Hungarian Second Army
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The Hungarian Second Army was a field army of the Hungarian Army which saw action during World War II. The Hungarian Second Army saw major action at the Battle of Stalingrad and at the Battle of Debrecen.
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[edit] Commanders
The Hungarian Second Army had four commanders from 1 March 1940 to 13 November 1944. The army's commanders were as follows:
- Lieutenant General Gusztáv Jány - From 1 March 1940 to 5 August 1943 (awarded German Knight's Cross on 31 March 1943)
- Lieutenant General Géza Lakatos - From 5 August 1943 to 1 April 1944 (awarded German Knight's Cross on 24 May 1944)
- Lieutenant General Lajos Veres von Dalnoki - From 1 April 1944 to 16 October 1944
- Lieutenant General Jenö Major - From 16 October 1944 to 13 November 1944
[edit] Occupation Duties
Hungary was an Axis state at the beginning of the European conflict. Hungary's leader was Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy.
The small Hungarian Army had a peacetime strength of only 80,000 men. Organizationally, the nation was divided into seven corps commands. Each army corps consisited of three infantry divisions with three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment in each of these divisions. Each army corps also included two cavalry brigades, two motorized infantry brigades, an anti-aircraft battery, a signals company, and a cavalry reconnaissance troop. [1]
On 11 March 1940, the Hungarian Army was expanded to three field armies. Each field army had three corps. All three of these field armies were to ultimately see action against the Soviets before the end of the war.
However, on 22 June 1941, Hungary did not immediately participate in the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). Better yet, German dictatorAdolf Hitler did not directly ask for nor necessarilly want Hungarian assistance at that time. Most of the Hungarian forces, including the three field armies, were initially relegated to occupation duties within the newly enlarged Hungarian state. Hungary now occupied size-able portions of territories previously belonging to its less fortunate neighbors.
At the end of June in 1941, Hungary did eventually join Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. This was after the questionable bombing of Košice (Kassa) by the Soviets.
At first, only Hungary's Karpat Group with its Gyorshadtest (Fast Moving Army Corps) was sent to fight in Russia.
[edit] Stalingrad
[edit] Operation Saturn and Disaster
The Hungarian Second Army is probably the best known of Hungary's World War II-era armies because of the part it played in the Battle of Stalingrad. By the time that the Second Army was sent to Russia, the rank-and-file of the Hungarian Army were made up of Hungarians, Romanians from Transylvania, Slovakians from southern Slovakia,Ukrainians from Ruthenia, and Serbs from Bács-Kiskun. Many new conscripts had undergone only eight weeks of training. The only tactical experience for many of these soldiers were the maneuvers held just prior to the departure for the front. None of this contributed to the homogeneity or the morale of the troops in the Hungarian Second Army.
In 1942, the Hungarian Second Army was given the task of protecting the German Sixth Army's northern flank. This allowed the Sixth Army to continue to attack Soviet General Vasily Chuikov's 62nd Army defending the city of Stalingrad. The Second Army was placed on the Sixth Army's northern flank together with the Italian Eighth Army and the Romanian Third Army. The German Sixth Army's southern flank was protected by the Romanian Fourth Army.
The Hungarian Second Army, along with almost all of the other the armies protecting the German Sixth Army's flanks, was annihilated when the Soviets launched Operation Uranus, Operation Saturn , and Operation Little Saturn.
On 19 November 1942, the Soviets launched Operation Uranus. As part of this operation, two Soviet pincers drove through the Romanian Third Army to the north of Stalingrad and through the Romanian Fourth Army to the south and cut off the German Sixth Army.
On 12 December 1942, as a counter move, the Germans launched Operation Winter Storm. The Germans launched Operation Winter Storm to relieve the Sixth Army by driving through the Soviet armies which made of the pincers in Operation Uranus.
On 16 December 1942, the Soviets countered the German's counter move and launched the first stage of Operation Saturn. This first stage was codenamed Operation Little Saturn. The Soviets drove through the Italian Eighth Army and threatened the flank of the German forces attempting to relieve the Sixth Army.
On 13 January 1943, the Soviets then launched the second stage of Operation Saturn. In this stage the four armies of Soviet General Filipp Golikov's Voronezh Front attacked, encircled, and destroyed the Hungarian Second Army near Svoboda on the Don. An attack on the German 2nd Army further north threatened to bring about an encirclement of that army as well. But the German 2nd Army managed to escape and it was forced to retreat. By 5 February 1943, troops of the Voronezh Front were approaching Kursk and Kharkov.
In February 1943, the Soviets launched the third stage of Operation Saturn. By now the German armies were in a disorganized retreat all across the southern Ukraine. The third stage was an ambitious operation for the Voronezh Front to advance to the Dniepr and encircle the German 2nd Army. In addition to the Voronezh Front, the Southwest Front and South Front were to advance and capture Voroshilovgrad. They would then drive south to the Sea of Azov to encircle Kleist's Army Group A and Manstein's Army Group Don.
On 16 February 1943, not all of the ambitious goals of the third stage of Operation Saturn had been met when the Germans launched the Third Battle of Kharkov.
With the success of the second stage of Operation Saturn, approximately 120,000 Hungarians were killed, wounded, or captured. The Hungarian Second Army, like most of the other allied armies protecting the German Sixth Army's flanks, ceased to represent a meaningful fighting force. The agony of the Sixth Army trapped in Stalingrad had ended when they surrendered on 2 February 1943.
[edit] Order of Battle - 1942
In 1942, Colonel-General Gusztav Jany commanded the Hungarian Second Army during the Stalingrad disaster. The order of battle for Jany's army was as follows:
Hungarian Second Army
- IIIrd Field Corps
- 6th Light Field Division
- 7th Light Field Division
- 9th Light Field Division
- IVth Field Corps
- 10th Light Field Division
- 12th Light Field Division
- 16th Light Field Division
- VIIth Field Corps.
- 19th Light Field Division
- 20th Light Field Division
- 23rd Light Field Division
- 1st Armored Field Division
Most of the the field divisions sent to fight at Stalingrad as part of the Second Army in 1942 were light field divisions. Hungarian divisions typically had three regiments. By comparison, "light" divisions typically had two regiments.
In addition to the three infantry corps, the Hungarian Second Army included the 1st Armored Field Division. Most of the armor in this division was included in the 30th Tank Regiment. At the time of the Battle for Stalingrad, the primary battle tank in this unit was the Czech Panzer 38(t). These were augmented by Hungarian Toldi tanks for scouting duties, Hungarian Nimrod anti-aircraft gun tanks, and Hungarian Csaba armored cars. But the tank regiment also had about ten German Panzer IV F2 tanks and a few German Panzer III tanks in its heavy tank battalion. Unfortunately there were far too few of these better German tanks to make much of a difference.
[edit] Attached to Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico
[edit] Hungary becomes a battlefield
On 19 March 1944, as Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklos Horthy surrounded himself with anti-fascists and as relations between Hungary and Germany became less and less cordial, German forces guaranteed Hungary's participation in the war by launching Operation Margarethe. German dictator Adolf Hitler arranged to keep Horthy busy conducting negotiations while Hungary was quietly and efficiently overrun by German ground forces in a quick and bloodless invasion.
Soon all of Hungary was to become a battlefield.
By mid August 1944, German Colonel-General (Generaloberst) Johannes Friessner's Army Group South was on the brink of collapse. To the north, the Soviet Operation Bagration was completing the destruction of Army Group Centre. To the south, Germany's former ally, Romania, declared war on Germany on 25 August 1944. Then another of Germany's former allies, Bulgaria, declared war on Germany on 8 September 1944. The subsequent drive of Soviet General Fedor Tolbukhin's 3rd Ukrainian Front far into Romania and Bulgaria destroyed any semblance of an organised German defensive line. By this time, Tolbukhin, aided by the 2nd Ukrainian Front under Soviet General Rodion Malinovsky had annihilated 13 Axis divisions, taking over 100,000 prisoners. Both Tolbukhin and Malinovsky were promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union.
On 30 August, Hungary mobilized the Hungarian Second Army and the Hungarian Third Army. Both armies were primarily composed of weak, undermanned, and underequipped reserve divisions.
General of Artillery Maximilian Fretter-Pico's recently re-formed Sixth Army represented the nucleus of what remained of Friessner's force. By October 1944, seeing that his Hungarian allies were suffering from low morale, Friessner attached the recently re-formed Hungarian Second Army under the command of Lieutenant-General Lajos Veress von Dalnoki to Fretter-Pico's army. The combination of German and Hungarian armies was designated Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico.
The actions of Bulgaria and Romania had opened up a 650 kilometer gap in Friessner's Army Group South. As Friessner desperately struggled to reform a defensive line, news filtered through to Berlin that the Hungarian leader, Admiral Miklós Horthy was preparing to sign a separate peace with the Soviet Union. If this happened, the entire southern front would collapse.
In August, Horthy did replace Prime Minister Döme Sztójay with the anti-Fascist General Géza Lakatos. Under the Lakatos regime, acting Interior Minister Béla Horváth ordered Hungarian gendarmes to protect any Hungarian citizen from being deported.
In September 1944, Soviet forces crossed the Hungarian border. On 15 October 1944, Horthy announced that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union. Most Hungarian army units ignored Horthy's orders. The Germans reacted swiftly with Operation Panzerfaust. Commando leader Otto Skorzeny was sent to Hungary. In another of his daring "snatch" operations, Skorzeny kidnapped Horthy's son Nicolas. The Germans insisted that Horthy abrogate the armistice, depose the Lakatos government, and name the leader of the Arrow Cross Party, Ferenc Szálasi, as Prime Minister. Instead, Horthy agreed to abdicate. Szálasi was able take power in Hungary with Germany's backing.
[edit] Success at the Battle of Debrecen and the end
In late 1944, a re-formed Hungarian Second Army enjoyed a modest level of combat success as an integral part of German General Maximilian Fretter-Pico's Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico.
From 16 September 1944 to 24 October 1944, during the Battle of Debrecen, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to achieve a major win on a confusingly fluid battlefield. This battle was particularly confusing because both the Soviets and the Germans were on the offensive against each other at the same time in the same area. While avoiding encirclement itself, Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico managed to encircle and destroy three Soviet tank corps of Mobile Group Pliyev (under the command of Issa Pliyev). This defeat of the Soviet mobile group was especially pleasing to Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico's Hungarian contingent. Earlier, in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev had easily sliced through the untested Hungarian Third Army. But even success on the battlefield ultimately proved too costly to the Hungarians. Unable to replace the assets lost in the Battle of Debrecen, the Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944. The remaining units of the Second Army were transferred to the Third Army.
[edit] Order of Battle - 1944
While the Hungarian Second Army was the primary Hungarian unit in Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico, it was not the only Hungarian unit in the army group. Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico also included the Hungarian VIIth Field Corps.
Hungarian units in Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico
- VIIth Field Corps
- 8th Reserve Field Division
- 12th Reserve Field Division
- Hungarian Second Army
- 9th Light Field Division
- IInd Field Corps
- 25th Light Field Division
- 2nd Armored Field Division
- Group Finita
- 7th Replacement Field Division
- 1st Replacement Mountain Brigade
- 2nd Replacement Mountain Brigade
In 1944, the main battle tank of the 2nd Armored Field Division was the Hungarian Turan medium tank. The Turan tank represented a limited improvement over the Czech Panzer 38(t) and the Hungarian Toldi tanks used by the 1st Armored Field Division in 1942. But the Turan I tank (with a 40mm gun) and the Turan II tank (with a short 75mm gun) were still no match for a standard Soviet T-34 tank. And, compared to the T-34, the Soviets had many much improved tanks by 1944. Unfortunately manufacture of the potentially lethal Turan III tank (with a long 75mm gun) never got beyond the prototype stage. Unfortunately for the Hungarians, the few better German Panzer IV tanks, Panzer III tanks, and Sturmgeschütz III assault guns were never made available to the them in numbers that would make a difference.
[edit] See also
- Hungary
- History of Hungary
- Hungary during the Second World War
- Military of Hungary - 1940/45
- Battle of Stalingrad - 1942/43
- Battle of Debrecen - 1944
- Eastern Front (World War II)
- Hungarian First Army
- Hungarian Third Army
- Gyorshadtest
[edit] References
- ^ Page 207, The Armed Forces of World War II", Andrew Mollo, ISBN 0-517-54478-4
