1848/49 in Transilvania, about those revolutionary years

At the time Dragos was killed, Buteanu was still alive, prisoner in Brad. He was killed few days later, when Hatvany withdraw in Hungary. At the time Dragos was killed, the romanians knew nothing of Buteanu's fate. Same in the case of Petru Dobra. He was knew by romanians as being prisoner, but at the time romanians took Abrud from Hatvany, he was already dead, but romanians were not aware of this.

Dragos was killed cos he was considered a traitor, because in the time when he discussed with romanians during his gained armistice, Hatvany entered Abrud by surprise. It is now known that Dragos didnt knew the intentions of Hatvany, so he was killed for nothing.

This post has been edited by 21 inf on February 07, 2010 12:54 pm

It is known that Hatvany had precise orders from Kossuth that, in place of negotiatons, to crush the Romanian resistence by surprise.

Hatvany had his orders, but Dragos was not aware of those. He was sent to negociate a peace.

Kossuth realised that the situation in the mountains cant persist for much longer, cos he needed a peacefull area inside the country in order to have liberty of action against austrians and russians, to consolidate his teritory conquered during revolution. So, he acted on two "fronts": a peacefull solution (Dragos) or as reserve a hard solution (armed intervention - Hatvany and his militia).

The terms and conciliations presented by Dragos to romanians in the name of Kossuth were so diferent in comparison with those from the outbreak of the hungarian revolution, that hungarian officer Czecz Janos exclamed that those who offered such conditions to romanians, from hungarian side, are or yellow cowards, or traitors of Hungary.

You are right 21 inf,
Since some of the translations of the hungarian text, as this one, were made by use of the translator online maghiar -englez, it is very likely that such errors occured. I'm sorry!
Do you know if the national guard companies from Turda later formed the 11th honved battalion mentioned in the book I quoted? Or it is a different unit?
I put that question in order to find an answer - the difference between the troops of national guard and the troops of honved infantry. Because from what I understand now the first step was raising the militia -national guard- than equip and train them, and finally made them honved infantry units?
Because many sources I found speak about hungarian militia troops send against romanian moti legions, not (or few) regular army units, (maybe) in an attempt to belittle the importance of the romanian military actions in central Transylvania. What dou you know?

I dont know if Turda hungarian national guard became 11th infantry batalion.

Honved is in free translation means "defender of the home". I dont know it was planned some conversion from militia to regulars (honved). Sometimes romanians used to name any uniformed hungarian force as "honved".

Ten days before commemorating the start of Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849 - 15 March, a national celebration of all Hungarians - the only surviving brass cannon of Gábor Áron, a famous szekler cannon builder and artillery officer, has been temporarily returned to the Szekler National Museum in Sf. Gheorghe/Sepsiszentgyörgy, from the Bucharest National Museum.


[Photo: Henning János, Duna TV]

The 370 kg cannon will be publicly displayed within the "In Memoriam Gábor Áron (1814-1849)" event, starting on 12 March.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 06, 2010 08:21 am

Nice piece!

Nice piece, Denes.
I wonder if exist until now one of the cannon made by Iancu's soldiers, from cherry wood. It will be interesting to see one of them.

I saw an year or so ago an episode of Mythbusters on Discovery Channel. They built a wooden canon out of oak and it held very well. They tried to destroy it and they did only after they charged it with enough blackpowder to destroy even an iron canon .

during the 1620ies, Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, used light cannons made of leather in Poland. if that worked, why not wood?
as it turned out, it wasn't quite that useful though.

The cherry wood cannons, made by Iancu's soldiers, were able to shoot 5-7 times, with acceptable accuracy. Maybe 21 inf can give us more details about it.

Yes, in 1848-1849 transylvanian romanians (and especially motzes) used canons made of chery wood. They had a barell made of wood, circled with a high number of metal rings for reinforcement of the barell. After 5-7 shots they had to be replaced as they were of no use due to gas presure from black powder. The interior of the barel was made using a "sferedel".

Canon balls were made from stone. Aiming was empiric as canons had no sights. Usually a motz "artilery" man used to put a rifle on the barell, aim with the rifle, adjust the position of the canon using the rifle aiming and after that give fire to the canon's powder. The same was in case of iron canons captured from hungarians, as motzes had no artilery training. This aiming was quite acurate for them.

Wood canons were used in several battles against hungarian troops, with good results, even if these results were not counted in number of casualties, but in terms of demoralising the enemy. In some cases, the powerfull sound of this kind of wood canons made greater impresion than victims in enemy ranks, routing them from the battlefield.

Photo series of the unpacking and mounting of the brass cannon, mentioned in my earlier post, as seen on the web site of the Szekler National Museum:
http://www.sznm.ro/

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 12, 2010 05:49 pm

isn't today the commemorative day of the start of the revolution?

Yes, it is. It's a National Holiday in Hungary (and most Hungarians outside Hungary observe it, too).

Gen. Dénes