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The Hungarian Third Army (Hungarian : 3. magyar hadsereg) was a field army in the Royal Hungarian Army that saw action during World War II.
On 5 April 1941, the Hungarian Third Army was mobilized for the invasion of Yugoslavia. The invasion began with the bombing of Belgrade and the crossing of the border by the Germans on 6 April.
The Third Army faced the Yugoslavian First Army. By the time the Hungarians crossed the border and finally attacked, the Germans had been attacking Yugoslavia for over a week. As a result, the Yugoslavs put up little resistance to the Hungarians. Units of the Hungarian Third Army advanced into a triangular shaped area known as the Baranya-triangle between the Danube River and the Drava River. The Hungarians suffered few casualties in this invasion. As a result of participating in the invasion of Yugoslavia, Hungary regained Bácska and Baranya.
From 25 March to 15 April 1944, the Hungarian VII Army Corps was involved in the Battle of Kamenets-Podolsky pocket. The Hungarian VII Army Corps was to become part of the Hungarian Third Army in August.
On 30 August, the Hungarian Third Army was mobilized to defend Hungary against the relentless advances of the Soviet 2nd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts. The Chief of Staff of the Hungarian Armed Forces, Colonel-General János Vörös, ordered this army of nine weak, undermanned, and underequipped reserve divisions to attack west of the Hungarian Second Army (which was mobilized at the same time). The Third Army was to then cross Arad and the Maros Valley and occupy the mountain passes of Transylvania. This attack failed.
On 6 October, in the opening stages of the Battle of Debrecen, the Hungarian Third Army was badly mauled near Arad. Very quickly, the army was scattered near the town of Kecskemét. Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front attempted a pincer maneuver to encircle Army Group Fretter-Pico. The 2nd Ukrainian Front's southern pincer sliced easily through the Hungarian Third Army. This southern pincer was spearheaded by Soviet General Issa Pliyev's Mobile Group Pliyev. Later, in the same battle, Mobile Group Pliyev was encircled and badly mauled by Army Group Fretter-Pico (Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico). The northern pincer was stalled and turned back by veteran German panzer forces. The Hungarian Second Army was an integral part of the German-Hungarian Armeegruppe Fretter-Pico.
The Order Of Battle in October 1944 was as follows:
The Hungarian Second Army was disbanded on 1 December 1944, after the Battle of Debrecen, and its remaining units were transferred to the Third Army.
From 29 December 1944, the Hungarian capital city, Budapest was under siege. In the Battle of Budapest every available Hungarian unit was employed in the defense of the capital. After great loss, the city was unconditionally surrendered on 13 February 1945.
For Operation Spring Awakening the Third Hungarian Army, under the command of the German Sixth Army, had the following order of battle: [1]
Between 16 March and 25 March 1945, most of what was left of the Hungarian Third Army was surrounded and destroyed about forty kilometers to the west of Budapest. The army was destroyed by the Soviet 46th Army as it advanced towards Vienna. [2] But, even after this, the Hungarian Third Army did not totally cease to exist. Some remnants remained and they fought on. Fighting as they went, they moved progressively westward to southern Austria. The army was not officially disbanded until 8 May 1945, the end of the war. That is when the last commander of the Hungarian Third Army, Lieutenant General József Heszlényi, surrendered.
XXX Corps was a corps of the British Army during the Second World War. The corps was formed in the Western Desert in September 1941. It provided extensive service in the North African Campaign and many of its units were in action at the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942. It then took part in the Tunisia Campaign and formed the left flank during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.
The 6th Army was a field army unit of the German Wehrmacht during World War II (1939–1945). It was widely remembered for being the most highly decorated German army unit until its defeat by the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942–1943. It also acquired a reputation for the war crimes that it committed under the command of Field Marshal Walther von Reichenau during Operation Barbarossa.
The 13th Panzer Division was a unit of the German Army during World War II, established in 1940.
The 6th Panzer Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Heer, during World War II, established in October 1939.
The 1st Army was a Royal Yugoslav Army formation commanded by Armijski đeneral Milan Rađenković during the German-led Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in April 1941 during World War II. It consisted of one infantry division, one horsed cavalry division, and two brigade-strength infantry detachments. It formed part of the 2nd Army Group, and was responsible for the defence of the section of the Yugoslav-Hungarian border between the Danube and the Tisza rivers.
The Lvov–Sandomierz offensive or Lvov–Sandomierz strategic offensive operation was a major Red Army operation to force the German troops from Ukraine and Eastern Poland. Launched in mid-July 1944, the operation was successfully completed by the end of August.
The Battle of Debrecen, called by the Red Army the Debrecen Offensive Operation, was a battle taking place from 6 to 29 October 1944 on the Eastern Front in Hungary during World War II.
The second Jassy–Kishinev offensive, named after the two major cities, Iași ("Jassy") and Chișinău ("Kishinev"), in the staging area, was a Soviet offensive against Axis forces, which took place in Eastern Romania from 20 to 29 August 1944 during World War II. The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts of the Red Army engaged Army Group South Ukraine, which consisted of combined German and Romanian formations, in an operation to reoccupy Bessarabia and destroy the Axis forces in the region, opening the way into Romania and the Balkans.
A cavalry-mechanized group was a type of military formation used in the Red Army during World War II against Germany and Japan. It involved a combination of armor and horses.
The 3rd Ukrainian Front was a Front of the Soviet Red Army during World War II.
Operation Atlantic was a Canadian offensive during the Battle of Normandy in the Second World War. The offensive, launched in conjunction with Operation Goodwood by the Second Army, was part of operations to seize the French city of Caen and vicinity from German forces. It was initially successful, with gains made on the flanks of the Orne River near Saint-André-sur-Orne but an attack by the 4th and 6th Canadian Infantry Brigades of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division, against strongly defended German positions on Verrières Ridge to the south was a costly failure.
The Hungarian Second Army was one of three field armies raised by the Kingdom of Hungary which saw action during World War II. All three armies were formed on March 1, 1940. The Second Army was the best-equipped Hungarian formation at the beginning of the war, but was virtually eliminated as an effective fighting unit by overwhelming Soviet force during the Battle of Stalingrad, suffering 84% casualties. Towards the end of the war, a reformed Second Army fought more successfully at the Battle of Debrecen, but, during the ensuing Siege of Budapest, it was destroyed completely and absorbed into the Hungarian Third Army.
The Gyorshadtest was the most modern and best-equipped mechanized unit of the Royal Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War II. However, the "Rapid Corps" name was something of a misnomer as it was only "mechanized" compared to other Hungarian units. The corps was not particularly mechanized when compared to similar units fielded by countries like Germany or the Soviet Union.
During World War II, the Kingdom of Hungary was a member of the Axis powers. In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become more stridently nationalistic by 1938, and Hungary adopted an irredentist policy similar to Germany's, attempting to incorporate ethnic Hungarian areas in neighboring countries into Hungary. Hungary benefited territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czechoslovak Republic, the Slovak Republic, and the Kingdom of Romania. On November 20, 1940, Hungary became the fourth member to join the Axis powers when it signed the Tripartite Pact. The following year, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union. Their participation was noted by German observers for its particular cruelty, with occupied peoples subjected to arbitrary violence. Hungarian volunteers were sometimes referred to as engaging in "murder tourism."
The Belgrade offensive or the Belgrade strategic offensive operation was a military operation during World War II in Yugoslavia in which Belgrade was liberated from the German Wehrmacht through the joint efforts of the Soviet Red Army, Yugoslav Partisans, and the Bulgarian Army. Soviet forces and local militias launched separate but loosely cooperative operations that undermined German control of Belgrade and ultimately forced a retreat. Martial planning was coordinated evenly among command leaders, and the operation was largely enabled through tactical cooperation between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin that began in September 1944. These martial provisions allowed Bulgarian forces to engage in operations throughout Yugoslav territory, which furthered tactical success while increasing diplomatic friction.
A Flak Corps was a massed anti-aircraft (AA) artillery formation employed by the Luftwaffe for anti-aircraft, antitank, and fire support operations in World War II. A Flakkorps was a flexible organization that was made up of a varying number of AA regiments, brigades, or divisions. A total of six flak corps were organized by Germany during the war. The flak corps, while mainly intended to support ground units with concentrated anti-aircraft fire, in many cases provided also antitank support.
Maximilian Fretter-Pico was a German general during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany.
The Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot, was the final Allied attack during the Italian Campaign in the final stages of the Second World War. The attack into the Lombard Plain by the Allied 15th Army Group started on 6 April 1945 and ended on 2 May with the surrender of German forces in Italy.
The Royal Hungarian Army was the name given to the land forces of the Kingdom of Hungary in the period from 1922 to 1945. Its name was inherited from the Royal Hungarian Honvéd which went under the same Hungarian title of Magyar Királyi Honvédség from 1867 to 1918. Initially restricted by the Treaty of Trianon to 35,000 men, the army was steadily upgraded during the 1930s and fought on the side of the Axis powers in the Second World War.
LVII Panzer Corps was a panzer corps in the German Army during World War II.
