The handing over of Cossacks in Lienz was a forced transfer by the British and Americans to the Soviet Union of 45,000 to 60,000 Cossacks who fought on the side of Germany during World War II. They mainly belonged to the Cossack Host and the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps. Among those handed over were also refugees, women, children, and the elderly who left with the Germans from Terek, Kuban, and Don. According to the agreements of the Yalta Conference, the Anglo-American allies committed to transferring to the USSR all displaced persons who were citizens of the USSR as of 1939. However, the allies exceeded their obligations by also transferring many first-wave emigrants who were not Soviet citizens. On the morning of June 1, the Cossacks gathered on the plain outside the Peggetz camp for a memorial service at the field altar. At the moment of communion, conducted by 18 priests, British troops appeared. Soldiers charged at the crowd of resisting Cossacks, beating and stabbing them with bayonets, trying to herd them into trucks. Shooting and using bayonets, rifle butts, and clubs, they broke through the line of unarmed Cossack cadets. Beating everyone indiscriminately, fighters, refugees, the elderly, and women, trampling children into the ground, they separated groups of people and loaded them into trucks.