Battle of Bratislava (Fall Grün)
From Alternative History
| Battle of Bratislava | |||||||||||||||||
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| Date | October 25 - November 10, 1938 | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Decisive Hungarian victory | ||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Bratislava (sometimes called the Siege of Bratislava) was a military engagement between the Republic of Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Hungary fought between October 25 and November 10, 1938, over the control of the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. It was one of the few Hungarians victories in the first part of the campaign.
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[edit] Background
While the Hungarians made the largest gains in the winter period, they were suffering from lack of ammunition and supplies, as well as winter clothing and heavy casualties, and the Hungarians suffered heavy casualties for each advance they made.
The Slovak capital had, to the Czechs' surprise, not yet been attacked by land forces, and only been targeted by a few Luftwaffe bombing missions at railway stations, government buildings and airports.
[edit] The battle
At 1000 on November 3, the 4th Infantry Brigade began their assault on Bratislava, while the 2nd Huszar Regiment advanced north of the city in order to prevent an escape by the 15. divize “Jánošík”. At noon the Hungarians received the report by the OKH that they had put the 16. Infanterie-Division and Panzer-Regiment 3 at the Hungarian's disposal. They were immediately dispated to secure the the encirclement of Bratislava and the assault itself. While the Panzer-Regiment 3 used their motorisation at their advantage, the support of the Germans were much welcomed by the Hungarians.
The same night Maj.Gen. Milán Temessy ordered the assault on Bratislava to be carried out at 0800 on November 6, 1938. In the meantime, Brig. Gen. Bohuslav Všetička, seeing he was encircled with no possibility to escape, decided to prepare for combat, mainly by putting up barricades and preparing gasoline bombs to be used against tanks.
At 0800 on November 6, 1938 The Hungarian-German assault was initiated, and by noon they had made several headways into the town. Meanwhile the Luftwaffe and artillery continued to bombard the defences in Bratislava and important facilities in the city itself. The Hungarians halted the offensive temporarily for around 10 hours in order to get the much needed ammunition supplies to the frontline infantry, which gave the Czechs an unexpected opportunity to reorganise the defences. The fighting continued into the night, without any real gains.
Heavy close combat fighting ensued for another 18 hours, until Brig. Gen. Všetička, with few reserves and little to no ammunition, and eager to avoid further civilian casualties, decided to capitulate to the Hungarians. At 07.30 on November 8 all Czech soldiers had laid down their arms.
[edit] Aftermath
The Czechs suffered 1620 killed, 800 wounded and the remaining 1180 were taken prisoner. The Hungarians and Germans suffered a total of 560 killed and 750 wounded.
[edit] See also
 Invasion of Czechoslovakia 
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| Battles: The Border - Ostrava - Karlovy Vary - Otročín - Bezděkov - Želetava - Šumperk - Siege of Plzeň - Ivančice - Otnice, Bošovice and Velké Hostěrádky - Brno - Hungarian offensive - Bratislava - Michalovce - Košice - Frühlingserwachen - Olomouc - Siege of Prague Contemporaneous military operations: Zaolzie - Miskolc bombing - Batarci incident |
