Battle of the Drina
| date | September 6 to October 4, 1914 |
|---|---|
| place | Drina catchment area |
| output | draw |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| losses | |
|
17,500 killed and wounded |
18,500 dead and wounded |
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The Battle of the Drina took place between the Austro-Hungarian and Serbian armies from September 6th to October 4th, 1914 in the Bosnian-Serbian border area on the Drina . The Austro-Hungarian 5th and 6th Armies started a new offensive from Bosnia to Serbia and forced the Serbs to break off their invasion of Syrmia . The fighting, which was costly for both sides, ended with the temporary transition to trench warfare , which lasted until the Battle of the Kolubara .
prehistory
After the failure of the Austrian initial offensive against Serbia in the Battle of Cer in August 1914, the kuk armies involved withdrew again across the Drina to Bosnia. Since the same time laying the previously on the Sava and Danube and against Belgrade used 2nd Army to the Eastern Front had started where the start of major hostilities against the Russian army in Galicia was imminent, the opportunity for a Serb counter-attack bot. At the urging of the allies, especially Russia , the Serbian 1st Army under Petar Bojović began a limited counter-offensive across the Sava to Syrmia on September 6th .
course
The commander of the Austrian Balkan Forces Oskar Potiorek decided to respond with a renewed offensive across the Drina against the Serbian 2nd Army under Stepa Stepanović and 3rd Army under Pavle Jurišić Šturm . The 5th Army led by Liborius Ritter von Frank and the 29th Infantry Division under FML von Krauss had to repel an attack by the Serbian Division Timok I under General Kondic across the Sava near Mitrovica from September 6th, before also attacking to be able to pass in the Save-Drina triangle.
The Austrian offensive began on September 7th and led to the establishment of safe bridgeheads over the Drina in the area of the 6th Army led by Potiorek . In the 5th Army, the 36th Infantry Troop Division under FML Czibulka near Klenje failed to cross the Drina , while to the north of it the 9th Infantry Troop Division under Major General Daniel managed to cross the Lower Drina. On September 8th, the mountain brigades of the kuk XVI began. Corps of the FZM Wurm on both sides of the Drinjaca mouth crossing the river. The target of the 1st Infantry Troop Division (FML Bogat) was Krupanj , the strategic goal of the 6th Army was to encircle the opposing Serbian 3rd Army from the south and to roll up the entire opposing front in the Macva . The Serbian army commander General Pavle Jurišić Šturm ordered the withdrawal of his troops to the Jagodnja Mountains and from there was able to contain the further expansion of the Drina bridgehead by the 6th Army.
Faced with the new situation, the Serbian Chief of Staff Radomir Putnik ordered the withdrawal of the 1st Army from Syrmia and the transfer of several divisions in forced marches to the endangered southern flank of the Drina. After their arrival , a Serb counterattack against the 6th Army began on September 17th at Mount Mačkov, but it failed until September 22nd after several days of fighting over the Jagodnja.
Between September 23 and 28, 1914, a Serbian-Montenegrin advance of the Užice army group into the rear of the Austro-Hungarian 6th Army by the mountain brigades of the 18th and 50th infantry troop divisions under FML Trollmann and Kalser in the area of Romanija planina was stopped become. By the beginning of October, the troops of the Serbian Užice group, which were striving to break through to Sarajevo , had been driven out of Bosnia again.
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Both sides were now preparing for trench warfare and awaiting reinforcements and supplies. FZM Potiorek was supposed to start his third offensive against Serbia in November, which ended in the Battle of the Kolubara .
Above the town of Banja Koviljača , the Serbian side created a joint military cemetery with a memorial visible from afar after the war by Alexander I on Mount Gučevo.
literature
- James Lyon: Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914. The Outbreak of the Great War. Bloomsbury Academic, London a. a. 2015, ISBN 978-1472580047 .
- Gunther E. Rothenberg: "The Austro-Hungarian Campaign Against Serbia in 1914". In: The Journal of Military History , Vol. 53, No. 2 (April 1989), pp. 127-146.