Balkan suit

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Routes of the Balkan suit and its parts from 1916 to 1918
Balkan train at Niš station in the last year of the war, 1918

The Balkanzug was an express train from Berlin to Istanbul operated by Mitropa during the First World War . As a replacement for the Orient Express , which had been discontinued since the beginning of the war , he took over its function in high-quality travel between Central Europe and the Balkan Peninsula . At the same time, it was supposed to bring the Central Powers closer together. At the end of the war, the train, which had been in service since January 1916, was stopped again.

prehistory

After sleeping cars and dining cars had been increasingly used in European rail traffic from around 1870 , the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) (in German: Internationale Schlafwagengesellschaft, ISG), founded in 1874, contracted the operation of these cars in many European countries secured as a monopoly. The CIWL also took over the operation of most of the luxury trains on European rails. Although the CIWL had its seat in Brussels , it was majority owned by French, and part of the administration was also in Paris. Even before the war, in view of the rivalry and “ hereditary enmity ” between the German Reich and France, this had caused unease, especially in Prussia , and the Prussian State Railways (KPEV) had refused the CIWL its internal courses as far as possible. After the outbreak of the First World War, the German Reich government therefore set itself the express goal of displacing the CIWL from traffic in the German sphere of influence. Paul von Breitenbach , the head of the Reich Railway Office and Prussian Minister of Public Works , stated in a memorandum to Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg :

“I believe that I am in agreement with the goals of Reich policy if, after the outbreak of the World War, I set myself the task of breaking the influence of the ISG to the extent that it is obviously detrimental to German interests. It was important to me [...] to wrest rail traffic to the Balkans and beyond to the wider Orient [...] from French influence. "

After the German troops marched into Belgium, the CIWL was placed under compulsory administration. With the participation of Deutsche Bank , Dresdner Bank and other banks from Austria-Hungary , Mitropa was founded as a competitor to CIWL on March 24, 1916 . The contracts concluded with the CIWL before the war continued to run for some time, however, so Mitropa was not able to take over the operation of the sleeping and dining cars on the routes of the Austrian state railways until January 1, 1918.

Introduction of the Balkan suit

Even before Mitropa was founded, the railways involved in the Central Powers planned the Balkan train to replace the Orient Express operated by CIWL, in order to implement the objective described by Breitenbach in a first step. However, a direct connection to Istanbul could only be established after Bulgaria entered the war in October 1915 and the subsequent conquest of Serbia , which was largely completed in early 1916, a continuous and secure land connection between the Ottoman Empire and its allies in Central Europe.

The Saxon King Friedrich August III. was a participant in the opening trip of the Balkanzug

A total of twelve railway administrations were involved in the Balkans move:

The Hungarian State Railways took over the function of the managing company. Since the Hungarian State Railways as well as the kk Austrian State Railways and the Chemins de fer Orientaux had contracts with the CIWL that were not terminated, the forced administration of the CIWL also had to be taken into account. In addition to Prussian sleeping cars, the train therefore also had to run sleeping and dining cars for the CIWL. The train name was clearly legible on the side walls of the wagons.

The first trip of the Balkansuit took place on January 15, 1916 and was carried out with great propaganda effort, prominent participants and extensive coverage in the press. Along the route, the train was enthusiastically received by crowds, school classes were sent to greet them. Among the participants in the first trip was the Saxon King Friedrich August III. which, however, only drove to Tetschen , the terminus of the Saxon section.

The Balkan suit in the public eye

Contemporary propaganda postcard about the Balkan suit

The Balkan train quickly became popular and also used by prominent passengers. In addition to the military and diplomats of the Central Powers, these included Karl Kraus (who reported about it in the torch ), Ludwig Ganghofer , Felix Salten and the Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I and his sons. As a result, the train was widely used for propaganda purposes, for example on greeting postcards and posters. Because of this prominent role, the train was also mentioned in criticism of the war, for example by Kraus. Richard Hülsenbeck mentions him in his Dadaist Manifesto from 1918, with which he co-founded Dadaism in Berlin.

Allied propaganda also reacted to the replacement of the Orient Express and initially tried to deny its existence, for example in the French newspaper Le Temps . But soon it was perceived as a threat and an essential part of the warfare of the Central Powers. An anonymous author referred to it as

"... the show train of the world. Never has there been a train with such grave responsibilities. It might well be called "the Publicity Train". "

Train run

In view of the war, the Balkan train was not classified as a luxury train , but as a normal express train. Nevertheless, it served above all as a representative train connection with which the four Central Powers should be better connected. Much like the Orient Express, which it replaced, the Balkanzug received various beside his main run Berlin-Istanbul coaches groups . In total it consisted of three train branches:

  • The main route of the Balkanzug went from the Berlin light rail via Breslau , Oderberg , Sillein and Galanta to Budapest . From there it traveled via Belgrade , Nisch and Sofia to Istanbul, at that time mostly called Constantinople .
  • The second part of the train also began in Berlin, but at the Anhalter Bahnhof . It led via Dresden and Prague to Vienna , where the third part of the train coming from Strasbourg was provided. The train to Budapest ran via Pressburg , today's Bratislava . In Galanta, about halfway between Bratislava and Budapest, it united with the part of the train that ran over Oderberg.
  • As a third part of the train, wagons from Strasbourg via Stuttgart and Munich were provided in Vienna . Due to weak demand, this part of the train was shortened to the route from Munich as early as June 1917. From May 1918 a through car is said to have been used from Würzburg to Vienna.

Like most pre-war luxury trains, the Balkan train did not run every day. At first he drove twice a week. In the direction of Istanbul, for example, the Munich part of the train ran on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in the opposite direction the journey in Istanbul began on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The trip from Munich to Istanbul, for example, took 67 hours and 20 minutes in the first timetable, i.e. just under three days. From June 1918, however, the Balkan suit only drove once a week.

Train formation and locomotives

Train formation of the Balkan train (section Galanta to Budapest), status 1916/17
MÁV series 327 used in the Balkansug

In addition to sleeping, dining and luggage cars, the Balkansug - unlike the Orient Express - also received normal 1st and 2nd class coaches. The management of the sleeping and dining cars remained with the forced administration of CIWL due to the contracts in Hungary and Bulgaria that had not been terminated. In addition, sleeping cars provided and managed by the Prussian-Hessian State Railway Administration (KPEV) also ran. It was not until 1917 that Mitropa gradually took over operation and management, the last CIWL wagons were leased to Mitropa on January 1, 1918. In addition to the normal seated cars provided by the railway companies involved, sleeping and dining cars from the KPEV, the Reichseisenbahnen in Alsace-Lorraine and cars taken over from the CIWL were used as rolling stock.

All the railways involved used their most modern express locomotives before the Balkans move. Among other things, the Prussian S 10 , the Bavarian S 3/6 , the Saxon XVIII H , the series 110 , 310 and 910 of the kk Austrian State Railways and the MÁV series 327 carried the Balkan train. In some sections, the Balkan train also reached the highest travel speeds of the express trains running at the time, albeit under the difficult conditions of the war. The average speed between Berlin and Dresden in the 1918 timetable was 72.5 km / h, the journey time of the Balkan suit of 2 hours and 29 minutes was only achieved again on this route after the Second World War after almost 20 years.

Accidents

On November 11, 1916, the train part drove from Berlin via Breslau in the direction of Istanbul shortly after starting near Berlin-Rahnsdorf in a group of track workers. 19 women died in the accident.

The end of the Balkan suit

In September 1918, the Bulgarian resistance on the Salonika Front against the Allies collapsed, the country withdrew from the war with the Armistice of Thessaloniki on September 29, 1918. This also ended the operation of the Balkansug; the last trip took place on October 15, 1918.

The CIWL re-entered its pre-war treaties and concluded further treaties with the newly formed states of Southeast Europe. The Balkan train was replaced from 1919 by the “ Simplon-Orient-Express ”, which bypassed the territory of the German Empire, Austria and Hungary, as the most important connection to the Balkans. The old route of the Orient-Express via Munich and Vienna was only named “Orient -Express “again, but usually only three times a week. To Berlin, sleeping cars were offered as through cars by the CIWL from Istanbul until 1939.

literature

  • Albert Mühl: Sleeping car in Germany. The wagons and operations from the beginning to the transition to Mitropa. EK-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1996, ISBN 3-88255-680-3 .
  • Werner Sölch: Orient Express. The heyday and decline and rebirth of a luxury train. 4th edition. Alba, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-87094-173-1 .
  • Fritz Stöckl , Claude Jeanmaire: Comfort on rails: sleeping cars, dining cars, saloon cars of the European railways. Comfort on Rails: Sleepers, Diners and Salon-cars on the European Railways. Publishing house for railway and tram literature , Basel 1970, DNB 840645783 (= archive no.8 ).

Web links

Commons : Balkanzug  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Stöckl, Claude Jeanmaire: Comfort on rails: sleeping car, dining car, saloon car of the European railways. Comfort on Rails: Sleepers, Diners and Salon-cars on the European Railways. Publishing house for railway and tram literature, Basel 1970, p. 88.
  2. ^ A b Albert Mühl: Sleeping car in Germany. The wagons and operations from the beginning to the transition to Mitropa. EK-Verlag, Freiburg 1996, pp. 116-119.
  3. ↑ Example along the Dresden-Tetschen section, report from Pirna (PDF; 2.5 MB), accessed on October 25, 2011
  4. ↑ Heidemarie Franke, Ilse Ernst: The war generation. ( Memento from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Ursula Blömer, Detlef Garz (Ed.): "We children had a wonderful life ...": Jewish childhood and youth in the Empire 1871 - 1918. ISBN 3-8142- 0719-X , p. 203, accessed October 25, 2011
  5. ↑ a b c Werner Sölch: Orient Express. The heyday and decline of a luxury train. 4th edition. Alba Verlag, Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 39-42.
  6. ^ A b The Man who dined with the Kaiser (pseudonym): My secret service Vienna-Sophia-Constantinople-Nish-Belgrade-Asia Minor, etc. Doran, New York 1916, pp. 191 ff., Accessed on October 25, 2011
  7. ↑ Bayerische Staatszeitung, Sunday, January 16, 1916 No. 12
  8. ↑ Travel times to Stöckl / Jeanmaire, p. 95. The Henschel-Wegmann train from the interwar period, however, required well under two hours from 1936 onwards.
  9. ↑ Memorial plaques in Berlin: Rahnsdorf train accident , accessed on January 13, 2020