2nd Battle of Gaza & Palestine Tank Detachment

[Slingo]

Hallo Steve,

Thank you very much for the intriguing details.

Jung writes: Verluste, Tarek-Fischer writes:Blutzoll

Verluste either can be translated as losses or as casualties. Normally Verluste suggests: casualties, perhaps some not wounded POW .

Blutzoll defintely means blood price / death toll.

When I first read those lines in Jung's volume to me it automatically meant: dead or severly injured men.

According to Dr.Schwake archive documents are almost not to be found on this matter but Jung, as an executive employee of the

Kriegsarchiv must have known his craft. But even he only cites a report on the artillery.

Austrian POWs are to be found in the archives of the Red Cross at Geneva as Dr. Schwake recounts.

The Commonwealth War Graves Com. has numbers of graves but I assume that those were soldiers either hastily buried by comrades or later by the EEF.

Tribesmen never buried British or Ottoman victims.

But what seems to be true that most of them died during the chaotic retreat in September 1918. 

For example k.u.k field hospital 202 was completely wiped out by an air raid, only about five men survived; the air attacks on the sitting-duck-

retreating columns took a severe toll. AA was lacking totally.

What happened to all the other Austrian units casualty-wise: I found no records yet in books.

Other sources of witnesses describe horrible conditions and situations. One had to run for one's life in a hostile environment.

 

We have to take into account that though both batteries only had 12 guns available the Austrian army sent them with a staff of

about 1000 men.

In Jung's book he tells: only the wreckage of .... arrived. So GHD von Marno had severe losses but was not destroyed totally.

 

As long as no formerly unknown documents show up even with the available knowledge ( Red Cross, WGC, Kriegsarchiv, specialized lit. )

it still is a jigsaw puzzle ( since nobody compiled the entire data; only Dr. Schwake is the one I know who researched a lot on this topic ).

 

You are rigth, dead and here.

 

viele Grüße, Gunther

 

PS: the other Austrian artillery units  often were stripped down; sometimes a single gun was given to 2/6 ( battle of Jordan ); even GHD von Marno

was split in 1918.

 

 

[Guest]

Mate,

 

1000+ men is fine for all known KUK soldiers, but a Battery formation of 6 guns even if heavy guns. should only have around 200 + men.

 

1000 + men could mean the train and support units to keep the Battery or batteries in operations.

 

Of cause as the war went on the third heavy battery arrived in Palestine with larger heavy mortars/guns

 

Just to again diverse, you show the Field Hosp 202 as KUK, I was not sure but had it as German.

 

Nice to clear that up.

 

I had KUK as;

 

mobile Feldspital 206 & 309 

 

And German;

 

761st Ambulance Column (771st Stokraft?) 781st Ambulance Column - 202nd Field Hosp (possibly KUK?)- shown Feb 1918 Allied reports 218th & 219th Field Hosps - German records show only 212th, 213th shown at Nazareth 9-18 220th & 221st Field Hosps

 

Thanks for keeping up on this as its and area we don't mention or discuss much here 

 

Cheers 

S.B

 

[Slingo]

Hallo Steve,

Aha, I found contradictory facts: in his book, Jung says: 202; in his Osprey volume: 206 

Have to check it ! both mobile units (202/206&309) were deployed in 1917 to Palestine.

 

Marno: what they did besides adapting the equipment was to highten the staff, but not the organization

of the batteries as such ( War Archive doc.); both measures were the most important changes to the 

normal standard QFH-batteries.

They did for ex. carry a band within the batteries that impressed the people in Turkey very much and everywhere else

in Palestine it played (Christmas, Jerusalem)

To keep the unit completely independent in the field the amount of staff was raised + to have one's own field bases +

to be able to replace men at once and independently. The unit therefore got an own replacement unit.

Total: 22 officers and 813 men (Jung)

 

Since the replacement areas for both batteries were in Hungary, a lot of soldiers were Hungarians.

Before Palestine 1/4 fought in the mountain region of Kärnten/Austria , 2/6 in Serbia

The Skoda howitzers (field & mountain version) were the ideal choice for desert warfare and did not let the men down.

Skoda produced top notch equipment often outclassing German pieces.

 

beste Grüße, Gunther

 

 

[Guest]

Mate,

 

Thank you, I lean more as we talk.

 

Cheers

 

S.B

[Slingo]

Hallo Steve,

 

short: GAR Nr. 6 was formed in 1908 as part of an artillery reorganization programme, but still was dependend on its mother units it drew staff from.

In 1913 the fledgling unit was full grown with its own staff complete and deployed in Bosnien-Herzegowina. To war it went with the 5th Army.

Late in 1915 2/6 was moved to Cilli / Slovenia to be made desert-ready  to become part of von Marno's division.

 

Details will follow soon

 

beste Grüße, Gunther

[JulianB]

From my Gt G'father's (RA capt) diary

Nothing about Austrian guns but this is all he recorded regarding tanks at 2nd Gaza....

 

Tuesday 17^th April 1917. We started in – not much doing on our flank – the left – ships bombarded from the sea – notably the old French “Reguin”. From Sheikh Shabassi we had a good view of the battle & the staffs – Divisional & RA showed themselves much too much on the skyline.

Wednesday 18^th April 1917. Much the same as yesterday. We made very little progress, we had in front of us a low sand ridge which took a lot of taking & was very difficult to approach. We bombarded the groves with poison gas shell but it had no effect – the scheme was badly worked out, besides there was not enough of this sort of ammunition & the climate wasn’t suitable. Tanks were employed but didn’t do much good & were never used again.

I heard tanks were sent into action in a way of which the tank officer did not approve.

I went round all the forward ammunition dumps during the night with Williams Ellis & got about 2 hours sleep.