Romanians take Orsova

On 4 September 1916 the Austro-Hungarian defenders abandoned the whole west bank of the Cerna, which flows into the Danube at Orsova, and the Hungarian port town fell into the hands of the Romanian 1st Division of General Ion Dragalina. According to some studies, the Romanians had entered Orsova itself a day earlier, on 3 September. The British chronology of the war gives the date of 8 September, because only then did the Austro-Hungarian command admit in a communiqué that the town had been lost. In Romania, which reckoned time by the Julian calendar, 4 September was 22 August.

Orsova lay at the very edge of Hungary, on the border with Romania and just above the Iron Gates, the gorge of the Danube through the Carpathians. It was the terminus of a railway line and a river port, and beside it ran the shipping route by which the Central Powers sent supplies down the Danube to Bulgaria and Turkey. Its capture was one of the tasks of the extreme left wing of the Romanian First Army of General Ioan Culcer. The 1st Division, assembled near Turnu Severin, was to take Orsova and the Cerna valley north of the town. Facing it stood the Austro-Hungarian 145th Infantry Brigade of Colonel Rudolf Fiebich-Ripke, at first only three field battalions, a Landsturm battalion and three batteries, supported by a few small-calibre naval guns and the armed steamer Almos. The defenders took up positions on the Alion ridge, which overlooked the town from the east.

Until the end of August the fighting was limited to skirmishes on the border and exchanges of fire. On 1 September the Romanians attacked in great superiority and broke through the weak defence between the Danube and the Cerna valley. According to the Austrian official history, the southern wing of the brigade suffered heavy losses, especially in prisoners, and fell back westwards along the Danube, while the northern wing blocked the valley south of Mehadia (PL). On 2 September the defenders gave up the heights above the town and withdrew behind the Cerna, and over the next two days the Romanians entered Orsova and took the whole west bank of the river. Then, as planned, they halted and dug in. The command of the Austro-Hungarian First Army sent reinforcements, and the Austro-Hungarian military governor in Belgrade brought up a battalion and a half of Landsturm by ship.

The capture of Orsova brought Romania little strategic gain. A single, isolated division could not advance from here deeper into Hungary, but the Romanians were able to close navigation on the Danube at the Iron Gates. Meanwhile the Battle of Tutrakan was under way in the Dobruja, and soon in Bucharest the capture of Orsova was presented as a success that was to balance the defeats on the Danube. The Austro-Hungarian 145th Brigade still tried to counter-attack near the spa of Băile Herculane (Herkulesbad) on 6–10 September, but did not recover Orsova. The Romanians held the town for more than two months, until November 1916, when during the great offensive of the Central Powers they had to withdraw from it.