Battle of Hermannstadt begins

On 26 September 1916, a fine autumn day, the German Ninth Army of General Erich von Falkenhayn attacked the Romanian I Corps, which since the beginning of September had been standing south of Hermannstadt It was the first day of the first major battle of the Central Powers’ counter-offensive in Transylvania. Falkenhayn wanted not merely to push the Romanians back but to close their line of retreat and destroy the whole corps. In Romania, which still reckoned time by the Julian calendar, it was 13 September.

A trap in the mountains

General Ioan Popovici’s Romanian I Corps, made up of the 13th and 23rd Divisions and a cavalry brigade, held an arc of hills around the northern exit of the Red Tower Pass (Turnu Roșu), the only good road through the mountains into Romania. Falkenhayn’s plan was to close that road. From 22 September General Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen’s mountain Alpenkorps had been moving along the ridges of the Cibin Mountains, at heights of more than 2,000 metres, towards the pass. At the same time General Hermann von Staabs’s XXXIX Reserve Corps was to strike from the north: the German 187th Division from the west, the Hungarian 51st Honvéd Division west of Hermannstadt and the German 76th Reserve Division east of the town. The troops deliberately bypassed Hermannstadt itself, in order to spare the cultural centre of the Transylvanian Saxons. Popovici had heard of German units in the mountains, but the commander of the First Army, General Ioan Culcer, refused him reinforcements.

On the evening of 25 September the Romanians abandoned Gregori hill, which jutted out in front of their line, leaving only a rearguard there. The Germans took this for the beginning of a retreat, and General Staabs ordered an immediate attack. The hill was taken that same evening by units of the 51st Honvéd Division.

The first day

From early morning on 26 September the artillery of the Central Powers shelled the Romanian trenches. According to the Austrian official history Falkenhayn had 54 batteries here, including three batteries of heavy mortars, against 16 Romanian batteries. On the western wing the 187th Division, after heavy fighting, took the villages of Gura Râului and Poplaca, but the Romanian 23rd Division held the hills south of them. The 51st Honvéd Division, which had crossed to the southern bank of the river Cibin during the night, came up to the Romanian positions and went no further. The 76th Reserve Division crossed Gregori hill, beat off a counter-attack from Șelimbăr in the afternoon and by evening stood on the road leading east out of Hermannstadt. General Egon von Schmettow’s cavalry forded the Olt and from the east ran into the Romanians not far from the entrance to the pass.

The most important events took place in the Romanian rear. One of the Alpenkorps battalions had begun descending towards the village of Turnu Roșu (PL) as early as midnight, and during the day the Germans came out onto the pass road at several points between Boița and Câineni. Popovici realised that he was in danger of being cut off and threw reserves into the pass from the north, while smaller Romanian units attacked from the south. The Alpenkorps failed to cross to the eastern bank of the Olt or to extend its barrier northwards and southwards.

Evening

The outcome of the first day only partly satisfied Falkenhayn. According to some accounts the Romanians repulsed the main attack that day. Staabs’s corps was advancing more slowly than expected, and at army headquarters in Sebeș there was no news from the Alpenkorps. Falkenhayn feared that the Romanian Second Army, standing further east on the Olt, would tear the net thrown around I Corps, or that the encircled troops would try to break out. He therefore ordered Staabs to press on vigorously with the attack, and obtained from the Austro-Hungarian First Army an infantry regiment and three batteries as a reserve.

On the Romanian side General Culcer sent five battalions of the 20th Division by rail from the Danube, to attack the Germans in the mountains from the south and open the pass. Popovici was given permission to shorten his front gradually, but counted above all on relief from the Second Army. The Romanian high command at Buftea, however, did not decide on 26 September to take any steps to save the two divisions being encircled at Hermannstadt. It merely demanded a situation report from Popovici.