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Talk:Field Army Bernolák

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Wrong?

[edit]

Most (or really all) of this article is not in accordance with Slovak Republic (1939–45)#Slovak forces during the campaign against the Soviet Union, which is based on this ref: Jason Pipes. "Slovakian Axis Forces in WWII". Feldgrau. Retrieved November 10, 2014.

According to that source, the Slovak participants in the invasion of Poland were two units: Anton Pulanich's brigade, and Gustav Malar's smaller mobile unit. "Field Army Bernolák" might have been the name covering these two units and any others, though, I suppose

But the Slovak units participating in the invasion of Russia were:

  • Briefly, a large Slovakian Expeditionary Army Group, which couldn't be supported and from which was soon culled
  • Brigade Pilfousek (also called Slovak Mobile Command) which only existed a few weeks at most and and was superseded by
  • The Slovak 1st Division (also called Slovak Fast Division) which existed 1941-1944.

There's no mention of any "Fast Troops Group Kalinčiak", or of the 1st Divison being created from it in August of 1943. Somebody's way way wrong here, either this article or that one.

Then, at 1st Infantry Division (Slovak Republic), we have a Slovak 1st Division participating in the invasion of Poland. Then it has the 1st Division and the Fast Division as two separate units, and the 2nd Division and the Security Division as two separate units, while my source has the 1st/Fast and 2nd/Security as two units.

Beyond dead links, the ref for all this is "Ready, J. Lee. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1995." -- no title given. It must be be "The Forgotten Axis: Germany's Partners and Foreign Volunteers in World War II". I only have a 2012 date for that, but that's a reprint and it could have been published in 1995 by Arms and Amour Press for all I know. How reliable it is I don't know, or what Lee has to say I don't know. I can read the Jason Pipes work. I expect that Lee and Pipes are working essentially alone, and whether one is more reliable than the other I don't know. Herostratus (talk) 02:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And then, over at Slovak invasion of Poland (1939), there's a completely different order of battle (for the Polish campaign anyway). You've got three divisions and another unit. You've got Pulanich leading a division, the 1st Infantry Division (this could be the brigade-size unit mentioned by Pipes; he doesn't say it wasn't called the 1st Division). You got Malár leading the 2nd Division (Pipes has him running a "mobile formation that consisted of two battalions of combined cavalry and motorcycle recon troops along with nine motorized artillery batteries", but this could have been named the 2nd Infantry Division I suppose) and you've got a 3rd Infantry Division led by one Alexander Čunderlík which Pipes doesn't mention, then you've got a motorized unit "Kalinčiak" which is our "Fast Troops Group Kalinčiak" ("Mobile Group Kalinčiak" would be a more idiomatic translation I suspect), but certainly nothing about any "Field Army Bernolák".

There are no refs for any of that, but there is a Further Reading section which might be the refs:

  • Charles K. Kliment and Břetislav Nakládal: Germany's First Ally, Schiffer Publishing, 1998, ISBN 0-7643-0589-1. The book covers the Slovak Armed Forces in World War II. 2003 Czech edition, ISBN 80-206-0596-7.
  • Igor Baka: Slovensko vo vojne proti Poľsku v roku 1939 (Slovakia during the war against Poland in 1939), Vojenská história, 2005, No 3.

Those look like good refs but my library doesn't have them and neither does yours. The second is in Czech. And there are some external links too which look good. They are also in Czech, which is good (closer to the source) and bad (can't read Czech).

Not sure how to sort all this out. Herostratus (talk) 03:18, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And at Slovak National Uprising is mentioned "Two heavily armed divisions of the Slovak Army". Not sure which those would be, the 1st Division was disarmed in June 1944 and the 2nd before that (according to Pipes) and the uprising started in late August 1944. Herostratus (talk) 03:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]