First Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia
military unit
The First Czechoslovak Army in Slovakia was an ad-hoc military formation formed by the insurgents of the Slovak National Uprising (August – October 1944) against Nazi Germany. It was destroyed by German and pro-German Slovak forces as part of the successful crackdown against the Slovak National Uprising.
Background
The First Slovak Republic had been formed as a puppet state of Nazi Germany in early 1939, during the German Invasion of Czechoslovakia, when the territories of the modern-day Czech Republic that had not yet been part of Nazi Germany as a result of the 1938 Munich Agreement were forcefully integrated into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ("Reich Protectorate" for short). Slovakia agreed in treaties with Germany signed on 23 March 1939 to follow the German lead in foreign policy, and later to also allow the formation of a German Zone of Protection in Slovakia, where German forces in the country were initially concentrated. Militarily, Slovakia was forced to fight a brief war against Germany's partner Hungary; the Slovak–Hungarian War ended in further territorial concessions to Hungary that even exceeded the previous concessions made at the First Vienna Award of 2 November 1938.
Slovakia participated in World War II on the side of the Axis; the Slovak Field Army Bernolák participated in the German Invasion of Poland of September 1939 with a small-scale Slovak invasion of Poland. On 23 June 1941, the Slovak Republic declared war on the Soviet Union, which had been invaded by Germany a day prior; a Slovak contingent subsequently was placed under the command of the German 17th Army.
As the fortune of war on the Eastern Front turned against the Axis, Slovak soldiers began to desert in disproportionate numbers to the Red Army, especially after the widely acclaimed German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad 1942/43. The actions of Soviet partisans in areas still occupied by Germany and its allies widened to include Slovakia as well starting in spring of 1944. The anti-German partisans started to infiltrate central Slovakia in August 1944, and the Bratislava government soon lost control in the area, declaring martial law on 10 August 1944.
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