Croats in the Brusilov Offensive in Summer 1916 (part II): Breakthrough near the Village Okna in Bukovina

Abstract

The author examines the course of the operations of the Brusilov Offensive in summer 1916, in which most of the Croatian soldiers in the Bukovina region took part as members of the Seventh Austro-Hungarian Army and the German South Army. The Offensive was one of a series of Entente military activities whose goal was to defeat the Central Powers, and part of the large-scale Entente joint operations in summer 1916, but also their greatest success after the bloody fighting on the Marne River on the Western Front. The offensive eliminated around half of the Austro-Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front, which was a very hard blow and irrecoverable loss for Austria-Hungary during the second year of the war. The fighting lasted for many months and resulted in huge losses among the Croatian forces during all phases of the operation. Certain parts of the military operations – the bloody fighting on the Dniester River (4 – 9 June), the breakthrough near Okna (10 – 12 June), the Battle for Kolomea (28 June – 7 July), the Battle for Stanislau (27 July – 14 August), and the battle on the stream Narajowka (7 September – 6 October) – are each covered separately. Brusilov’s breakthrough near Okna was one of the most significant, but also bloodiest, military operations involving Croatian soldiers during World War I. In the general chaos of the intense retreat, they endured suffering and losses on an unprecedented scale during months-long meeting engagements with the Russian armed forces. They exhibited relatively good morale, especially at the beginning of the operations but, after the general collapse of the defence, they suffered the same tragic fate of the entirety of the Austro-Hungarian and German forces.