Carol II fortified line, Photos from casemates-today

What was supose to happend if the fortified line would be attacked?

Original hungarian army film from WW2, showing an artilery bombardment over one casemate, followed by infantry and pionier assault, using flamethrowers.
Excellent movie.

To see the film, click on "ezt itt", written with yellow letters, on the following link:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/karolyvonal/karolyvonal.html

Perhaps these photos show concrete bunkers of the Carol Line, photographed by a Hungarian officer in early September 1940:


[Photo: Erik Naberhuis coll.]

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on April 13, 2007 12:50 pm

I have taken the liberty to improve the quality of the picture posted by Denes (if he has any objections I will remove it).

No problem at all, Mihnea. Thanks.

Gen. Dénes

There it was a second line of defense of Carol II fortified line.

I found it, probably, on the valley of Crisul Alb, Arad county, on the road Gurahont - Deva.
There are 2 caves (grote - in romanian) made by romanian army in 1939; the caves are exactly on that road, 100 meters one after another.

Each cave have 2 entrances.
Distance between entrances: about 30 meters.
One opening looks to the road (posible to allow observation and firing field) and one also opening to the road, but from the positioning, it was destinated for suplying the troops inside and evac.

Here is the entrance on the 1st cave, entrance cleared from vegetation.
View from the inside, to the road.



This is the "evac/supply" entrance, of the 1st cave.
View from close distance



View from bigger distance.
The distance from the road of this entrance, aprox. 4 meters.


This post has been edited by 21 inf on July 14, 2007 04:22 pm

The room from the observation/firing opening.
From floor to the ceiling, 2.20 meters.
Wide: 4 meters
Lenght: 6 meters
(all measurement are made "by eye", since I had no instruments with me).



The room from the back opening.
A little smaller than the main entrance.

On the right side is a room, probably for the crew and storage, about 6x6 meters.
I'll name this crew room secondary, cos in the front, there it is another crew room, a little bigger, i'll name this one principal crew room.
On the left side there it is a tunnel at the same height (2.20 meters) linking with the main opening controling the road.

On the way to the secondary crew room.


The secondary crew room, and what is inside these days.


This post has been edited by 21 inf on July 14, 2007 04:27 pm

View from the secondary entrance.


This pic I took from the main entrance of the second cave.
View from East toward West.


Legend:
with brown - 3 obstacles that was there in ww2, according to a local man, Lazar Alexandru, age 14 in 1939, who saw this road in those years.
M.E.- main entrance
S.E. - secondary entrance

This post has been edited by 21 inf on July 14, 2007 04:33 pm

Not exactly the fight from the casemates of Carol II fortified line, but anyway a fight somewhere near or at Oradea (Grosswardein in the movie), in 1944.
Germans against russian, and some images with some romanian troops surender to the germans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tugdYMK-zpk...related&search=

From the source: http://members.lycos.co.uk/karolyvonal/karolyvonal.html as the owner of the site declare on the title:

“I’d like to upload here two irredentist notes which are mentioning the Carol II fortified line [near Oradea – 21 inf note]”

The importance of the notes is that one can believe that they are oriented as propaganda against the newest Romanian fortification near the Romanian-Hungarian border, but at a close look, one can see that the chorus is sending the reader’s mind to the Motzi.
Those who wrote this notes, didn’t forget the havoc that Motzii brought to Hungarian army in 1849, because the chorus and the cities mentioned there have no link at all with Motz people under any circumstances.
Motzii were remembered even after almost 100 years after the events (probably around 1939-1940 when the fortified line was built) and this show the impact and the importance of this people on the fight for national freedom.

Of course the notes also state that Hungarian army was not afraid about Romanian fortifications and also gives a clue about the proposed destination

This are the notes in original in Hungarian language

Szeretnék ide feltenni két irredenta nótát amely a Károlyvonalat is említi

Erdélyországba megyünk,
Töltve van a fegyverünk,
Székely testvér nem kell várjál sokáig.
Mindannyian egyek leszünk,
Míg a világ eggyet teszünk,
Megindulunk elõre.

Brassó, Temesvár, Déva, Segesvár,
A mócokat kizavarjuk belõle.

Búsulhat már az oláh,
Bújhat a beton alá,
Ott is megásta a sírját magának

Magyar zászló lobogjon,
Magyar bakkancs kopogjon,
Erdély, Brassó és Temesvár utcáin
Mindannyian egyek leszünk,

Míg a világ eggyet teszünk,
Megindulunk elõre.

Brassó, Temesvár, Déva, Segesvár,
A mócokat kizavarjuk belõle.


This is a English translation by my Hungarian language knowledge:

We are going to Transylvania
Our weapons are loaded
Brother Szekler you don’t have to wait any longer.
We’ll be all together
We put the world together
We are heading forward.

Brasov, Timisoara, Deva, Sighisoara
We’ll drive the Motzi out from it.

The valach can sad,
He can hide behind the concrete,
He also can dig his own grave there.

Hungarian flag to flutter
Hungarian boots to knock
On the streets of Brasov, Timisoara and Transylvania
We’ll be together.

And the world we put together
We are heading forward.

Brasov, Timisoara, Deva, Sighisoara
We’ll drive the Motzi out from it.

As the romanian Carol II fortification system failed to achieve it's role because romanian politic class was inefficiant, hungarian army entered Transylvania in September 1940.

At this link one can see ww2 era movie showing hungarian army enetring Oradea and Cluj-Napoca.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSxsOmrRI58

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIN TARA MOTILOR EU AM VENIT!

Fightings on the Carol II fortified line in september 1944, as hungarian sources present it. Note that in the fight were involved hungarian-german armies on one side (defending), while on the other side were soviet-romanian armies (atacking).

Part from a bigger article written by Szarka Levente; this small text bellow translated and adapted by me from hungarian language into english for this forum:

"A Sziget-hegység vonalán megkapaszkodott magyar csapatok ellen a szovjet-román csapatok szeptember 20-ra támadást készítettek elõ....A magyar 1. páncéloshadosztály erõit kora délután riadóztatták. Az 1. harckocsiezred és az 5/1. gépvontatású üteg Zimándújfalu felé vette az irányt....A nap folyamán a magyar 1. páncéloshadosztály csapatai a románok által épített "Carol" vonal harckocsiárkánál 25 T-34 típusú szovjet harckocsit csaltak tõrbe és a német csatarepülõk segítségével 23-at sikerült is megsemmisíteni."

"The soviet-romanian troops prepared the atack against the hungarian troops located on Sighet hills for the day of 20 september....The 1st Hungarian Armored Division was put on allarm early on the afternoon. The 1st Hungarian Armored Regiment was directed towards the village Zimandu Nou. During this day units from 1st Hungarian Armored Division atracted on the romanian build "Carol" line a force of 25 T-34 soviet tanks and with the support of german Luftwaffe managed to destroy 23 of atacking soviet tanks."

source: http://www.13.gyalogezred.hu/index3.html

This is a book I've just bounced upon:

http://www.turulkutatocsoport.ro/index.php...allery&Itemid=2

Unfortunately, I don't have any further info.

Gen. Dénes

I know the author, he is a young amateur historian who is pasionate about military fortifications. He wrote his book (the one presented at the link above) based on hungarian, romanian and other foreign sources. I helped him with the romanian informations about the history of Carol II line, actually with the translation and selection of texts from the book "Politica apararii granitei de vest..." by colonel ® C. Mosincat. It is a good book about Carol II fortified line, which has at least the merit of compiling sources from diferent sides, making a more complete image of the sides (hungarian and romanian). The book is wrote entirely in hungarian language.

For the help provided, the author gave me one of this book, when we met at Oradea, this March, at the Military Museum. After this meeting, I guided him at the casemates, near Oradea.

I have to corect the info about armament of the casemates. They were not provided with artilery guns, only with machine and submachineguns. The bels were never put in place, as they never arived from abroad, where they were ordered to be built.

The firing sistem was of flanking type, the casemates were covering each other with automatic fire and there were no firings slits oriented toward west. The density of fire could reach in some places 1 bullet at each 2 or centimeters of terrain, making any infantry imposible or at least extremelly costly.

... but the plans existed! Until september 1939, the only fronteer on which there were real fortifications was the Romanian-Hungarian fronteer. The rhythm was slow because "Carol II-nd didn't believe in sitting in concrete boxes", but mainly because it involved a lot of manpower and money!

This post has been edited by MMM on January 26, 2011 07:23 pm