Hungary

Hungary appears as a country crossed in the eastward movement of Reiter’s battalion, part of a military transfer that carries the 79th Division from western Europe to Romania. Its place in the account is transitional: the troops pass through it, but do not remain there.

The Division’s Eastward Journey

Without warning, all leaves are canceled. Reiter’s battalion, then in Besneville, joins two other battalions of the 310th Regiment stationed at St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte and Bricquebec. They travel by military train eastward, meeting in Paris another train carrying the 311th Regiment. The division is missing its 3rd Regiment, which, the narration suggests, it apparently will never regain.

A Transit Country

The combined force crosses Germany and Hungary before finally stopping in Romania, its new posting. Hungary is therefore named within a sequence of borders traversed rather than as a setting for a developed episode. The passage gives no specific incident there, but makes the country a marker of the transfer’s scale: a unit assembled from separate battalions moves across Europe toward a new military station.

Beyond the Crossing

The division’s deployment continues after the journey. Some troops camp near the Soviet frontier, others by the new Hungarian border, while Reiter’s battalion is stationed in the Carpathians. The distinction between passing through Hungary and later being posted near its border places the country both on the route and at the edge of the troops’ new Romanian geography.