The winter night wind blows across the Transylvanian plateau, and a new day begins again. After a night's rest, the two armies in Hateg are also facing the coming of daylight, preparing for a new fight.
"Hurry up and bring all the ammunition."
"Rom, come here and check if there is anything wrong with this cannon."
"Hurry up and clean the barrel. It will be used soon."
On the artillery position, the artillerymen are busy preparing for the war. As the god of war, Romania also attaches great importance to it, and its training is also carried out in accordance with other powers. For example, because of the invention of goniometers, peripheral sights and wired
With the use of communication equipment, major countries have successively implemented indirect aiming and shooting, and observation posts and artillery positions are configured separately. Romania is not behind them at all, and they all follow up immediately. This is why Romania can compete with Austria-Hungary in artillery.
Even beyond that.
On the artillery position, as the temporary command of the artillery groups of the two divisions, Colonel Matettici, commander of the artillery regiment of the 1st Guards Division, was also making final preparations.
"Do you all know the importance of today's battle?"
"Know."
"Are you all ready?"
"Ready."
Seeing the artillery officers of the two divisions under his command with great momentum, Colonel Matettici sighed with great vigor and said with a wave of his hand, "Go back and prepare."
When the artillery position was preparing for today's battle, in the front headquarters of the position, Lieutenant General Ankodar and Major General Dotred were confirming the final pre-war plan.
"Major General Dortred is the division commander. I won't go into too much detail about the importance of today's attack plan. We must achieve a breakthrough in today's attack. We can't worry about casualties at this time."
Looking at Lieutenant General Ankodar who spoke earnestly, Major General Dortred knew that this was not the commander of the 1st Guards Division who wanted to nag his mother-in-law. Moreover, the 19th Division fought so poorly yesterday, and he was afraid that he would feel bad about it.
He was too worried to give it a go, but Ankodar underestimated himself.
Major General Dotred spoke about this. "Please rest assured, Lieutenant General, today I will take down the enemy's position at the cost of casualties, as long as the 17th Division defending the flank cannot reinforce the position."
Faced with Major General Dottred's words, Lieutenant General Ankodar confirmed and said generally. "Don't worry about this. The 1st Guards Division will definitely be able to break through the flanking positions, but the 17th Austro-Hungarian Division will not be able to reinforce the frontal battlefield.
It’s still guaranteed.”
At the end of the speech, Lieutenant General Ankodar said, "Then the front will be left to you. I wish we can all win."
"We can all win."
After Lieutenant General Ankodar left with the personnel of the 1st Guards Division, he called the staff and ordered. "Now draw up my order, the artillery will immediately launch a bombardment of the enemy in front of them, except for the two that must be left behind."
Fire out all the ammunition except the base ammunition. The combat troops must be within 200 meters of the enemy position before the bombardment ends, and start the raid immediately after the bombardment ends. In addition, I give a separate secret order to the frontline commander, and I only need to break through the enemy's front
News from the defense line, don’t give me casualty figures.”
Major General Dotred's words made the staff take a breath, but after seeing his division commander's face and tone, he immediately lost all other thoughts and hurriedly issued the order to the frontline commander.
After the staff left, the chief of staff of the 19th Division, who was staying aside, had to persuade him. "Division Commander, it is very easy to get hurt by accident when approaching the opponent's position during shelling. Should you think about it?"
"Don't think about it. I know there will definitely be a lot of accidental damage, but how can there be a war without killing people?"
Considering that his tone might be too blunt, Major General Dortred explained a little more. "Today is the day that determines victory or defeat. Neither we nor the 1st Guards Division can afford to delay, so we must make some trade-offs."
Major General Dotred's order was quickly conveyed, and the artillery clusters of the two divisions remaining on the frontal battlefield immediately hit the defenders with prepared artillery shells. The Austro-Hungarian 35th Division, which was defending in the front, immediately felt the pressure of the battlefield.
They were all veterans who had been fighting for several years. As the commander of the 35th Division, Major General Arz felt something was wrong.
"Do the Romanians think there are too many shells?"
When the bombardment just started, Major General Arz passed the observation post and felt the difference in the bombardment, but he thought of the reason. Until he observed through a high-precision telescope, Romanian soldiers on the battlefield took advantage of the bombardment to move toward their positions, and there were many of them.
.
"No, the Romanians are going to launch a general offensive."
Major General Arz, who wanted to understand, immediately picked up the phone and connected to the artillery position behind the battlefield. "This is Arz. Start shelling the front of the field immediately."
Following the order of Major General Arz, the hidden artillery of Austria-Hungary also threw artillery shells on the heads of the officers and soldiers of the 19th Division who were preparing to advance. For a while, the soldiers of both sides endured the artillery bombardment from the opposite side. However, as the side with the advantage of artillery, Colonel Mattettizy
Of course, the Romanian artillery group he led would not turn a blind eye to this. After measuring the defenders' artillery positions, the attacking side's artillery fire immediately fell on the artillery positions that were ravaging their comrades. The fierce artillery fire caused the Austro-Hungarian artillery positions to be destroyed one after another.
Misfiring, and the violent explosions of shells being detonated from time to time turned the Austro-Hungarian artillery position into a Shura field.
When the defenders' artillery gradually disappeared, the officers and soldiers of the 19th Division, who had moved to the front of the position, immediately launched a surprise attack. While the defenders did not react from the artillery strikes, the officers and soldiers of the 19th Division immediately entered the position and engaged in a fierce battle with them.
competition.
"Come in, rush in."
As one of the few elites of the 19th Division, the 7th Company led by Captain Mizik was of course also present on the battlefield. However, Captain Mizik was not very good now. On the right side of his face, which was covered in gunpowder smoke and looked like he was born in Africa, there was
A wound scratched by shrapnel. However, as a company commander, Mizk didn't care about this. He wanted to command his soldiers to capture the position in front of him, because the order he received was to capture this position at all costs. In order to
For the sake of his own life and that of his subordinates, he could only command and reduce the company's casualties as much as possible.
When Mizk shouted orders to his soldiers, he also became a thorn in the eyes of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers. The dirty officer's uniform that could still be distinguished, coupled with the pistol that matched him, immediately made him a very valuable shot.
Target. So in a machine gun position that collapsed not far from him, a rifle quietly stretched out from it.
Mizik, who was completely unaware, directed his soldiers to move forward, and at this moment, an unnoticed corpse knocked him down. Then he heard a "pop" gunshot and felt a tingling sensation in his ears.
The hot air flow flew by, and it was only then that he realized that he had almost been hit.
Only then did the soldiers of the 7th Company realize that their company commander was almost killed, so they followed the direction of the sound and found a shell casing on the collapsed machine gun position.
"Don't worry about him. Quickly seize the position. We have more important things to do."
Seeing that no enemy was found, Mizik immediately asked the soldiers to rush to seize the position. In fact, in the positions defended by the entire 35th Division, the 7th Company was not a special case. Under the offensive of the 19th Division, which had the advantage of artillery and did not count casualties, the 35th Division had already
Several sections of the position were breached. The 35th Division launched several counterattacks under the orders of Major General Arz, but they were all blocked by artillery and soldiers of the 19th Division. For a time, there were signs that the frontal battlefield of the Austro-Hungarian army had been broken.
Signs of the Austro-Hungarian 35th Division's failure have already attracted the attention of both parties. As its division commander, Major General Arz can only ask for help now. The only person he can ask for help now is the Austro-Hungarian 17th Division, but now the 17th Division is completely under guard.
One division was so entangled that it could not draw out its troops.
"Kumanek, now I need reinforcements. The enemy's offensive from the front is too fierce. They are crazy and don't care about casualties. My 35th Division will not be able to withstand it."
"My artillery has been exhausted, and you have also seen that the opponent's artillery is much more than ours. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it."
"If you can't send reinforcements now, I certainly won't be able to stop them. Now my soldiers have retreated to the last line of defense. If they are defeated, they will be defeated."
So at 4:30 in the afternoon, the 35th Austro-Hungarian Division, which had suffered successive attacks and received no reinforcements, collapsed. The soldiers who suffered heavy attacks and were demoralized abandoned their positions and fled to the rear.
Seeing this situation, Major General Arz's eyes were red, and he licked his hair with a disappointed expression and said to himself, "It's over, it's all over."
However, as other officers in the headquarters, of course they would not just sit back and watch their division commander, and immediately two more staff officers lifted him up and retreated to the rear. The commander of the 17th Division, Kumanek, who was fighting with the 1st Guards Division on the defensive flank, was also quite decisive.
After leaving one regiment to defend, they immediately retreated with the remaining soldiers of the 17th Division.
"Victory."
When the battle report from the front line was sent to the headquarters, it aroused cheers from the officers, but Lieutenant General Ankodar and Major General Dotred, as the main commanders, would not be satisfied just yet.
"Immediately send a report to the troops fighting on the front line, ordering them to immediately leave some troops to clean up the battlefield, and all others to pursue the enemy. Do not give the enemy a chance to breathe and repair, and at the same time, immediately organize a small group of elite troops to detour in front of the enemy and rush immediately
Go to the main road leading to Deva and let them hold off the enemy."
At this point, the Battle of Harteg has basically ended. According to later statistics, the Austro-Hungarian army, which was the losing side in this battle, suffered a total of 14,716 casualties, captures, and missing persons, of which the 35th Division suffered most of its casualties, and the 17th Division was also involved in the subsequent pursuit.
The Romanian army, as the victorious side, also suffered a lot of casualties, with the number of casualties reaching 8,679, of which the 19th Division, which was the main attacker, accounted for 70% of the casualties.
However, the biggest effect of this battle was to place Deva directly in front of the 1st Guards Division and the 19th Guards Division. Now it is like a red fruit waiting to be picked.
