Romanian brilliant tactical victorys in pre ww2 history?

What was the most brilliant tactical succes in our history? Pre ww2.


Iama

I choose Calugareni and Posada.

Iama

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I choose Calugareni and Posada.             Iama

those vas not realy tactical victory, just skirmish fighting

after Calugareni Mihai Viteazu run (retred) in Transilvania.

Posada was taking place after the Valahia surended.

May opinion is that Stefan cel Mare at Podul Inalt registred a great tactical Victory

Posada wasn't so much a battle. Rather a massacre. After Charles Robert failed to take Curtea de Arges he agreed to a peace (it wasn't a surrender tarzy, otherwise Basarab wouldn't have kept his position), which guaranteed him safe passage back home. He also obtained guides from Basarab, guides who led him into the carefully prepared trap at Posada.

At Calugareni, Mihai Viteazul did obtain tactical victory. His army was made up of 12,000 cavalry and 6,000 infantry with 12 guns. On the other side, the grand vizier Sinan Pasha commanded a force of roughly 100,000, of which only 55,000 were regulars. However he did not have all his forces at Calugareni. Some of them were left to garrison Giurgiu and Rusciuk or to guard supply columns.

After he managed to stop the Ottomans from crossing the Danube for 3 weeks, Mihai was forced to retreat after Sinan made a crossing further down the river in the Rahova-Prundu area. The Wallachian prince set up camp at Copaceni, on the Arges River and decided to attack the enemy in the Calugareni Pass.

On 12/22 August 1595 a Wallachian reconnaissance force was sent to Calugareni where it made contact with Akinjis (Ottoman light cavalry), which had crossed the pass and occupied the village. The following morning, Mihai took personal command of a detachment and attacked the Akinjis and pushed them back through the pass and over the Neajlov and Calniste Rivers. Then he took up positions on the left bank of the Neajlov.

The formation had a first line of harquebusiers (skirmishers), then further back 10 guns in front of the bulk of the infantry. The cavalry was positioned on the flanks. This group of forces was around 8,000-12,000 strong. The rest of the army was under the command of Albert Kiraly and was hidden in a forest further back on the right of Mihai Viteazul's grouping.

After the retreating Akinjis reached the bulk of Sinan's army, the vizier ordered a force of 12,000 men to attack the Wallachians. It was pinned down on the Neajlov River by the Christian artillery and harquebusiers. Sinan then ordered to install a part of his artillery on the hills on the right side of the rivers to support his troops. He also sent reinforcements to the main attack column and another force, which had to cross the river further down and attack the Wallachians from the flank. Thus the Ottomans made some progress and after several hours of combat, Mihai pulled back his troops, loosing a part of the guns. He stooped near the Calugareni village, reformed the lines and counterattacked. In the same time, Albert Kiraly revealed his forces and struck the left wing of the advancing Ottoman army, as planned. The Ottomans started to retreat, followed closely by Mihai Viteazul, and were pushed back over the Neajlov River. A detachment of 200 Transylvanians and 200 Cossacks under the command of captain Cocea infiltrated on the other bank and struck the Ottomans from behind. The guns lost earlier that day were retaken and many Ottoman battle flags were captured, including the green flag of the prophet.

It was a tactical victory for Mihai Viteazul, no matter how you look at it. However, the Ottoman army was vastly superior in numbers, so the following day the outcome could have been different. The subsequent retreat from Calugareni towards the Carpathians was decided because the Transylvanian and Moldavian armies were on their way and will greatly bolster the Christians' numbers.

I vote for Vaslui 1475.

Victor, massacre or not, was a tactical victory. Maybe, the term is wrong - battle, but a tactical victory it was.


Iama

By far, Vaslui - Podul Inalt, 10 january 1475, under the command of Stephen the Great, ruller of Moldova.

We can consider this victory as "tactical" one becouse even in this battle the otoman lost more than 30,000 men, they were back in Moldavia next year, in the summer of 1476.



This post has been edited by Dan Po on October 28, 2004 09:40 am

I also think that Posada shaped the fate of our ancestors for the centuries to come, and without the victory of Posada maybe today a modern Romanian nation would simply not exist, or would be something at the verge of dissapearance, like the Aromanians living at the south of Danube. (To be later explained, if you are puzzled by my remark.)

But I am surprised that the battle of Rovine was not mentioned by any of you. The battle of Rovine was almost as important as that of Posada. The Ottoman Empire was in a moment of heyday, seemingly unstopable, and because the other Christian kingdoms of the area simply could not resist the tide (the Bulgarians, the Serbs, the Albanese), the Ottomans were in big appetite for more and more conquests.

The success of Rovine cooled off the Ottoman boldness and settled a border which still is today. It also made the Western Europeans to dare to challenge the Ottomans. Even though that adventure with the European Union failed (woops, it was not yet the European Union... ), it was anyway another effort for the Ottoman Army.
And then, all Europe was so fortunate because in 1402 the Ottoman Empire reached a colliding trajectory with that of Timur Lenk. And the rest, over centuries... you know.

The battle of Rovine was the right think in the right moment... al Eastern Europe considered.

And it is nice to remember that both battles (Posada and Rovine) were won by Wallachia. Bad news for the fans of the Great Moldavian Empire!

130 years later there was no Timur and it was game over at Vienna. just as 1683 and even then Europe didn't dedicate even a faction of its attention to the ottoman empire.
actually i'd say 1500-1540 was the peak of the ottoman military capability.

i vote for Posada which had the maximum benefit for a minimal investition.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on November 04, 2004 02:01 pm

Well, after the Rovine Battle (october 10, 1394, other sources, may 17, 1395), Mircea lost the control at almost all the country for 2 years. Maybe you know, in the eve of Nikopol battle, in september 1396, where a crusaders army (french, burgunds, english, germans, hungarians and wallachians) were hardly defeated by Bayazet Ilderim, Mircea didn t have the country in his hands.

In the otoman sources, (even in our times) the Rovine battle is considered as a victory.

No dobts the battle of Rovine was a great one but, maybe it cannot be considered as a reat or stunning military succes.

Mircea the Elder Voivode of Wallachia (1386-1418):

This post has been edited by Dan Po on November 03, 2004 08:03 pm

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This I did not know.
I thought Mircea was able to keep the Ottomans at the Danube River.
And the way I knew it: the Hungarian and the Wallachian armies were less affected by the disaster of Nikopol, and they were even able to offer safe shelter for few of those unfortunate but arrogant Western knights.
Considering your words, Rovine could not be regarded as victory, as long the Ottomans had their foot on the Wallachian ground for 2 years.

This post has been edited by Florin on October 31, 2004 07:48 pm

Western Knights, even with a bravery out of any discussion were arrogant and - basicaly - stupid warriors. They let the turks to take a coline near to their war champ (in this time they were in a middle of an endless drinking session). They didn t let the wallach army to atack in the first line, as the most experinced in the turks tactics, and they choose a frontal atack with western style heavy cavalery.

They brooke the first lines of turkish army but only when they meet the elite formations of yenichars ... they thet was encyrcled and finaly killed or taken prisoneers.

Anyway we can notice that almost all great victoryes against the otoman empire durring the XV century was romanians or romano-hungarians - Iancu of Hunedoara or Hunyadi was romanian even he serve for the hungarian kings. More than that, in the transilvanian army of those days, the romanian element was significat.

This post has been edited by Dan Po on October 31, 2004 08:47 pm

Baiazid and his military advisers expected a heavy frontal attack from the heavy Western cavalry. They deployed weak troops in the front especially to make the enemy able to easily break them, and to lure the Western knights with the promise of an easy victory. The seemingly "lost ground" was actually the trap surrounded by the claws of the elite Ottoman troops.

The tactic of that battle resemble surprisingly well with the battle of Austerlitz, the most cherished victory of Napoleon, occurred 4 centuries later.

This post has been edited by Florin on November 01, 2004 01:29 am

In 1394, Bayezid I crossed the Danube at Nikopol, without much resistance. The Battle of Rovine probably took place on the Calmatui River, at Putineiu, on 10 October 1394. It was a local success, similar to that of Mihai Viteazul at Calugareni 200 years later. After reorganizing, Bayezid continued his advance towards Curtea de Arges (the capital of Walachia at the time), under constant harassment. Mircea took up positions in the mountains, near the capital, where apparently there was another battle, after which Bayezid decided to go back home, having installed a new prince (Vlad I the Usurper). However, after several months, with the help he received from Sigismund of Luxemburg, the King of Hungary, he took over most of the country from Vlad (who held out until 1396) and Turnu castle from the Ottomans, opposite Nikopol over the Danube. There were another two smaller Ottoman expeditions defeated in 1397 and in 1400.

What about the first battle of Tapae, where Cornelius Fuscus was killed and the Vth Legion Alaudae has been completely destroyed ? The battle of Tapae, (87 aD) took place at the Iron Gate of Transylvania Pass (697 m), located about 39 km east of Caransebes, SW of Romania.

This was the first great victory of the young dacian king Diurpaneus. After this battle he was named "DECEBALUS" probably meaning "the strength of the Dacians" (as "balus" is derived from the Indo-European root *bal meaning strength and "Dece" appears to be a plural genitive of "Daci", meaning "of the Dacians").

Here s Decebal from the Trajan s Column, Rome :

This post has been edited by Dan Po on November 03, 2004 11:12 pm

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