Battle of Brașov

The Battle of Brașov was the last major battle of the campaign in Transylvania. From 7 to 9 October 1916 the German 9th Army of General Erich von Falkenhayn, made up of German and Austro-Hungarian divisions, fought for Brașov and the plain of the Burzenland against the Romanian 2nd Army of General Grigore Crăiniceanu. The German 187th Division and the Hungarian 51st Honvéd Division broke into the town and took it after two days of street fighting, while a Romanian counter-attack on their flank from the direction of Sânpetru failed. During the night of 8–9 October the Romanians withdrew towards the Carpathian passes. Brașov, which they had occupied without a fight on 29 August, returned to Austro-Hungarian hands after some 40 days.

Name and dates

The Austrian official history calls this engagement the Battle of Kronstadt (Schlacht bei Kronstadt), after the German name of the town. The German battle calendar lists it as the fighting at Kronstadt (Kämpfe bei Kronstadt); in English-language literature the names Battle of Brașov and Battle of Brassó are found, and in Romanian the Battle of Brașov (Bătălia de la Brașov). The battle was part of the wider Battle of Transylvania.

We adopt the dates 7–9 October 1916 following the Austrian official history, the German battle calendar and the American historian Michael Barrett. By the morning of 9 October the fighting had ended, but on that day the victors occupied the whole town and set off after the retreating Romanians. The Romanian Wikipedia ends the battle on 8 October, the day of the decision. The British chronology of the war gives the same dates as the Austrian official history. Romania then used the Julian calendar, so in Romanian documents the battle lasted from 24 to 26 September.

Background

After the Battle of Hermannstadt, won on 29 September, Falkenhayn turned the 9th Army east, along the northern slopes of the Făgăraș Mountains and the valley of the Olt. The Romanian 2nd Army, weakened by giving up several divisions to the front on the Danube and in the Dobruja, delayed this march for several days, but on 2 October it was ordered to retreat behind the Olt. On 4 October the Romanians abandoned Făgăraș and took up a position in the wooded mountains that separate the Olt valley from the Burzenland, which the Germans and Austrians called the Geisterwald forest.

On 5 October General Hermann von Staabs’s XXXIX Reserve Corps attacked this position. According to the Austrian official history, the fog that lay in the valleys until late morning hampered the artillery preparation but made the approach easier. The German 187th Division broke into the northern flank of the Romanian II Corps. At around 2 p.m. its infantry abandoned its positions in disorder, and the artillery teams fled in panic all the way to Codlea. The Germans captured 43 guns, and the Romanian II Corps, which had suffered heavy losses, fell back eastwards along mountain roads. On 6 October Staabs threw back hastily assembled units of the Romanian 4th Division near the village of Vlădeni and came out of the mountains onto the Burzenland plain. The 4th Division withdrew in a single march through Brașov all the way to the northern exit of the Predeal pass.

Forces and plans

On the evening of 6 October Falkenhayn believed that the Romanians would no longer make a stand in front of the mountains but only wanted to get through the passes as quickly as possible. He was therefore keen to seize their northern exits on the southern edge of the Burzenland quickly. Staabs’s corps was given Brașov as its objective: General Edwin Sunkel’s 187th Division was to advance from the north, along the road from Feldioara (Marienburg), and the 51st Honvéd Division from the west, from the village of Ghimbav, onto the heights above the town. The 76th Reserve Division moved from Zărnești towards the Bran (Törzburg) pass. General Curt von Morgen’s I Reserve Corps, with the German 89th Division and the Austro-Hungarian 71st Division, was to go further north, towards Feldioara and Căpeni, and cover the army’s left flank. General Egon von Schmettow’s cavalry corps was sent further north, against the Romanian Army of the North.

On the afternoon of 6 October the Romanian high command ordered the 2nd Army to defend a line from Sfântu Gheorghe over the heights near Sânpetru and Brașov to the Bran pass, but allowed it to give up the town if necessary. Crăiniceanu intended to receive the German attack on II Corps between Bran and Brașov and to strike their left flank with III Corps. Units of the 4th Division withdrawn earlier were to return to Brașov, and the 21st Division, brought from the Danube, was arriving by rail from the direction of Predeal. The orders, however, reached some of the divisions only at around 3 p.m. on 7 October, when they were already marching towards the passes, and they had to turn back.

Course of the battle

7 October. In the morning flames appeared over the railway station in Brașov. General Sunkel took this as a sign that the Romanians were leaving the town and led the 187th Division straight at Brașov, sending only one battalion with artillery through Sânpetru. In the afternoon, after throwing back the Romanian rearguards, both of Staabs’s divisions came up to the town and ran into strong resistance. The northern half of the Romanian 4th Division, turned back while on the march, accepted battle, and the fighting went on into the night. The vanguard of the 187th Division, the 189th Infantry Regiment, broke into the northern part of Brașov. Staabs halted the 51st Honvéd Division before the western edge of the town so that the allies would not fire on each other in night-time street fighting. Meanwhile the Romanian 3rd Division, which received its orders only at 3.30 p.m., attacked the villages of Sânpetru and Hărman (PL) and by dawn had driven a weak German flank detachment out of them. At Zărnești Romanian artillery held up the 76th Reserve Division, which had to work its way round the Romanian position on the heights.

8 October. From the morning there was fighting along the whole front around the town. According to Barrett, when the fog lifted the Germans saw dense ranks of Romanian infantry advancing, despite artillery fire, on Sânpetru and on the 187th Division’s positions outside the town. The 189th Regiment spent the whole night and the whole day pushing the Romanians south house by house, and the 51st Honvéd Division, in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, took the fortified heights west of the town by 2 p.m. Romanian sources mention heavy fighting in the suburb of Brașovechi and on Strajă hill, and also near Bartolomeu station, where German machine guns wiped out an entire Romanian company. At around noon the Romanian 3rd Division and 12th Brigade attacked the 187th Division’s flank from Sânpetru, and Romanian artillery cut the road from Feldioara to Brașov. Sunkel pulled the 189th Regiment out of the town, threw it against the attackers and drove them off, leaving the clearing of the streets to the Hungarians. The German 89th Division, delayed by destroyed bridges, got only as far as the vicinity of Sânpetru, but its mere appearance on the flank caused confusion in the Romanian ranks. In the west, under fire from heavy batteries and threatened with envelopment, two Romanian brigades gave up a strong position between Măgura hill and Bran and fell back to the fortifications on the frontier, at the top of the pass.

9 October. On the evening of 8 October Crăiniceanu issued guidelines for a retreat in case of defeat, which came into effect during the night. The Romanian divisions withdrew to the exits of the passes: the 4th and 21st Divisions towards the Predeal pass, the 3rd Division towards the Altschanz pass south-east of the town, and the 12th Brigade towards the Buzău (Bodza) pass. According to Barrett, German machine guns fired on the departing columns, and the Romanians abandoned many trains of ammunition and supplies. At dawn on 9 October German troops entered the town, welcomed by the local Saxons. The allies set off after the Romanian rearguards, but there was no more serious fighting. Falkenhayn watched the Romanian retreat from the ruins of the castle at Feldioara.

Losses

According to the Austrian official history, the victors captured 25 guns during the battle and some 200 railway wagons of food in Brașov, but took few prisoners. Barrett gives a figure of 1,175 prisoners. There are no complete figures for the killed and wounded on either side. The Romanian 2nd Army suffered heavy losses in the fighting in the Geisterwald forest and at Brașov, and its new commander described its morale as very low.

Significance

The Battle of Brașov completed the Romanian defeat in Transylvania. After the loss of the town the Romanian Army of the North, which had not even tried to help its neighbour, also withdrew towards the frontier within a few days. Crăiniceanu lost his command, and the 2nd Army was taken over again by General Alexandru Averescu. On 9 October Averescu decided not to defend the exits of the passes, where German heavy artillery would destroy the Romanians, but deeper in the mountain valleys.

Falkenhayn, as the Austrian official history writes, hoped after the victory to cross the mountains on the heels of the retreating enemy and reach Bucharest directly. This did not succeed. The Romanians were not encircled, and on the frontier their resistance stiffened. The fighting for the Predeal, Bran and Buzău passes went on for the rest of October. Only in November did the 9th Army break through the front in the valley of the Jiu and come out onto the plain of Wallachia.