Bosnians in Subcarpathian Fights, against Czechoslovakian Soldiers and in the "Ragged guards"
Bosnians in Subcarpathian Fights, against Czechoslovakian Soldiers and in the "Ragged guards"

Summary/Abstract: Before the outbreak of World War II, under the leadership of the German Empire, European countries redrawed the borders of Central European nations in several steps. Within the framework of these great power games, the boundaries of the newly formed Slovakia and its southern neighbor Hungary were marked in 1938 so none of the parties were really happy with the decision. The Hungarian side determined to command paramilitary units in addition to the professional army to the reclaimed territories, including Transcarpathia. Thus, the Ragged Guard, which was dismantled in 1921, was reactivated. The topic of this paper addresses how the Ragged Guard was reorganized from October 1938 onwards, and how roughly 30 to 40 armed men of Bosnian descent joined its contingent that had contained a high number Slav and Balkanic people in the early 1920s. This paper looks at all the preparations that lvan Hejjas has made to get the soldiers who have been disarmed for almost two decades to be reintroduced to the military life. This paper will argue that the Bosnian soldiers thus "enlisted" were essentially unprepared for the mobilization, did not have adequate clothing and armaments, and this may explain why, although they initially had military success, suffered heavy losses when the Hungarian army in the spring of 1939 headed east through the Carpathians against the Soviet Union. This study examines Hungarian archival sources and analytical work in Hungarian, as well as an interview with a Hungarian soldier who was present on the spots where the Bosnian paramilitarists were the most active, in order to prove that the Bosnian soldiers operating in Transcarpathia were the bravest and most determined in Hejjas' unit.

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