A hold-to-light postcard of the German and Austro-Hungarian victory (shortlived) over the Russians in the Uzroker Pass in the Carpathians on January 28, 1915. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, launched an offensive with three armies on January 23, including the new Austro-Hungarian Seventh Army under General Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin.
KarpathenSiegreiche Kämpfe am Uzroker-Paß28. Januar 1915 The CarpathiansVictorious fighting at the Uzroker PassJanuary 28, 1915Reverse:Message dated and field postmarked September 7, 1916, 29th Infantry Division.
"It is difficult to imagine terrain less suited to a massive winter campaign than the Eastern Carpathians. The mountains, though not in themselves particularly high, are steep-sided, intersected by very few passes and even fewer passable roads, blocked by snow during the colder days, and by mud during the occasional daily thaws. Many thousands of the troops on both sides died of exposure during the winter, and the entire campaign in the end proved inconclusive.The first offensive was an Austrian attack with twenty divisions on the Dukla, Lubka and Uzhok passes, and a simultaneous assault on the easterly Verecke and Wyszkow passes . . ."
Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had lost Galicia and Bukovina, Austria-Hungary's northeastern provinces in 1914, and hoped to regain them in a winter offensive. He also hoped to end the threat of the Russians advancing through the passes of the Carpathian Mountains, which would put them in a position to strike Budapest, the Hungarian capital.
Carpathian Disaster: Death of an Army by Geoffrey Jukes, page 45, copyright © Geoffrey Jukes 1971, publisher: Ballantine, publication date: 1971
1915-01-28, 1915, January, Carpathians, Carpathian Mountains, Uzroker Pass
