Uprising:
Publisher’s Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
January 2025

A long time ago, we published a book called First Axis, a Panzer Grenadier expansion all about the Slovak Army and its rather depressing record during the Second World War. A recent discovery of some leftover pieces allows us to return to the Slovak story, in the new Fire & Sword: Uprising.

Uprising has two chapters that bookend the Slovak experience in World War II, of five and six scenarios respectively. I like that Panzer Grenadier has covered obscure conflicts rarely addressed in the historiography (much less in wargames). I like this very much. And I’m reasonably certain that Uprising’s first chapter is the only wargame presentation of the Slovak-Hungarian War of 1939. We published versions of these scenarios in the old First Axis book, but I re-designed them for Uprising, to use maps and pieces from Fire & Sword and Fire in the Steppe.

This is the sort of history that fascinates me; there’s this aura of opening a secret book that no one else knows about. This obviously is not really true, but it feels that way. I’ve written and designed plenty of stuff about Kursk and the Battle of the Bulge and Midway. Those were fun, but none quite like exploring the Slovak-Hungarian War of 1939.

Now you can explore it, too. Let’s have a look. The scenario titles all come from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, itself a reflection on Thucydides and what it is to be human in a loud and dark world.

Campaign One
The Slovak-Hungarian War

A Slovak LT35, abandoned and captured by the Hungarians. March 1939.

Scenario One
Confused Alarms
15 March 1939
Slovakia declared independence on the evening of 14 March 1939; Hungary recognized the new state the next morning to the surprise of the Slovak leadership. But the ploy became obvious a few hours later when Hungarian troops crossed the border to seize a strategic hilltop on the Slovak side. The new Slovak Army would have to take a break from celebrating to throw the Hungarians back to their own side.

Conclusion
The Slovaks claim to have re-taken Hill 212 by the time night fell on their first day of independence; the Hungarians declared it all a misunderstanding and said their Royal Army never crossed the border at all. Wherever the truth actually lay, by the end of the day the Slovaks had secured their frontier. They would be tested in coming days.

Notes
The first battle of this epic is a very small infantry fight, with the Slovaks attempting to throw the Hungarians back across the border. The Slovaks have more men and they have an artillery battery; the Hungarians have the high ground.

Scenario Two
Clash By Night
23 March 1939
The Hungarian invasion did not surprise the Slovaks, but without having replaced Czech officers and specialists their units were still disorganized when the enemy crossed the border at midnight on 22-23 March 1939. The Hungarians weren't in much better shape; the battalions spearheading the advance contained a large proportion of raw recruits. But both sides could count on nationalism and ignorance to fuel their morale.

Conclusion
The Hungarians caught the Slovaks by surprise, and quickly overran one of the 16th Regiment's companies. The Slovaks fell back in some disorder, and the Hungarians seized the town of Ubla and then marched forward through the darkness. By morning they had reached all of their objectives, and it seemed the Slovaks would not put up serious resistance.

Notes
The Hungarians have numbers and mortar support, and the element of surprise. The Slovaks . . . well, they just need to hold on, since the Hungarians have pretty steep victory conditions.

Scenario Three
Ignorant Armies
23 March 1939
Hungary's first tank attack came on the initial morning of their invasion of Slovakia. The Slovaks remained disorganized thanks to the loss of so many Czech officers and specialists, but they had often trained with tanks and had at least some idea of what to expect. The Hungarians advanced four kilometers into Slovak territory, and waited for daylight before assaulting the main Slovak line of resistance near the town of Sobrance.

Conclusion
Though outnumbered, the Slovaks held their ground and stopped the Hungarian advance—surprising their own command almost as much as the Hungarian leadership. Slovak reinforcements hurried to the scene, while the Hungarians milled about uncertain of their next step. A real shooting war had not been included in the mission briefing.

Notes
Those 37mm guns that are worthless in 1941? They’re as good as 88mm flak guns in March 1939, against the rattletrap Hungarian tanks spearheading the advance. The saving grace, for the Hungarians, is that they have more tanks than the Slovaks have anti-tank guns.

Scenario Four
Struggle and Flight
24 March 1939
While the Slovaks inherited a fair number of tanks from the former Czechoslovak army, they lacked crews and many vehicles had been sabotaged by the Czechs. The Slovaks quickly began repairs, and the first group of armored cars reported to the front a day after the Hungarian assault. The Slovak command immediately ordered them to spearhead a counter-attack.

Conclusion
Told to expect no resistance, the Hungarians had already had several rude surprises. They were in no way prepared for their enemies to counterattack at all, let alone within a day and with armor and air support. The Slovak attack made initial progress and drove the Hungarians back several kilometers, but Hungarian reserves stabilized the situation and the Slovak advance stalled in the face of heavy artillery fire. The infantry panicked when two of their armored cars were knocked out, and by day's end all of their gains had been lost.

Notes
It’s a much bigger battlefield, and the Slovaks have artillery, and armored car and an airplane. The Hungarians had not expected resistance, and they sent no anti-tank guns with the 23rd Infantry Brigade. This means that even the crappy armored car might as well be a Tiger II, unless the Hungarians can get close.

Scenario Five
On a Darkling Plain
25 March 1939
Lt. Col. Augustin Malar soon had over 15,000 troops available to strike back at the Hungarians, and a handful of tanks had also been repaired. But the Slovaks were poorly organized and their numbers actually made it more difficult to gather them for a renewed counter-attack; only a fraction could actually be sent into action. Yet attack they did, moving against the town of Zavadka with tanks, aircraft, and the Slovakian Army's only armored train.

Conclusion
The Slovaks claimed great success in this counter-offensive, driving the Hungarians back almost to the border. The Hungarians allowed that they did retreat, but claimed to have done so under German diplomatic pressure and not because of Slovak military prowess. In any event, the Slovaks were forced to cede still more of their territory to the Hungarians but claimed a military victory at the birth of their new army and state.

Notes
And we wrap up the Slovak-Hungarian war with a tank battle. It’s not much of a tank battle, but the Slovak LT35 tanks are actually modern and the Hungarians are fielding some pretty crappy tanks. No one is really happy to be here, but the Slovaks are on the offensive and have to push the Hungarians back whether they want to or not.

And that’s the first chapter of Uprising. Next time, we’ll study the last chapter.

You can order Uprising right here.

Puppet Brigade
Nine scenarios and 88 new pieces bring the Slovak Army’s role in Operation Barbarossa to Fire in the Steppe. The Slovak Army was not very large, and not very good, but it was there! You’ll need Fire in the Steppe and Broken Axis to play all of the scenarios.

You can order Puppet Brigade right here.
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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an uncountable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects; a few of them were actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children. He misses his dog, Leopold. Leopold enjoyed gnawing his deer antler and editing Wikipedia pages.

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