer’s units, lacking the support of the regular army, were unable to stop them. At the end of November they left Czernowitz and withdrew south into the mountains, and the Russians occupied almost all of Bukovina.

The second occupation lasted until mid-February 1915, when the Austrians recovered the city once more. Those inhabitants who had not managed to flee earlier again found themselves under the rule of the Russian military administration, which treated harshly above all the large Jewish population of Czernowitz.