Austro-Hungarians retake Máramarossziget

On 7 October 1914, according to a British chronology of the war, Austro-Hungarian troops recovered Máramarossziget, the capital of the Hungarian county of Máramaros. Only a few days earlier, at the beginning of October, the town had been taken by Russian cavalry, which had crossed the passes of the Eastern Carpathians.

The Austro-Hungarian command quickly reinforced the weak defence of Máramaros. The group of General Árpád Bothmer, which had fallen back down the Tisza valley to Técső, received new march battalions and batteries of Honvéd artillery. The defenders of Máramaros were to a large extent Hungarian soldiers of the Honvéd and the Landsturm. On 5 October troops under General Wilhelm Attems set off from Técső up the Tisza, back towards Máramarossziget.

At the same time battalions of the Polish Legions, the future Second Brigade, which had been taken by rail to Hungary at the end of September, were approaching from the south, from the direction of Baia Mare. On the evening of 6 October, at the bridge over the river Mara at Berbești, south of Máramarossziget, a Cossack patrol unexpectedly attacked the resting legionaries. A brief skirmish in the dark ended with the Cossacks withdrawing. Six legionaries were killed. It was the first action of the Legions in the Eastern Carpathians.

Under pressure from two sides the small Russian detachments left Máramarossziget and began to fall back towards the passes. The legionaries later received a commemorative banner from Hungarian youth in thanks for the defence of Máramaros. In the following weeks the Austro-Hungarian troops and the legionaries drove the Russians out of the Tisza valley and away from the passes, and the fighting moved to the Galician side of the Carpathians, to the area of Mołotków, where on 29 October the legionaries fought their first major battle with the Russians.