Not long ago, as I was preparing for an expedition to the Carpathians, I often heard the reproachful question: “What about the history of Kharkiv and Sloboda Ukraine? Why do you need mountains that aren’t ours?” Paradoxical as it may seem, there are quite a few historical events linking both our beloved city and our wonderful region to the Carpathian Mountains. Alas, these were tragic events. It happened in 1915…
I’ll begin by noting that as early as 1862, as part of the military reforms implemented by Minister Dmitry Alekseyevich Milyutin, the Kyiv Military District (KMD) was established within the territory of what was then the Russian Empire. It encompassed the territories of the Kyiv, Volhynia, and Podolia governorates. And starting in 1888, the KVO also included lands from the Kursk, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv governorates. By 1914, there were a total of 12 military districts in the country.
Each such district served simultaneously as both a military command structure and a military-administrative unit. This allowed for the rapid command of troops and swift mobilization—the territory of each district was divided into army corps and divisions, which became part of the army upon the outbreak of hostilities.
By the start of World War I, units of the 10th Army Corps were stationed in Kharkiv and the surrounding province:
- The 31st Infantry Division, which consisted of the 121st Penza, 122nd Tambov, 123rd Kozlov, and 124th Voronezh Regiments.
- The 10th Cavalry Division, which included the 28th Novgorod Dragoon Regiment, the 29th Odesa Dragoon Regiment, the 30th Ingermanland Dragoon Regiment, and the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment.
It is precisely these regiments—which were stationed and recruited on our lands—that can be considered, despite their names, Slobozhansky. In July 1914, the Third and Eighth Armies were formed from the troops of the Kyiv Military District, into which peasants from the territory of present-day Central and Eastern Ukraine were mobilized. The fate of these two armies during World War I was tragic and marked by terrible human losses. As part of further mobilization, the second-wave regiments were deployed on July 18, 1914. Specifically regarding Sloboda Ukraine, the 69th Infantry Division was formed on the basis of personnel from the 31st Infantry Division; it consisted of the 273rd Bohodukhivsky, 274th Izyumsky, the 275th Lebedynsky, and the 276th Kup’yans’ky Infantry Regiments. These were recruited—I repeat—from the residents of the city of Kharkiv and the province. Alexander Petrovich Gavrilov served as the division commander from its inception until the summer of 1917. To summarize his biography very briefly—without listing his entire service record and awards—he was born on August 26, 1855, and came from a noble family in the St. Petersburg Governorate; He was educated at the 1st Siberian Real School and entered military service in 1878. Alexander Petrovich fought in the Russo-Turkish War, then graduated from the 1st Pavlovsk Military School and the Mikhailovsk Artillery School, and in 1889, from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. Alexander Gavrilov’s military career was on the rise. From 1899 to 1904, he served as chief of staff of the 40th Infantry Division. During the Russo-Japanese War, he served as commander of the 162nd Akhaltsikhe Infantry Regiment, and in 1908 he was promoted to the rank of major general. And in 1912, he became commander of the 1st Brigade of the 31st Infantry Division, which we are already familiar with. Initially, like the 31st Division, the 69th was part of the 3rd Army of the Southwestern Front. However, as early as September 18, 1914, it was placed under the command of the commander of the newly formed Blockade Army. Consequently, several of its regiments took part in the siege and capture of the Przemyśl Fortress in 1915.
In late December 1914, the High Command of the Southwestern Front began preparations for an operation to break through the Carpathians and invade enemy territory. At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian command was also preparing for an offensive in an attempt to relieve the besieged fortress of Przemyśl.
The largest-scale battles in the Carpathian Mountains took place from January through March 1915.
On January 7, the 8th Army engaged an enemy force and launched a counteroffensive; on March 1, the troops of the Southwestern Front began a large-scale general assault on the Carpathian heights and mountain passes. As part of the January offensive, on January 13, a brigade of the 69th Division, accompanied by General Gavrilov, was dispatched by rail from the town of Khyrov. By January 19, 1915, Gavrilov’s division was already referred to in documents as the “Khust Direction Troop Group,” whose area of operations included the settlements of Senechev, Vyshkov, Klasuie, Lyudvigovka, and the Torun Pass.
Fierce battles, with the enemy holding the advantage in artillery and troop strength, are raging along the entire front line. Between January 17 and 22 alone, the division’s losses totaled 18 officers and 1,618 enlisted men killed, wounded, or missing in action. From late January through early February 1915, Austro-Hungarian and German forces launched another counteroffensive across the entire front of General Gavrilov’s 69th Division. Particularly bloody battles were fought for the high ground in the Senechiv area at the junction of the 69th and 78th Infantry Divisions. According to archival documents, the mountain slopes were then simply littered with thousands of corpses. Because the units of the 69th Division were exhausted by prolonged, uninterrupted fighting in the snow—without relief and with almost no sleep—General Gavrilov requested reinforcements from the command. Despite heavy losses, he categorically refused to retreat on several occasions, realizing that a withdrawal would result in far greater casualties. To understand the scale of those battles, here are some brief excerpts from reports by M. S. Pustovoitenko, Quartermaster General of the Southwestern Front’s Army Headquarters, on the situation in the armies’ sectors.
- January 22… The enemy launched an offensive against Gavrilov along the entire front from Senechiv to Klaus, and the attacks were repelled by fire…
- January 23… Gavrilov successfully repelled all attacks by the enemy, which was advancing along the entire front…
- On January 25, in the Khust sector, the enemy launched attacks on Senichiv and the high ground north of Klaus, but we repelled all of them…
- January 26… In the Khust sector, artillery and small-arms fire repelled an enemy attack in the Klaus area…
- On January 28, in the Khust sector, enemy attacks on the high ground southwest of Vyshkov were repelled…
- January 29… In the Khust sector, the enemy launched persistent attacks in the Vyshkov area; all attacks were repelled…
- January 29–30… On the Khust front, the enemy—the Austrians—managed to capture a hill 4 versts southeast of Vyshkov on the evening of January 29, On the morning of January 30, intense fighting broke out; the enemy directed all its efforts toward capturing the heights between Tukhla and Senechuv…
- January 31… In the Khust sector, the 2nd Finnish Brigade fought a fierce battle all day against the Germans, who were advancing eastward from Lower Rozhanka and Upper Rozhanka; All German attacks were repelled; in the Vyshkov area, there was fighting with the Austrians; we launched a counterattack and captured the high ground 4 versts south of Vyshkov…
- On the night of January 31 to February 1… “In the Khust sector, the Germans launched relentless attacks throughout the night against the front lines of the 2nd Finnish Brigade, 4 versts north of Senechev, as well as against the Senechev-Vyshkova front; all attacks were repelled…”
- February 1… On the Khust sector, the 2nd Finnish Brigade heroically repelled continuous German attacks across the entire front during the night of February 1 and throughout the day; the group commander attests to the outstanding energy, tenacity, and resilience of the units of the aforementioned brigade; to relieve the pressure on its front, the 10th Finnish Regiment was sent through the Mizunka River valley into the German rear, for the same purpose, the Izyum troops (the 274th Izyum Regiment) were moved from the heights north of Klaus to the enemy’s flank…
- On February 3, the Germans continued their tower attacks along the entire front of the 2nd Finnish Brigade; the trenches in the Senechev area changed hands repeatedly, with the enemy suffering heavy losses, near Vyshkov, nine attacks were repelled, and all of General Gavrilov’s units were committed to the battle…
- On the Khust front on February 3, the 6th Finnish Regiment repelled five attacks on a hill two versts west of Senechev; during the repulsion of the second attack, two German companies were wiped out by rifle and machine-gun fire; up to 900 corpses were counted in front of the regiment’s line. The 10th Finnish Regiment launched an offensive on Hill 1043, six versts northwest of Senechev, to attack the enemy’s left flank; German soldiers were taken prisoner… The 274th Izyum Regiment captured a hill 2 versts east of Klaus, scattering an enemy battalion, and continued its advance to attack the right flank of the Austrians fighting in the Vyshkov area…
In one of his letters, a captured officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army describes the hell that reigned in those parts at the time:
The officers suffered just as much as the soldiers. We spent four weeks in the Carpathians at altitudes of 900–1,000 meters in bitter cold, day and night on the front lines, amid artillery and infantry fire, and suffered greatly from the cold and illness. Of the 240 men I still had on March 1, only 97 remained by March 10—but even those were not Hungarian soldiers, but rather some half-dead, starving, frozen, ragged wretches who could have been scattered with a wet rag…
In his reports, General Gavrilov also notes that in January and February, the Carpathians experienced temperatures of minus 20–25 degrees and continuous snowstorms. Brief winter and spring thaws did nothing to improve the situation for our compatriots. The trenches filled with water, and the soaked soldiers froze day and night. All of this made it difficult to deliver ammunition and provisions to the troops stationed on the mountain peaks. The number of people suffering from frostbite in their limbs was growing. But despite this, the 69th Division did not abandon its positions in the mountains and held its ground. It was only toward the end of spring, during the general retreat, that it slowly began to withdraw from the Carpathians.
From May 1 through May 20, the 274th Izyum Regiment of the 69th Division was already holding a position near the town of Dolyna, where it repelled attacks by advancing Austro-German forces. On May 13 alone, enemy forces fired more than 5,000 shells of various calibers at the Izyum troops. In reports from early summer by military censors of the retreating XI Army—of which the division was then a part—we read:
…There are a significant number of letters condemning the eviction of residents, the requisitioning of livestock, and the destruction of crops… These measures, though a cruel necessity, have a profoundly negative effect on the soldiers, who feel great sympathy for the Rusyns… Many letters have been received describing the dire situation of Galician peasants due to requisitions and the destruction of crops, and these letters invariably express sympathy for them…
Perhaps that is why, in July 1915, the 69th Division was transferred to the Northern Front, and on July 15, it arrived in the Białystok area (now a city in northeastern Poland).
It is estimated that between mid-January and the end of April 1915, during one of the largest mountain battles of World War I (referred to in documents as the “Carpathian Offensive,” though I would call it the “Carpathian Massacre”), the Imperial Army’s losses amounted to about 1 million killed, wounded, and missing in action. The combined losses of the Austro-Hungarian and German forces were slightly lower—800,000. The ashes of many of our compatriots—who were either left unburied or buried in abandoned military cemeteries—as well as the remains of many Ukrainians who fell in 1915, still cover the Carpathian Mountains to this day. That is precisely why I traveled to Vyshkov as part of a search expedition organized by the “People’s Memory” Union.
