| Operation B | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Czechoslovakia |  Ukrainian Insurgent Army | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Jan Heřman [1] Július Nosko [2] | Volodymyr Szczygielski | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 13,500 men [3] | 400–500 men in 1947 [3] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 49 killed [3] | 61 killed 289 captured [4] | ||||||
Operation B was a name for Czechoslovak military operation aimed against members of Ukrainian Insurgent Army who entered Czechoslovak territory. [1]
First members of Ukrainian Insurgent Army entered Czechoslovakia on 13 August 1945 near villages Spišská Stará Ves and Medzilaborce. There were reports of other groups attacking robbing villages near border with Poland. Czechoslovakia sent more units to the area that pushed Ukrainian insurgents back to Poland. [5] Czechoslovak units were commanded by Colonel Jan Heřman. [1]
Polish army launched offensive against Ukrainian Insurgent Army in January 1946. Czechoslovakia reacted by sending more units near borders expecting more insurgents trying to enter Czechoslovakia. [6] Ukrainian Insurgent Army became more active near Polish border with Slovakia and more units entered Czechoslovak territory there. In April 1946 units led by Colonel Heřman launched offensive against insurgents pushing them back to Poland. During late 1946 situation in Slovakia became calmer. [4]
During early 1947 insurgents led some raids to Czechoslovak territory and during summer 1947 launched their largest attack to Czechoslovakia trying to reach western Europe through its territory. Some groups even entered Moravia and South Bohemia. [6] The bloodiest clash occurred on 5 August 1947 at Partizánská Ľupča which resulted in death of 6 members of Czechoslovak security forces. Czechoslovak units were gradually destroying Ukrainian insurgents, and fights concluded on 17 November 1947 when the last forces of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army were destroyed. [7]
Members of OUN captured 33 villages in Czechoslovakia. [7]
1951 Czechoslovak film Operation B focuses on Czechoslovaks participating in military operations against Ukrainian Insurgent Army. [8]
1975 episode of Thirty Cases of Major Zeman called Ruby Crosses was inspired by Ukrainian Insurgent Army activities in Czechoslovakia.
The 1978 film Shadows of a Hot Summer focuses on a family taken hostage by Ukrainian Insurgent Army. [9]
The 1984 film Pasáček z doliny depicts members of Ukrainian Insurgent Army who entered Czechoslovakia.
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked state in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
The Czech Armed Forces, also known as the Czech Army, is the military service responsible for the defence of the Czech Republic as part of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic alongside the Military Office of the President of the Republic and the Castle Guard. The army consists of the General Staff, the Land Forces, the Air Force and support units.
The First Czechoslovak Republic emerged from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October 1918. The new state consisted mostly of territories inhabited by Czechs and Slovaks, but also included areas containing majority populations of other nationalities, particularly Germans (22.95 %), who accounted for more citizens than the state's second state nation of the Slovaks, Hungarians (5.47 %) and Ruthenians (3.39 %). The new state comprised the total of Bohemia whose borders did not coincide with the language border between German and Czech. Despite initially developing effective representative institutions alongside a successful economy, the deteriorating international economic situation in the 1930s gave rise to growing ethnic tensions. The dispute between the Czech and German populations, fanned by the rise of Nazism in neighbouring Germany, resulted in the loss of territory under the terms of the Munich Agreement and subsequent events in the autumn of 1938, bringing about the end of the First Republic.
The Third Czechoslovak Republic, officially the Czechoslovak Republic, was a sovereign state from April 1945 to February 1948 following the end of World War II.
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Carpatho-Ukraine or Carpathian Ukraine was an autonomous region, within the Second Czechoslovak Republic, created in December 1938 and renamed from Subcarpathian Rus', whose full administrative and political autonomy had been confirmed by constitutional law of 22 November 1938.
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Ludvík Svoboda was a Czech general and politician. He fought in both World Wars, for which he was regarded as a national hero, and he later served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1975.
Border conflicts between Poland and Czechoslovakia began in 1918 between the Second Polish Republic and First Czechoslovak Republic, both freshly created states. The conflicts centered on the disputed areas of Cieszyn Silesia, Orava Territory and Spiš. After World War II they broadened to include areas around the cities of Kłodzko and Racibórz, which until 1945 had belonged to Germany. The conflicts became critical in 1919 and were finally settled in 1958 in a treaty between the Polish People's Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic, Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, or simply Czechoslovakia, was the Czechoslovak state from 1948 until 1989, when the country was under communist rule, and was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest.
The Battle of Zborov was a part of the Kerensky Offensive. The battle was the first significant action of the Czechoslovak Legions on the Eastern Front and the only successful engagement of the failed Russian offensive.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
Rudolf Viest was a Slovak military leader, member of the Czechoslovak government in exile, member of the Slovak National Council and the commander of the 1st Czechoslovak army during the Slovak National Uprising. He was the Slovak with the highest military function and the only Slovak general during the interwar period in the First Czechoslovak Republic.
The Czechoslovak Army was the name of the armed forces of Czechoslovakia. It was established in 1918 following Czechoslovakia's declaration of independence from Austria-Hungary.
The Second Czechoslovak Republic existed for 169 days, between 30 September 1938 and 15 March 1939. It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus', the latter being renamed Carpathian Ukraine on 30 December 1938.
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, sometimes styled officially as the Provisional Government of Czechoslovakia, was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other Allied governments during the Second World War as they subsequently recognised it. The committee was originally created by the former Czechoslovak President, Edvard Beneš in Paris, France, in October 1939. Unsuccessful negotiations with France for diplomatic status, as well as the impending Nazi occupation of France, forced the committee to withdraw to London in 1940. The Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile offices were at various locations in London but mainly at a building called Fursecroft, Marylebone.
The 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps, also known as Svoboda's Army, was a military formation of the Czechoslovak Army in exile fighting on the Eastern Front alongside the Soviet Red Army in World War II.
Czechs in Ukraine, often known as Volhynian Czechs, are ethnic Czechs or their descendants settled mostly in the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire, in the second half of the 19th century.
Racibórz Conflict was a border conflict between Czechoslovakia and Poland that almost resulted in a military conflict between both countries.
The Gendarmerie in the First Czechoslovak Republic was a paramilitary force responsible for law enforcement in rural areas, as well as anti-riot and counterinsurgency duties.