Austria-Hungary's troops in Palestine

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kuk 149 mm mountain howitzer in firing position somewhere in Palestine

Austria-Hungary's troops in Palestine were part of the military support of the Ottoman Empire during World War I and were deployed in the Middle East .

history

Austria-Hungary had joined the German-Turkish secret treaties of August 2, 1914 and January 11, 1915 in the form of an exchange of notes. In terms of economic policy, they did not want to be inferior to Turkey's German ally. In order to strengthen the political influence in Turkey, similar to the German Levant Corps, smaller military contingents were sent there. These were artillery , technical troops and motorized transport columns.

The Austro-Hungarian troops had a better standing with the Turks than their German comrades-in-arms, because the officers tried hard to maintain a good relationship with the Turks and every possible effort was made in this regard. For example, that they opened a clinic in Constantinople where the poorer classes were treated free of charge. This then made itself felt positively in economic relations, especially with regard to war material. The guns of the Škoda works were very popular with the Turks. Austria-Hungary delivered 80 mountain guns in 1916 alone and equipped a total of 50 artillery batteries. Special instruction departments were set up for training.

On November 15, 1915, the "kuk 24 cm mortar battery No. 9" arrived in Turkey as the first fortress artillery unit and was immediately used on the Anaforta front on the Gallipoli peninsula . Four weeks later the "kuk 14.9cm Howitzer Battery No. 36" followed. This was also used in the same front section. After the Entente troops were forced to withdraw from the peninsula, the two batteries moved first to Smyrna and then to Romania . They stayed there until 1917 and then returned to Turkey. Here the "15 cm Howitzer Battery No. 36" took over a section opposite the island of Tenedos . Two guns were spun off from the "Mortar Battery No. 9" and put into service as the "kuk Kanonenbatterie No. 20". With the battery No. 9 only two guns remained. In May, Enver Pascha asked the Austro-Hungarian military attaché Field Marshal Lieutenant Josef Pomiankowski about the support with additional mountain howitzers, the aim being to support a further advance to the Suez Canal . Pomiankowski then applied to the Austro-Hungarian High Command to deploy a mountain hooded division, which arrived in Palestine with two shooting batteries in April 1916 under Major Adolf Wilhelm Marno von Eichenhorst and Captain Wladislaw Anton Ritter von Truszkowski . The kuk formation initially consisted of 22 officers and 813 men.

When Emperor Franz Joseph on 26 January 1916 by the deployment of the two batteries mountain howitzers learned he was apparently not convinced by this decision, because he is said to have noted later: "Well I think though that we see ever!" , But this is should turn out to be an error.

The two Hungarian mountain batteries marched 200 kilometers in five days on the advance through the desert and covered the retreat of the Turkish infantry after the failure of the offensive near Bir Romani (August 3–5, 2016). After the withdrawal was completed, the Howitzer Division was in Bethlehem at the end of October 2016 and was then deployed here on the right front wing.

In March 1917, the "Howitzers Division No. 36" once again proved its worth in the first battle for Gaza . Battery 2/4 of the division continued to fight with small arms after the artillery ammunition had been fired and was able to throw out the British who had penetrated the position. This could only be bought with a loss of seven officers, including the commandant Hauptmann Truszkowski, and 43 non-commissioned officers and men. In June 1917 this section of the front was assigned to the "cannon battery No. 20" for reinforcement. The enormous loss of draft and pack animals through malnutrition and exhaustion had to be compensated for in this unit by assigning the "kuk motor vehicle column Turkey I".

The third battle for Gaza in November 1917 saw the Austro-Hungarian batteries as a firm support for the troops fighting here. Ultimately, the artillerymen had to get to safety after all, as British cavalry had breached the front and threatened the artillery positions on the flank. At the turn of the year the Austro-Hungarian troops were on restoration (recreation) in Damascus .

In April 1918, the Austro-Hungarian artillery was again used to repel Allied attacks in the East Bank . Battery 2 of the Howitzer Division was encircled here and defended itself in infantry hand-to-hand combat until two Turkish divisions attacked the Allied troops in the rear and they then withdrew.

The subsequent major attack by the Allies could no longer be effectively stopped by the Central Powers with the artillery forces at their disposal. On September 19, 1918, the front collapsed and a general retreat began, in which the Austro-Hungarian troops were carried away.

Except for the artillery of the «Mountain Cannon Battery No. 1/4», which was able to save its material, all firing equipment was lost. The «Mountain Cannon Battery No. 1/4» was then used in Aleppo to help build the newly formed 7th Turkish Army. The stage group commander of Aleppo, Oberleutnant Harry Spanner , an engineer, carried out an archaeological survey of the ruined city of Resafa in September 1918 , which was published after the war.

After the armistice on October 30, 1918, the remains of the Austro-Hungarian troops gathered in Constantinople (Istanbul). The 200-man "instruction detachment for Turkish motor vehicle columns" had also managed to make their way to Constantinople, as did the "ski training detachment", headed by the biologist and reserve officer Victor Pietschmann from Erzerum , which was responsible for ski training in the Turkish Caucasus. Army was responsible.

After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy became known, changes were also noticeable among the soldiers in the Orient. The discipline slackened in some cases, about 200 men from the replacement vehicle depot attempted an overthrow on November 4th by creating soldiers' councils . This was prevented by the military attachée Pomiankowski, who called the Turks to help and had the rebels disarmed by a half battalion. They were then deported to Odessa . A number of soldiers of Czech, Romanian and Croatian descent defected to the Entente. The loyal members of the army, 200 officers and 1,050 NCOs and men were first brought to the Asian side of the Marmara Sea , from where they were then repatriated. On January 6, 1919, the last Austro-Hungarian soldier left Turkey. The Austrian returnees arrived in Vienna via Trieste on January 24, 1919.

In total, the following were stationed in Turkey:

  • the kuk 24cm motor mortar battery No. 9 with 24 cm M.98 mortar (both guns failed in August 1918)
  • the kuk 14.9cm howitzer battery No. 36, with Škoda 149 mm mountain howitzers
  • the kuk mountain hood battery no. 1/4 from Budapest with 7.5 cm mountain cannons M.15
  • the kuk mountain hood battery no. 2/6 from Kaschau with 7.5 cm mountain cannons M.15
  • the kuk cannon battery no. 20 with 10.4 cm field cannons
  • Transport units,
  • Medical units
  • Training detachments
  • the kuk stage group command and kuk field post office No. 452 in Aleppo.

The orientalist and theologian Alois Musil represented the interests of Austria-Hungary towards the Arab princes by appearing as an opponent of TE Lawrence and being quite successful in this.

The planned deployment of an Austro-Hungarian Orient Corps in 1917/1918 did not take place, although it was urgently needed. Although it had already been set up in Belgrade with 400 officers and 8,000 NCOs and men , it was then moved to the front in Albania . Nevertheless, the troops were reinforced again in 1918 with the Austro-Hungarian Telegraph Company No. 266, the Austro-Hungarian Telegraph Construction Company No. 49 and others. Most of the soldiers deployed came from Hungary and Upper Hungary .

The war graves of the fallen soldiers are particularly in Jerusalem, Aleppo, Damascus, Istanbul and in English military cemeteries.

Museum reception

In the permanent exhibition of the Museum of Military History in Vienna, the Austrian troops in Palestine have been given their own area in the area of ​​the First World War under the topic On Foreign Fronts . The characteristic and rare Austrian tropical uniforms as well as equipment, awards and armaments are exhibited there.

Movies

  • The kuk 24 cm motor mortar battery No. 9 in Asia Minor : Sascha-Messter weekly report series 132A from May 27, 1917, Vienna: Sascha-Messter Film (Filmarchiv Austria)

literature

  • Arthur Breycha-Vauthier : Austria in the Levant. Herold, Vienna / Munich 1972.
  • Peter Jung: The Austro-Hungarian Desert War. Austria-Hungary in the Middle East 1915–1918. Styria, Graz a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-22212-149-4 .
  • Robert-Tarek Fischer , Austria-Hungary's struggle for the Holy Land. Imperial Palestine Policy in World War I , Peter Lang, Bern / Frankfurt a. M. u. a. 2004 ISBN 978-3-631-52268-4
  • Hans Werner Neulen: Field gray in Jerusalem. The Levant Corps of Imperial Germany , Universitas, Munich 1991 (2nd edition 2002), ISBN 3-8004-1437-6 .
  • Albert Ottenbacher: Art history in its time. Hans Sedlmayr , chap. Orientarme , 2001 ( PDF; 49 kB ); see. Ders .: Art history in its time. On Hans Sedlmayr's “occidental broadcast” . In: Kritische reports 29/3 (2001), pp. 71–86 [shorter version].

Notes and footnotes

  1. ↑ Most likely a posed recording.
  2. ↑ So about 200 guns.
  3. ↑ In the Austro-Hungarian Army, Division was a battalion-strength unit. Correct divisions, however, were called troop divisions.
  4. ↑ See Jan Christoph Reichmann: "Brave Askers" and "Feige Araber". The Ottoman ally from the perspective of German soldiers in the Orient 1914-1918 , diss. phil. Münster 2009, p. 189.
  5. ↑ P. Jung: The kuk desert war. P. 45.
  6. ↑ From Vienna, 1908 co-founder of the Aërosektion of the Austrian Automobile Club (Wiener Luftschiffer-Zeitung 7 (1908), p. 95); also known as a portrait painter; see. Arthur Breycha-Vauthier: Austria in the Levant. Herold, Vienna / Munich 1972, p. 91.
  7. ↑ Harry Spanner / Samuel Guyer : Ruṣāfa. The pilgrimage city of St. Sergios (Research on Islamic Art 4), ed. by Friedrich Sarre , Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 1926.
  8. ^ HW Neulen: Feldgrau in Jerusalem. Cape. XIII: Austro-Hungarian troops in the desert. Pp. 144-151.
  9. ^ Army History Museum / Military History Institute (ed.): The Army History Museum in the Vienna Arsenal . Verlag Militaria , Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-902551-69-6 , p. 115