1848/49 in Transilvania, about those revolutionary years

Siege of Timisoara http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro/wiki/Asediu...5%9Foara_(1849)

Although I am not an expert in this time period, I found the description of the events well written and balanced.
A bit more background to why the siege was lifted when the fall of the fortress and city was within days would help better understanding the events.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 20, 2010 06:54 am

Thanks, Denes! I will develop the general situation in another article and I'll link it with the above one.

Another article, the fight from Târnava, Hunedoara county, 8 november 1848. http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro/wiki/Lupta_...ava_(Hunedoara)

The only issue with the initial topic is how relevant it is to 'Enciclopedia României', as the described events were not connected to either Rumania, or the Rumanians.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 24, 2010 08:14 am

I'm afraid I didn't understand what you mean.

This post has been edited by 21 inf on December 24, 2010 09:05 am

... because the participants were "not" Rumanian, but Transylvanian, I guess...
Or because the "white flag" trick, maybe?!

There is no such thing as "Transylvanians", at least from romanian point of view. There are only romanians from Transylvania and hungarians from Transylvania, as well as there are romanians from Moldavia and Wallachia and hungarians from Hungary, regarding 1848-1849 events. There were different revolutions in 1848 for hungarians from Hungary and those from Transylvania, each of them with their own programs, of course mainly the same, but there were 2. Also, for romanians, there were 3 revolutions in 1848: in Moldavia, Wallachia and Transylvania.

The rest is only propaganda and an evident lack of will to see things as they are in reality.

I'm afraid I didn't understand what you mean.

To be more clear: what I meant is that the siege of Temeschwar (Temesvár, Timişoara, Temišvar), fought between the Hungarian attackers and the Austrian defenders had nothing to do with Rumania, or the Rumanians. Therefore, this topic is not relevant to 'Enciclopedia României'.
Please correct me if you think I'm wrong.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 24, 2010 12:35 pm

At the first sight it seems indeed that the fight was between austrians and hungarians. But in the austrian army garisoned in Timisoara there were romanian origin soldiers, from the austrian border regiment of Banat and also a great number of drafted romanians from the suburbs of Timisoara and neighbouring villages. Please see the order of battle at "combatantii" section of the discussed article.

And Merry Christmas!

This has been already discussed before: in an army, the ethnicity/nationality of the individual soldier is irrelevant. What matters is only which flag he served under (IIRC, I gave my example: when I was drafted in the Rumanian Army, I wasn't a Hungarian soldier, but a Rumanian one). Therefore, your reasoning is invalid (with the same logic, all events where Rumanian ethnic soldiers fought - and in the XIXth Century/early XXth Century, with Rumanian ethnic soldiers drafted in the k.u.k. Armee, this happened practically all over Europe - must be mentioned then).
By contrast, the battles in the (current!) Hunedoara county, between Hungarian units vs. local Rumanian militia, you mentioned in your second post, are on topic.

Gen. Dénes

P.S. Merry Christmas to all!

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 24, 2010 02:45 pm

what i have as source does not match the numbers given in that article.
while there is a consensus reagarding the number of austrian artillery pieces (213) and hungarian siege artillery (91), only about 9000 defenders are mentioned for the austrians. the about 11.000 hungarians represents only the corps Vecsey.
during the siege quite some troop movement has taken place on the hungarian side to del with various threats, most of which have remained hidden to the garrison at that time. therefore the number of the attackers varied greatly over the time.
for example near the conclusion of the siege, the entire hungarian force around Temesvar is mentioned at 59.000.

also the author mentions that after the capitulation of the Arad fortress (which increased the number of hungarian artillery as it freed the siege train) 595 romanian Grenzers joined the honved side and quotes in the same sentence the number of Grenzers in the Temesvar garrision at 1257.

also there might be a confusion regarding the austrian units. there was no "Rukavina Brigade" but a "Rukavina Regiment" (the austrian 61th) and a Leiningen brigade (and not a regiment) which might have served at Köngigsgräz in 1866 if it is the same unit.

hussar squadrons are also mentioned on the austrian side, however i saw nothing of mounted Grenzers.

while the 61th kuk was a mixed regiment, i haven't seen any record of romanians in the uhlan or hussar units, although it is unlikely that there were none.
during the siege civilians were recruted and used to manhandle artillery pieces and/or work on the defences. those probbly were the recruits from the nearby villages.

from "Die letzte Belagerung Temesvars", by Bela Schiff, Deutsche Buchdruckerei Temeswar, 1929.

he quotes extensively from journals and the notes of the mayor Johann Nepomuk Preyer.

@Denes: Yes, you are right if it would be the discussion about some individuals of romanian origin in austrian army. In this case is about a whole unit raised from romanian Banat ranks and this particular unit was praised by its deeds by the austrian commander at the end of the siege.

@dead-cat: The source I used is the report of the austrian commander of the fortress Timisoara, Georg Freiherr von Rukavina. 9.000 is the number he gave for the regular austrian army, the rest is made from recruits drafted in the last days before the siege started. He included the number of the recruits in the OOB he drawed. The same source indicates the number of hungarian soldiers only for the begining of the siege, mentioning that it was increasing during fightings, although not mentioning a final figure. G. von Rukavina might not be aware about all numebrs regarding the hungarian army who fought against him.

Horse grenzers are mentioned by Rukavina under the designation of "serezani", I mentioned them in the article.

Rukavina's OOB of his army is this one, breaked on units:
Infantry
- 2 batalions from Sivkovich brigade:52 oficers, 2266 men, 770 recruits, 11 horses
- 2 batalions from Rukavina brigade: 34 oficers, 2282 men, 1913 recruits, 5 horses
- 1 batalion count Leiningen: 18 oficers, 1255 men, 764 recruits, 5 horses
- 1 batalion grenzers from Banat: 21 oficers, 1236 men, 986 recruits, 3 horses
- 3 companies from Zanini Regiment: 16 oficers, 320 men, 2 horses
Total: 141 oficers, 7359 men, 4433 recruits, 26 horses

Artilery
- garison's artilery: 8 oficers, 96 men, 52 recruits
- detachments from 2nd and 5th Artilery Regiments: 2 oficers, 123 men, 2 recruits
- 1 detachment from Rocket Corp: 1 oficer, 20 men, 7 recruits
Total: 12 oficers, 239 men, 61 recruits

Cavalry:
- 3 divisions of Schwartzenberg ulans: 29 oficers, 883 men, 814 horses
- 1 detachment from Archduke Maximilian, chevaux legere: 1 oficer, 73 men, 74 horses
Total: 30 oficers, 956 men, 888 horses

Transports:
- 1 detachment: 1 oficer, 7 men, 273 horses
- 1 squadron of serezans (Serschanes in german in original): 1 oficer, 84 men, 85 horses

Grand total, including sapeurs (pioneers) and HQ oficers (not mentioned by me above): 4 generals, 188 oficers, 8659 men, 4494 recruits, 1272 horses.

as the numbers are very close to what i have seen, the source is probably the same document, perhaps with some writing errors here and there that would account for the minimal differences.

the 2 battalions from the "Rukavina brigade" must be from the 61st. as there were parts of the 61st at Arad too, would explain why the units are not called 61st but the number of 2 batallions is explicitly given. the size does amount aproximatly 1 regiment so i wonder wether it was more than 1 company detached to Arad.
however, only 1 battalion might be from the 61st as i have seen mentioned (the 3rd) while the other 2 were campaigning with Haynau.
perhaps the regiment history of the 61st will shed some light on this. i hope to have enough spare time to consult the archive in vienna, since i was told they have it there.

this document mentions only the Schwartzenberg Uhlans as cavalry
(6 squadrons) which would be indeed 3 divisions.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on December 24, 2010 05:55 pm

Nice document, dead-cat. I wonder if you can help me pointing some internet site were I can check the nominal OOB of AH army in ww1, as I am looking for the units were my to ancestors were drafted. One felt POW to italians and the other one to russians. The first was from Salaj, the second from Arad county. The last returned home in 1921.

Are you interested also in the history of Nasaud grenzinfanterie regiment? I am interested in the relatively early history of the regiment, as romanian historians starting with Baritiu point that they were fighting at Arcole bridge against Napoleon, but it seems that all of them inspired from Karl Klein, an oficer from the regiment in 1840's, who doesnt indicate the source of his writings. The french sources doesnt show them at the bridge, nor the known austrian ones (with proves, indicating the primary source, because there are some famous austrian historians who wrote about it with no indication of the sources).

This post has been edited by 21 inf on December 24, 2010 06:51 pm

The purpose of Enciclopedia Romaniei (The Encyclopedia of Romania) is to present, amongst other, the history of the lands that are or were part of Romania; to a lesser degree, the history of Romanians outside Romania proper. The Siege of Temeschwar is part of Timisoara's history, it cannot be omitted just because it lacks the involvement of Romanians.

In other news , "Casa Muresenilor" museum in Brasov has a temporary exhibition about the Transylvanian revolution 1848-1849.

http://muzeulmuresenilor.ro/2010/11/14/exp...vania%E2%80%9D/
http://www.totpal.ro/expozitia-in-memoriam...sa-muresenilor/