42nd_Home_Guard_Infantry_Division

42nd Home Guard Infantry Division

42nd Home Guard Infantry Division

Military unit

The 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division (Croatian: 42. domobranska pješačka divizija, also 42. Honved Inf. Division), nicknamed the Devil's Division (Croatian: Vražja divizija) was an infantry division of the Royal Croatian Home Guard within the Austro-Hungarian Army which was active in World War I.[1]

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Formation history

The 42nd division was called Domobranska Pjesacka Divizija in Croatian, or Home Defense Infantry Division, Honvéd in Hungarian and Landwehr in German.[1]

The division was created shortly before World War I, within the 7th Home Guard Croatia-Slavonia District of the Royal Croatian Home Guard, it had the honorary title of Slavonski Domobrani (Slavonian Home Guard) but its official title was the Devil's Division.[2] It numbered 14,000 troops.[3] At the start of war, the 42nd division was commanded by Stjepan Sarkotić, an ethnic Croat officer from the Military Border born near Otočac.[1] Its regiments were granted the right to use Serbo-Croatian as the official language of command instead of German or Hungarian.[2]

The division was known for its terrible crimes, including rape, torture and murder against the Serbian populations of Western Serbia.[4] It took part in the Serbian Campaign of 1914 as part of the XIII Corps, first in Syrmia, in Mačva, then during the seven-day battle for Šabac as well as the battles of Cer and Kolubara. On November 11, 1914 Sarkotić was replaced by Johann von Salis-Seewis who led the division during the second Serbian offensive. After the failure of the campaign, it was redeployed at the beginning of 1915 in Galicia on the Eastern front along with the rest of the XIII. Corps. On 22 June 1915 Salis-Seewis was replaced, while he was on leave, by Anton Lipošćak before the Russian Empire launched the Brusilov offensive. On 25 June 1917 Mihovil Mihaljević [hr] took command of the division. At the beginning of 1918, the 42nd Division was transferred to the Italian battlefield, in June 1918, the command was taken over by Teodor Soretić [hr], the division remained in Italy until the end of the war.[1]

Legacy

During World War II, after the 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment, a unit of the Wehrmacht composed of Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) volunteers under a mostly German command, was annihilated during the battle of Stalingrad, it was reformed as the 369th Croatian Infantry Division with the nickname of Devil’s Division in honour of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division of World War I.[5][6]

Commanders

References

  1. [1]
    Oreskovich, J.R. (2019). The History of Lika, Croatia: Land of War and Warriors. Lulu.com. p. 115. ISBN 978-0-359-86419-5.
  2. [2]
    Lyon, J. (2015). Serbia and the Balkan Front, 1914: The Outbreak of the Great War. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-4725-8003-0.
  3. [3]
    Košutić, Ivan (1992). Hrvatsko domobranstvo u drugom svjetskom ratu: I. dio (in Croatian). Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Matice hrvatske. p. 7. ISBN 9788640102605.
  4. [4]
    Graif, Gidʿon (2018). Jasenovac: Auschwitz of the Balkans. [Beograd]. ISBN 978-86-7712-414-4. OCLC 1098189714.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. [5]
    Brnardic, V.; Aralica, V. (2016). World War II Croatian Legionaries: Croatian Troops under Axis Command 1941–45. Men-at-Arms. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-1768-6.
  6. [6]
    Bokun, Edi (2013). "Operacija 369. njemačke divizije protiv ozrenskih četnika (april 1943. godine)" [Operation of German 369th Division Against Ozren Chetniks (in April 1943.)] (PDF). Gračanički glasnik - Časopis za kulturnu historiju (in Bosnian). 18 (35). Gračanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina: Izdavačka kuća »Monos« d.o.o: 58–69.
  7. [7]
    "Vojskovođa Svetozar Boroević" (PDF) (in Croatian). Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  8. [8]
    "Lukas Snjaric". Archived from the original on 2009-10-22.

Sources
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