| Battle of Slatina | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofthe Romanian Debacle of theRomanian Campaign ofWorld War I | |||||||
 Map of the operations in Oltenia (Romanian defenses west of the Olt marked with short thick red lines, towards the South-East of the map) | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Romania |  German Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| GeneralConstantin Prezan CaptainIon Antonescu | GeneralViktor Kühne | ||||||
| Units involved | |||||||
| 1st Army (elements) | 41st Division 109th Division 11th Bavarian Division | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
TheBattle of Slatina was a military engagement betweenRomanian andGerman forces duringWorld War I. It resulted in a strategic victory for the Romanians.
TheKingdom of Romania joined theTriple Entente in August 1916, following the signing of theTreaty of Bucharest, and declared war onAustria-Hungary on 27 August. In the aftermath a Romanianoffensive into Transylvania that was stopped mainly by the German9th Army under the command ofErich von Falkenhayn, theCentral Powers began attempting to force the mountain passes in theCarpathians.
After failing to break the Romanian defenses in northernOltenia during theFirst Battle of the Jiu Valley in late October, the Germans had by 11 November amassed a force which outnumbered the Romanians in the region more than 2 to 1 (40 infantry battalions supported by cavalry against 18 Romanian battalions), commanded by GeneralVictor Kühne.[1]: 371–372 This force finally achieved a breakthrough intoWallachia by 17 November, during theSecond Battle of the Jiu Valley.[2]: 240 Filiași fell to the Germans on 19 November, followed byCraiova on the 21st. Only parts of the Romanian 1st Army took part in the defence of Slatina; for instance, one division under Colonel Anastasiu was left atOrșova.[3]
On 22 November, GeneralConstantin Prezan and his talented operations officer, CaptainIon Antonescu, were assigned to the command of the battered 1st Romanian Army, which was tasked with defending the line of theOlt River. Prezan and Antonescu arrived at the 1st Army headquarters atPitești on the morning of 23 November, where they discovered that the situation had already changed completely: the Germans had already crossed both the Olt and theDanube rivers.[2]: 253 Prezan was widely regarded as more of a courtier than a serious army officer. Fortunately for the Romanians, his operations officer was Captain Antonescu, "a talented if prickly individual".[1]: 320 Such was the influence of Captain Antonescu that, in his memoirs, GeneralAlexandru Averescu used the formula "Prezan (Antonescu)" to denote Prezan's plans and actions.[4]
On 23 November, General Kühne attacked the center of the Romanian defenses on the Olt River. His 41st and109th Divisions tried to converge on Slatina and its bridge, but bad roads forced them to remain on the same road, one behind the other. TheBavarian 11th Division soon joined the column. The41st Division led the way, against a hard fight which was being put up by the Romanians. The Germans were brought to a halt 12 miles west of the Olt. TheCharge of Robănești took place during this battle, when the 3rd Squadron of the 7th Romanian Cavalry Regiment charged the Bavarian infantry on horseback and was wiped out to the last man. Kühne referred to this episode as "madness". On that same day, however, the German6th Cavalry Division crossed the southern Olt atStoenești, nearCaracal. Thus, while Kühne's attack on the Romanian center had failed, German Cavalry underEberhard Graf von Schmettow advanced from the south and turned the Romanian left flank whileKonrad Krafft von Dellmensingen's forces threatened the Romanian right flank in the north, south of theTurnu Roșu Pass. In these conditions, the Romanian troops abandoned the Olt line by 27 November, not a moment too soon. Before retreating, the Romanians had blown up Slatina's railway bridge and granaries.[2]: 254 [3] On that same day (27 November), Kühne's infantry, after "terrific efforts", finally crossed the Olt at Slatina.[5]
Kühne's attack on the Romanian center at Slatina failed, the Romanian units retreating only because their flanks were threatened by other German forces. The Romanians won a strategic victory because Kühne's forces were prevented from joining the left flank ofAugust von Mackensen's Danube Army, which had crossed the river on 23 November. On 30 November, Kühne's troops were still 50 miles away from the left flank of the Danube Army. It was this exposed left flank of Mackensen's Army that was subjected to a very heavy Romanian attack on the very next day, 1 December, starting theBattle of the Argeș. The Romanian attack on 1 December put von Mackensen's forces in a situation which was – in the words ofErich Ludendorff – "certainly very critical".[5][3]