Josef Bílý

General Josef Bílý

Josef Bílý (born June 30, 1872 in Zbonín, Kingdom of Bohemia ; † June 28, 1941 in Prague , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ) was an officer in the land forces of Austria-Hungary in World War I and later a Czechoslovak general .

Life

Officer of the land forces of Austria-Hungary and First World War

After attending school in 1888, Bílý began military training at the infantry cadet school and in 1892 was accepted into the land forces of Austria-Hungary . First he was used as a platoon leader and later as a battalion adjutant in the kuk infantry regiment "Freiherr von Georgi" No. 15 stationed in Tarnopol . Between 1898 and 1900 he was a graduate of the Theresian Military Academy in Vienna and was subsequently an officer at the first in Esseg in Slavonia 7th Infantry Division stationed, which was later transferred to Lemberg and in 1906 to Trieste . He then taught between 1908 and 1910 as a teacher for tactics and series preparation at a cadet school in Vienna and then became an officer in the Imperial and Royal Infantry Regiment “Hoch- und Deutschmeister” No. 4 .

At the beginning of the First World War , Bílý became the commander of a battalion deployed on the Eastern Front on August 18, 1914 and took part in combat missions in Galicia and the Carpathian Mountains . After he was wounded on July 3, 1915, he was taken to a hospital in Ljubljana to recover . After a subsequent six-month use as an officer in the military government of Lublin it was as a commander of a battalion to Brixen added before it in February 1917 as Colonel named after him special group Bílý to the mountain front to Asiago in Veneto was delegated. After attending an intelligence training course, he was last appointed commander of the kuk infantry regiment "Graf von Khevenhüller" No. 7 in June 1918 .

For his services he was awarded the Military Merit Medal , the Military Jubilee Cross , the Military Merit Cross III. Class and the Order of the Iron Crown III. and II. class excellent.

Promotion to general in Czechoslovakia

After the establishment of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 1918, Bílý joined the army of the new republic as a professional soldier on November 28, 1918 and was employed as a colonel in the regional command in Budweis . After a brief activity as commander of a regiment in Užhorod and then between May 1920 and January 1921 and again from November 1921 to January 1922 , the 16th Infantry Brigade stationed in Frýdek . On December 16, 1921, he was promoted to Brigadier General . Subsequently he was deputy commanding general of the military command in Brno from 1922 to 1923 and commander of the 6th Infantry Division between 1923 and 1926, before he was acting commanding general of the military command in Brno between 1926 and 1927. He then acted again from 1927 to 1928 as commander of the 6th Infantry Division.

Thereafter, Bílý was between April 1928 and February 1929 commander of the 1st Infantry Division and was promoted as such to major general in May 1928 . At the same time he was commanding general of the military command in Prague from July 1928 to June 1935 and was promoted to army general on June 26, 1941 . In 1935 he retired and was recalled to active military service in 1938, after which he was commanding general of Depot M. After the destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic in March 1939, he joined the Czechoslovak resistance movement Obrana národa (ON) around Alois Eliáš , Hugo Vojta , Sergej Vojcechovský and Sergěj Ingr and recruited other officers such as Bedřich Homola to work in the ON. Due to his activities, he was arrested by the German occupation forces and was in Pankrác prison before being executed outside the prison on June 28, 1941.

For his services he was also awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order Polonia Restituta , the Officer's Cross and the Commander-in-Chief of the Legion of Honor , the Order of the Crown of Romania II. Class, the Order of the Crown of Italy III. Class, the St. Sava Order II. Class, the Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia II. Class and the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939 awarded.

Web link

• Entry in generals.dk