Wreath-Laying Ceremony and Remembrance Day in Kosovo

At a ceremony held by the memorial restored two years ago with financial support from Austria and Hungary, Lt. Kornél Horváth, Catholic army chaplain of the contingent said a prayer for the salvation of those Hungarian soldiers who had fallen in the Balkan theatre of war during the First World War and been buried in the military cemetery of Peje (Ipek at the time). As the chaplain said, “With gratitude and respect, we remember the Hungarian soldiers resting here who had set a shining example of heroism, military fortitude and also of pushing the limits through their performance".

At the end of the commemoration, Consul of the Hungarian Embassy in Kosovo László Endre Szegedi and KFOR-14 HUNCON Commander Lt.-Col. Ferenc Huszár laid the wreaths of remembrance by the memorial.

In the First World War, ranking in importance after the Italian and Russian theatres, the Balkans front had only a tertiary role from the viewpoint of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Unfortunately, no sketches of the Peje military cemetery have survived, but according to a source available in the Vienna Kriegsarchiv (military archive), the prisoners of war and the soldiers of own forces are buried in the cemetery as follows: Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – 58 Hungarians, 30 Galicians, 23 unknown Austro-Hungarians, 17 Croatians, 16 Austro-Hungarians (information on their exact origins is unavailable), eight Czechs, five Bosnians, two Austrians, one Bukovinan; furthermore, 41 Russians, two Montenegrins, one Turkish and four unknown ones, which gives a total of 208 soldiers.

Photos by the author