Original scientific paper
Slavonia and Slavonian Military Units in World War I
Ivan Balta
Abstract
There are many archived documents about soldiers from Slavonia. Most of the stories speak about their destiny on Serbian, Eastern and Italian fronts during World War I. Military units from Osijek, involved in war operations, were following: 78th Foot Division, 28th Foot Home front Division and parts of 12th Ulan and 38th Field-Gunner Division. Those divisions were located on Serbian Front until 1915, on Eastern Front until 1917 and Italian Front until the end of the war, mostly as a part of 8th military brigade, which means they were a part of the Austro-Hungarian Fifth and Sixth Armies. The units had many casualties and most of the wounded and deserters were returning to Slavonia. Therefore, Slavonia had to deal with a lack of food and other supplies for those soldiers. Also, the sanitarian services for soldiers were organized, most of them located in schools, movie theaters and hospitals. Slavonian military units, and especially divisions from Osijek, were going through real tough time because the number of wounded significantly increased. Most of the wounded soldiers came back from the trenches of the Galician and Bukovinian battlefields. Part of the Slavonian soldiers ended up in concentration camps across the Russian lands in Siberia and the Far East.
Slavonian soldiers started fighting for one state, and, by the time the war finished, ended up in another. During that time they lost the sense of their goals and the overall meaning of the fighting.
Keywords
Slavonian military units; battlefield; front; World War I
Hrčak ID:
4723
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2005.
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