Battle of Rimnicul-Sarat
Map of the battle situation
on the Austro-Hungarian map
of Rimnicul-Sarat-Viziru
| date | December 22nd to December 27th, 1916 |
|---|---|
| place | Buzau Arch, Wallachia Region , Romania |
| output | Victory of the Central Powers |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| losses | |
|
10,000 prisoners |
unknown |
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1916–1917
1916:
Transylvania ( Sibiu ) -
Turtucaia -
Dobrich -
Cobadin (1) -
Flămânda Offensive -
Cobadin (2) -
Târgu Jiu -
Argesch -
Rimnicul Sarat
1917:
Putna -
Oituz Pass (1) -
Mărăşti -
Mărăşeşti -
Oituz Pass (2)
The Battle of Rimnicul-Sarat (also the Christmas Battle of Rimnicul-Sarat ) was a battle on the Romanian theater of war during the First World War . It took place from December 22nd to 27th, 1916 in the eastern Romanian district of Buzău ( Buzău Arch ) in the Wallachia region and led to the defeat of the Russian-Romanian armed forces by the troops of the Central Powers.
Romania's capital Bucharest had been occupied by German troops since December 6, 1916 as a result of the Battle of the Argesch . New resistance of the Romanian armed forces along Cricov, Urziceni , Prahova and the Ialomița was broken by the Central Powers in mid-December. After the defeat in the Rimnicul-Sarat area, the Romanian and Russian armed forces were forced to continue their general retreat to the Moldavian border .
prehistory
The Romanian declaration of war on August 27, 1916 against Austria-Hungary was preceded by secret negotiations with Russia . The tsarist empire accepted Romanian territorial claims to Bukovina , Transylvania and the Banat . With the accession to the Entente and the invasion of Transylvania by the Romanian army, the Central Powers were forced to open another front.
The Romanian army advanced into Hungarian Transylvania. However, the Romanians were repulsed in the Battle of Sibiu (September 22-29) by the German 9th Army under the command of the former head of the OHL Erich von Falkenhayn . In a large-scale urban warfare - which was rather untypical for the First World War - Kronstadt was recaptured by October 8th . In mid-November, the Kühne group ( General Command 54 ) at Târgu Jiu, in cooperation with the Schmettow cavalry corps, was able to break through south into Wallachia and occupy Craiova .
In addition, on November 23 and 24, 1916, Mackensen's river crossing at Sistowa occurred completely unexpectedly for the Romanians on their southern Danube border .
With the help of Austrian pioneers, the newly formed Danube Army ( General Command 52 ) under General Robert Kosch with the 217th Infantry Division , the Combined Cavalry Division (General Hans von der Goltz) and the Bulgarian 1st and 12th Divisions were brought across the river . On November 25th, the troops of the Central Powers were already assembled in the northern bridgehead on the Romanian-Bulgarian border near Zimnicea , with the following Turkish 26th Division serving as a reserve. The Danube Army crossed the Teleormanu River on November 26th and began its advance on Bucharest.
The Romanian army command had assembled most of their troops under General Alexandru Averescu on the northern section of the Carpathian Mountains and thus exposed the unprotected Danube border of Romania. The resulting preponderance of the Central Powers in the section of the Danube Army was 40 German and Bulgarian battalions and 188 guns compared to 18 battalions and 48 guns of the Romanian Danube group.
With the involvement of the allied Russian 6th Army, the Romanians in the south under General Constantin Prezan began to prepare a counterattack to avoid encircling Bucharest . The plan was to attack the advance troops of the Central Powers on the southern and western aprons of Bucharest on the Argesch on both flanks before Bucharest could be encircled. The Russian commander- in -chief in Romania, General Vladimir Sakharov , did not agree to the plan of attack, but promised to bring the 47th Corps to the protection of Bucharest at an accelerated rate and thus to strengthen the Romanian defense in the south.
The battle
The Battle of Rimnicul-Sarat was part of the Muntenia Defense Operation, the Romanian Army's fourth strategic operation in the 1916 campaign. After the Battle of Bucharest , which ended with the victory of the central forces, this was the objective of the Romanian command to delay the advance of the enemy by offensive actions in order to gain time to allow the concentration of Russian troops on the Rimnicul-Sarat - Viziru - Danube line .
After the unsuccessful attempt to stop on the Cricov – Ialomița line, the Romanian armed forces were forced to continue their retreat in the Buzau section. The new Romanian-Russian position in the middle section of the front stretched from the heights at Racovitenti via Balaceanul to Filipesti and then followed the course of the river on the lower Calmatuiu.
The armed forces consisted of the Romanian 2nd Army under the command of General Alexandru Averescu , who carried his heavy military equipment from the Slănic River to Racovițeni (Buzău County), where it joined the Russian 4th Army under General of the Infantry Alexander Ragosa .
The 34th Infantry Division (Lieutenant General Nikolai Petrowitsch Stremuchow) of the Russian VIII Army Corps secured the important heights at Racovițeni. Opposite the Danube Army (General Kosch) and the Bulgarian 3rd Army (General Neresow ) secured the Russian 6th Army , which was commanded by General WN Gorbatowski .
The armed forces of the Romanian 2nd Army were divided into two task forces: the “Oituz-Vrancea-Gruppe” secured against the kuk armed forces in the mountains and the “Ramnic-Gruppe” against the German Alpine Corps (Krafft group).
- The Oituz Vrancea Group was in the Slănicului Valley / Zăbalei Valley, with the 15th Infantry Division (General Eremia Grigorescu) between the Tandor Summit and the Clăbucul Summit and the 7th Mixed Brigade (Colonel Alexandru D. Sturdza) from Clăbucul peak to Furu peak.
- The Ramnic Group (General Arthur Văitoianu ) with the 3rd Infantry Division (Colonel Alexandru Mărgineanu) secured in the area of the village of Măgura and on Marghiloman Hill, with divisions on Nereju, Furu Mare and Petrei peaks; the 1st Infantry Division (General Dumitru Stratilescu) was in the Marghilomanic hill sector, Salciei Valley and Pardoși; the 6th Infantry Division (General Nicolae Arghirescu) was in the Pardoși-Racovițeni section, followed by the Russians. The Trans-Caspian Cossack Brigade, as well as the Romanian 7th Infantry Division (Colonel Grigore Bunescu) and 12th Infantry Division (General Traian Găiseanu) acted as reserves behind it.
- The Russian VIII Army Corps under Lieutenant General AI Denikin (2nd, 15th and 34th Divisions) secured security following the Romanian Ramnic Group; General Ragosa had the IV Army Corps under General Sultan Eris Aliyev (30th and 40th ) on the left wing Infantry Division) positioned on the Balaceanul line via Drogul to the Buzau River.
On December 22nd, the attack of the German 9th Army , which was commanded by General Erich von Falkenhayn , took place. The aim was to reach the Buzău-Focşani Railway, with the Krafft group on the left wing against the mountainous region of Dumistresti and the Morgen group on the right. The Krafft group did not advance on the left wing, and the kuk 73rd Division ( FML . Goiginger ) was detained by the Ramnic group.
The following day the Kühne group (LIV. Corps) on the right wing made no further progress. The 109th Division broke into the opposing positions at Galbenul; as a result the entire Russian position fell from the lake at Drogul to Balaceanul. On December 24th, the left wing of the German I. Reserve Corps (Group Morgen) achieved the breakthrough. The 89th Division , together with the Bavarian 12th Division , was able to storm the dominant "Höhe 417" near Racovițeni. The left wing of the Danube Army had not yet participated in the battle, as the leadership feared flanking attacks by the Siberian IV Army Corps from the western bank of Buzau. It was not until December 25 that the Bavarian 11th Division attacked at Filipesti, two days later the Bulgarian 1st Division tried in vain to break through at Giurgeni.
After the advance of the Kühne group stalled, General von Falkenhayn threw his last reserve, the 41st Division, into battle on December 25th . On December 27, the 76th Reserve Division was able to penetrate Rimnicul Sarat, to the left of it the Bavarian 12th and 89th Divisions advanced north of the city, south of which the 216th Division was also carried forward. The Kühne group was now able to break through the positions of the Russian IV Corps and penetrated to the north-east on the Gradistea-Rimnicul Sarat road.
The following news was announced in the Allgemeine Zeitung in early 1917:
"The movements on the Romanian battlefields are marked by victory, in the battle of Rimnicul-Sarat in the Buzau-Bogen, Falkenhayn and Mackensen operated with ingenious tactical skill, constantly threatening the enemy in the great Wallachia and Dobrudscha in the flanks, making excellent use of the turns of the Danube. "
In the battles near Rimnicul-Sarat in Christmas 1916, over 10,000 soldiers died in a day-long slaughter on the few hectares of the high plateau "Höhe 417", another 10,000 men were captured, and the city of Rimnicul-Sarat itself was occupied.
The later “Führer” deputy Rudolf Hess was also among the participants in the battle . When he arrived at his unit in Romania, the remnants of the Romanian army had faced a decisive battle at Rimnicul-Sarat, which was to last until January 8, 1917.
See also
literature
- Kurt Jagow : Data of the World War, prehistory and course up to the end of 1921 . Publishing house by KF Koehler, Leipzig 1922.
- Rudolf Kiszling : The campaign in Transylvania , from: Austria-Hungary's last war 1914–1918: Volume V , Verlag der Militärwissenschaftlichen Mitteilungen, Vienna 1930, pp. 250–260 and 298 f.
- Max Everwien: “Christmas Battle at Ramnicul-Sarat”, in: Heavy artillery fights, laughs, dies . Leuchtkugel-Verlag, Berlin 1933, p. 163.
- Publishing house of the military scientific messages (ed.): Military scientific messages . Volume 70, editor: Emil Ratzenhofer, 1939, p. 443.
Web links
- The warfare in autumn 1916 and winter 1916/17: from the change in the Supreme Army Command to the decision to retreat to the Siegfried position (11th 1938) , on digi.landesbibliothek.at
Individual evidence
- ^ Deutsche Wacht , Bonn 1917, p. 41.
- ^ Anton Wagner: The First World War , Troop Service Pocket Book, Ueberreuter Verlag 1981, p. 216.
- ^ Norman Stone: The Eastern Front 1914-1917 , Penguin, London 1998, p. 279.
- ^ David F. Burg and L. Edward Purcell: Almanac of World War I. The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 2004, p. 145.
- ↑ Istoria militară a poporului român , Volume V, Editura Militară, Bucharest 1989, pp. 491–494.
- ↑ Istoria militară a poporului român , Volume V, Editura Militară, Bucharest 1989, p. 494.
- ↑ General Gheorghe Dabija: Armata română în răsboiul mondial (1916–1918) , Volume III, Tipografia “Lupta” N. Stroilă, Bucharest 1934.
- ↑ Kirițescu Constantin: Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României , Volume I, Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucharest 1989, p. 522.
- ↑ Alexandru Ioanițiu (Lt.-Colonel): Războiul României: 1916–1918 , Volume 1, Tipografia Geniului, Bucharest 1929.
- ^ Deutsche Wacht , Bonn 1917, p. 41.
- ^ Wulf Schwarzwäller: The deputy of the Führer: Rudolf Hess, the man in Spandau. Molden-Taschenbuch, Munich 1977, p. 52.