Northern front (26-27 September) The attack of the German 9th army began at dawn on the 26th. Von Staabs had his divisions deployed with the 187th to the West, the 51st Honvéd in the center and the 76th Reserve Division to the east. In clear weather, the XXXIX Corps got off to a slow start, meeting determined resistance. The Romanians, by then aware of their critical position, had commenced a general retreat to the southeast. Strong rearguards were covering this movement. The 187th Division ran almost immediately into strongly held positions. The villages of Szecsel, Orlát, Popláka and Guraró (
Gura Râului/Auendorf) had to be captured one by one, swaying battles being fought in their streets. Guraró and Popláka in particular were noted by Falkenhayn for their resistance. Although the villages were captured during the evening, the Romanians remained in their strong positions on the Cioara, Valare and Obreju heights. The 51st Honvéd Division did not advance as it was expecting the 187th Division to prepare the way. The 76th Reserve Division did not actually make it into the battle, being held up by the rough terrain east of Nagyszeben. The slow start of the Central Powers on the 26th was due to more than Romanian resistance. Von Staabs had ineffectively distributed his guns among all his units equally, meaning that no unit had the power to breach the Romanian lines. Enraged, von Falkenhayn told him to fix the problem by massing the artillery. After this was accomplished, the attack resumed on the 27th. On that day, the 9th Army continued its drive south, its reorganized artillery blasting gaps in the enemy lines. Von Falkenhayn was exasperated to end the battle, giving von Staabs the army's reserve force: the 89th Division and the 8th Landwehr Brigade. These two units were still unloading at Segesvár (
Sighișoara/Schäßburg), 25 miles away, too far away to be of help. The German High Command gave von Falkenhayn control of the 89th Division on that same day, 27 September. By nightfall, the Germans had made significant gains against the Romanians. During the 27th, German and Hungarian regiments slowly made their way through Dolmány (
Daia/Thalheim), Bongárd (
Bungard/Baumgarten) and Hermány (
Cașolț/Kastenholz), also capturing the 601 meters-tall Grigori height (the northernmost Romanian position, northeast of Nagyszeben). Not every detachment received the order to retreat while this was still possible, and the Romanians suffered considerable losses during their withdrawal from the encircled positions. On the 27th, fighting also took place at Nagydisznód (
Cisnădie/Heltau), a local
district capital. The Central Powers troops were surprised to find large numbers of civilians among the dead and wounded in the Romanian trenches. Many locals of Romanian descent had attempted to retreat along with the Romanian Army, but were killed in the German bombardment.
Southern front (26-27 September) On the morning of the 26th, the Alpine Corps occupied the Red Tower Pass at several points: on the northern (Transylvanian) side at the village known by the German name of Kaiserbrunnen, and on the southern (Romanian) side at
Râu Vadului and Câineni railway stations. As fighting on the northern front intensified, the Romanians became aware of the German forces in their rear and undertook some ineffective measures to drive them out. General Popovici sent his 48th Infantry Regiment from the north, but the
Jägers - positioned in the hills above Kaiserbrunnen - decimated the unit with machine-gun fire. The Romanians moved to the east side of the valley, where they could pass safely, being largely out of range. Although the Germans were able to block the road traffic, they could not completely block the pass due to lacking their field artillery, left behind because of the impossibility of moving it through the mountains. Although the Germans had a few Austro-Hungarian mountain guns, these lacked the stopping power of the larger field pieces. On the southern end of the pass, the Romanians fared better. Lieutenant-Colonel Toma Popescu, a staff officer of the 1st Army carrying messages for Popovici, came across the Bavarian Guards of
Prince Heinrich's III Battalion at the Câineni bridge. Immediately recognizing the threat, the Romanian officer rounded up 13 day laborers from the village and marched them to the Mayor's office. There, he found some rifles, before sending the now-armed men into the hills above the bridge. Under the leadership of a Police Sergeant and an army straggler, the Romanians put the Germans under fire, with such success that the Bavarians became confused and started searching the east side of the pass. With the Germans distracted by this fruitless task, Popescu headed south and came across a Romanian
Jäger battalion with two howitzers at
Brezoiu. Dividing this force into two columns, he sent one north to Câineni and the other west to fall on the Bavarians from the rear. Popescu's attack succeeded, Prince Heinrich's men abandoning the bridge and town as night fell. For the moment, the Romanians were able to prevent the Germans from becoming established. On 27 September, the Romanians realized the seriousness of the situation when reinforcements were unable to get through the pass. Popovici sent 5 battalions south and managed to drive the Alpine Corps
Jägers from the northern part of the defile and out of most of Râu Vadului as well. But the Germans still remained in the center area, jamming up Romanian convoys in bloody engagements. At the southern end, Prince Heinrich's III Battalion had reoccupied Câineni and Lunci Point. All day long, battalions from the Romanian 20th Division attacked from the south, trading possession of the disputed bridges with the Germans throughout the day. Traffic came to a halt as the Romanians waited for the cover of darkness, when they could move units with greater safety. On the 27th, 37 men from an advanced section of the 9th Company of the Bavarian Guard Regiment were captured by the Romanians at Râu Vadului. The Romanians robbed and mistreated them, avowedly in revenge for the heavy losses that they had suffered in the preceding fighting. During the morning of the next day, the Romanians led them to a nearby riverbed, where they were fired upon by a unit commanded by an elderly officer. Ten of them were killed immediately, twelve more were seriously wounded. Nearby
Jägers, seeing what happened, recklessly attacked. The sudden intervention of German machine-gun fire prevented the massacre of all defenseless prisoners, driving off the Romanians in panic. Supposedly, the executions were authorized by General David Praporgescu (20th Division commander). The Germans spread word about this atrocity, and it became known even in Bucharest. As a result, anger ran high among 9th Army units, who subsequently had little desire to take prisoners.
Romanian retreat (28-29 September) The critical day of the battle had arrived. The morning of the 28th started off well for the Central Powers. The situation continued to deteriorate for Popovici, when the XXXIX Corps started making progress against the main Romanian positions, driving his beleaguered battalions back into the mouth of the Red Tower Pass. Although driven out of its main line of defenses, Popovici's force remained unbroken. The 187th Division advanced steadily. Flanking units also pressed forward as Romanian resistance diminished. The German forces in the Red Tower Pass were involved in heavy fighting everywhere, and the danger of them being wiped out was high. There were multiple signs of a partial Romanian collapse: wrecked guns and vehicles, corpses and dead animals. However, although there was no longer determined resistance, the haul of prisoners remained very small. The main Romanian group remained intact, still disposing of substantial forces despite being clear that it had suffered very heavy losses. As von Falkenhayn himself noted: "Seldom in my life, which had not lacked dramatic moments, had I awaited the outcome with such suspense as on the morning of 29 September.". Romanian morale plummeted as exaggerated rumors about the situation in the pass reached the front line troops. Exaggerated accounts of German bombing of railway stations and staff headquarters served to further demoralize the Romanians. At 7 p.m., Popovici met with the commander of the 23rd Division - General Castriș - who reported that his forces had retreated to their last defensive line. By then, contact with most units was lost, including the 13th Division. Disheartened by the incessant German shelling and believing that no help would reach him, Popovici decided to save what was possible by retreating south down the pass. He formed his units into 3 columns, with a center of supply wagons, ambulances, artillery pieces, livestock and trains, with the infantry on the outside. The 44th Infantry Regiment comprised the vanguard. The 23rd Division was ordered to hold the enemy to the north for as long as possible, the same orders being conveyed to the 13th Division by Popovici's Chief of Staff. Around 10:30 pm, with Popovici in the lead, the column headed south. Popovici had given the strictest orders for silence, but once the Alpine Corps spotted the Romanians and put them under fire, his panicked soldiers shouted and cursed at their animals, which bolted. Military police and gendarmes were unable to keep order. In this chaos, infantry columns stopped and waited for hours, while wagon columns galloped south at full speed. At Vöröstorony (
Turnu Roșu/Rothenturm), artillery had to be used to blast away a barricade of dead horses and wagons assembled by the Germans. "The cries of the wounded, the machine-gun and rifle fire, the bellowing of the animals and the roaring waters of the Olt all echoed in the narrow passage, adding to the hellishness of the scene.". At 5:30 a.m., the wagon column was halted by machine-gun fire coming from the Lunci Point railway station. The vanguard regiment and two artillery batteries did not succeed in dislodging the Germans. The Romanians offered cash prizes to clear the Germans. After an hour, and only after the Romanians assaulted the buildings and bayoneted to death everyone inside, did the shooting cease. The Romanian column resumed its march south. At 2:30 p.m. on the 29th, Popovici's column staggered out of the pass and into Câineni and safety. For the Romanian infantry, it was a question of infiltrating back by various border paths across the
Făgăraș Mountains, east of the Olt River.
Relief attempt by the Romanian 2nd Army (28-29 September) As the I Corps remained almost under siege, the leaders of the Romanian Army were compelled to attempt its relief. The 2nd Army - 3 divisions strong at the time - attacked on 28 and 29 September, driving against the flank of the German 9th Army among skillfully retreating German and Austro-Hungarian forces. During the early morning of the 28th, von Schmettow reported that the Romanians had driven a wedge between his 6th Austro-Hungarian Cavalry Brigade and the 71st Austro-Hungarian Division of the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army. A gap a dozen miles wide was opened and the entire 9th Army was exposed to a flank attack. The 89th Division - von Falkenhayn's last reserve - was coming south from Segesvár and began to march into the area between the two armies, but Falkenhayn feared that the Romanians would overwhelm it. Pressure on the extreme western flank of the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army drove back a weak Hungarian cavalry detachment and the battered 71st Division. Falkenhayn was alarmed to receive a message from the usually aggressive Curt von Morgen - whose I Reserve Corps commanded this flank of Arz's 1st Army - that he viewed a further retreat as almost inevitable. The actions of the Romanian 2nd Army contributed to von Falkenhayn's troubled night's sleep that evening. On the 29th, as the battle came to a conclusion, the 2nd Army's 3rd Division drove the 2nd Honvéd Cavalry Division back north across the Hortobágy (Hârtibaciu/Haar) Creek. This drive threatened what had become the juncture of the two Central Powers armies. The 2nd Romanian Army executed its movements slowly and with difficulty. An advance along the shortest line in the Olt Valley might have been easily threatened, so the Romanians felt themselves compelled to ensure freedom of movement north of the Olt River. Therefore, the forward sections of the 71st Infantry Division were the first to be pressed back. Then, the 6th Cavalry Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division - standing north of Kissink (
Cincșor/Kleinschenk) - was thrown back westwards. Pushing between the 71st Division and the Cavalry Corps, the 89th Division carried out on 28 September a successful attack to the south, temporarily halting the advance of the Romanian troops north of the Olt. However, the Romanians resumed their offensive during the afternoon of that same day, attacking the 1st Cavalry Division north of the Olt and pressing it back to the heights east of the Hortobágy. The German reserve, not required at Nagyszeben, was swiftly deployed with heavy motor wagons through the Hortobágy Valley to the aid of the heavily engaged Schmettow Cavalry Corps. On the 29th, the Romanians pushed rapidly and violently in the space between the Hortobágy and the Olt. To the surprise of the Central Powers, the Romanians did not continue the attack north of the Olt on 30 September. During its advance on the 28th, the Romanian 2nd Army gained several settlements, most notably the village of Nagysink (
Cincu/Großschenk), a
district (járás) capital within the
Nagy-Küküllő County. Ultimately, the 2nd Army forced its way as far as Porumbák, but by that time the Romanian detachment - which had stood there on the extreme right wing of Popovici's Corps - had been forced to retreat to the east, and the German forces continued to separate the two armies. The 4th Division of the 2nd Army advanced to within 7 miles of Popovici's right flank. ==Aftermath==