The 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division (, also 42. Honved Inf. Division), nicknamed the Devil's Division (Croatian: Vražja divizija) was an infantry division of the Royal Croatian Home Guard within the Austro-Hungarian Army which was active in World War I.

Formation history

The 42nd division was called Domobranska Pjesacka Divizija in Croatian, or Home Defense Infantry Division, Honvéd in Hungarian and Landwehr in German. The division was created shortly before World War I, within the 7th Home Guard Croatia-Slavonia District of the Royal Croatian Home Guard, it had the honorary title of Slavonski Domobrani (Slavonian Home Guard) but its official title was the Devil's Division. It numbered 14,000 troops. At the start of war, the 42nd division was commanded by Stjepan Sarkotić, an ethnic Croat officer from the Military Border born near Otočac. Its regiments were granted the right to use Serbo-Croatian as the official language of command instead of German or Hungarian. The division was known for its terrible crimes, including rape, torture and murder against the Serbian populations of Western Serbia. It took part in the Serbian Campaign of 1914 as part of the XIII Corps, first in Syrmia, in Mačva, then during the seven-day battle for Šabac as well as the battles of Cer and Kolubara. On November 11, 1914 Sarkotić was replaced by Johann von Salis-Seewis who led the division during the second Serbian offensive. After the failure of the campaign, it was redeployed at the beginning of 1915 in Galicia on the Eastern front along with the rest of the XIII. Corps. On 22 June 1915 Salis-Seewis was replaced, while he was on leave, by Anton Lipošćak before the Russian Empire launched the Brusilov offensive. On 25 June 1917 Mihovil Mihaljević took command of the division. At the beginning of 1918, the 42nd Division was transferred to the Italian battlefield, in June 1918, the command was taken over by Teodor Soretić, the division remained in Italy until the end of the war.

Legacy

During World War II, after the 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment, a unit of the Wehrmacht composed of Croat and Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) volunteers under a mostly German command, was annihilated during the battle of Stalingrad, it was reformed as the 369th Croatian Infantry Division with the nickname of Devil’s Division in honour of the 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division of World War I.

Commanders

Sources