At dawn on March 23, 1939, Hungary suddenly attacked Slovakia from Carpathian Ruthenia with instructions being to "proceed as far to the west as possible". The Slovak troops (supported by some Czechs) were surprised and unprepared for war.
In the north, opposite Stakcin, Major Matjka assembled an infantry battalion and two artillery batteries. In the south, around Michalovce, Štefan Haššik, a reserve officer and a local
HSLS secretary, gathered a group of about four infantry battalions and several artillery batteries. Further west, opposite the passive, but threatening Košice-Prešov front, where the Hungarians maintained an infantry brigade, Major Šivica assembled a third Slovak concentration. To the rear, a cavalry group and some tanks were thrown together at Martin, and artillery detachments readied a
Banská Bystrica,
Trenčin and Bratislava. However, German interference disrupted or paralysed their movement, especially in the V Corps. The defence was tied down defensively, as the Hungarian annexations the last autumn had delivered the only railway line to
Michalovce and
Humenné into their hands, thereby delaying all Slovak reinforcements.
The Hungarian troops advanced quickly into eastern Slovakia, which surprised both the Slovaks and the Germans. Despite the awful confusion caused by the hurried mobilization and desperate shortage of officers, the Slovak force in Michalovce had coalesced sufficiently to attempt a counterattack by the following day. This was largely thanks to the arrival of the regular Major Kubícek, who had taken over command from the belligerent, but not very professional, Haššik and had begun to get a better grip on the situation. Because they were based on a widely available civilian truck, spares were soon found to repair five of the sabotaged OA vz. 30 armoured cars in Prešov and they reached Michalovce at 05:30 AM on March 24. Their Czech crews had been replaced by scratch teams of Slovakian signallers from other technical arms. They were immediately sent on a reconnaissance mission to Budkovce, some 15 km south of Michalovce, but could not find any trace of the Hungarians.
It was therefore decided to counterattack eastwards, where the most advanced Hungarian outpost was known to be some 10 km away at Závadka. The road-bound armoured cars engaged the Hungarian pocket from the front whilst Slovak infantry worked round their flanks. Soon they forced the heavily outnumbered Hungarians to fall back from Závadka towards their main line on the River Okna, just in front of Nižná Rybnica.
The armoured cars continued down the road a little past Závadka whilst the Slovak infantry fanned out and began to deploy on a front of some 4 km on either side of them, between the villages of Ubrež and Vyšné Revištia. The infantry first came under Hungarian artillery fire during the occupation of Ubrež, north of the road. At 11 PM a general attack was launced on the main Hungarian line at Nižná Rybnica. The Hungarian response was fierce and effective. The Slovaks had advanced across open ground to within a kilometre of the Okna River when they began taking fire by Hungarian field and anti-tank artillery.
One armoured car was hit in the engine and had to be withdrawn, while a second was knocked out in the middle of the road by a 37 mm anti-tank cannon. The raw infantry, unfamiliar with their new officers, first went to the ground and then began to retreat, which soon turned into a panic that for some could not be stopped before Michalovce, 15 km to the rear. The armoured cars covered the retreating infantry with their machineguns, in order to forestall any possible Hungarian pursuit.
Late on March 24, four more OA vz. 30 armoured cars and 3
LT vz. 35 light tanks and a 37 mm anti-tank cannon arrived in Michalovce from Martin to find total confusion. Early on
March 25, they headed eastwards, sometimes steadying the retreating infantry by firing over their heads , thereby ensuring the reoccupation everything up to the old Ubrež - Vyšné Revištia line, which the Hungarians had not occupied. However, the anti-tank section mistakenly drove past the knocked-out armoured car and ran straight into the Hungarian line, where it was captured.
By now, elements of the 41st Infantry Regiment and a battery of 202nd Mountain Artillery Regiment had begun to reach
Michalovce, and Kubícek planned a major counterattack for noon, to be spearheaded by the newly arrived tanks and armoured cars. However, German pressure brought about a ceasefire before it could go in. On
March 26, the rest of 202nd Mountain Artillery Regiment and parts of the 7th and 17th Infantry Regiments began to arrive. There were now some 15,000 Slovak troops milling around Michalovce but, even with these reinforcements, a second counterattack had little better prospect of success than the first, because the more numerous and cohesive Hungarians were well dug-in, and had more than enough 37 mm anti-tank cannons to deal effectively with the 3 modern light tanks that represented the only slight advantage possessed by the Slovaks.
[edit] The air war
The most fiercely contested action was in the air, and continued after the Hungarian ground advance had halted. Relations between the Czechs and the Slovaks were better in the air force than in the armoured corps and no aircraft were sabotaged.
When Hungarian air raids of March 25 on the Slovak Air Force station at
Spišská Nová Ves killed 13 persons, an intense
anti-Hungarian movement arose among the local population. By that time however, a truce had been concluded (March 24), although fights continued until March 31.
Slovak-Hungarian War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia