Avram Iancu

Outbreak

The Austrians clearly rejected the October demand that ethnic criteria become the basis for internal borders, with the goal of creating a province for Romanians (Transylvania grouped alongside Banat and Bukovina), as they did not want to replace the threat of Hungarian nationalism with the potential of Romanian separatism. Yet they did not declare themselves hostile to the rapid creation of Romanian administrative offices within Transylvania.

The territory was organized in prefecturi ("prefectures"), with Iancu and Buteanu as two prefects in the Apuseni. Iancu's prefecture, the Auraria Gemina (a name charged with Latin symbolism), became the most important one as it took over from bordering areas that were never fully organized.

In the same month, the administrative efforts were halted, as Hungarians under Józef Bem carried out a sweeping offensive through Transylvania. With the discreet assistance of Imperial Russian troops, the Austrian army (except for the garrisons at Alba Iulia and Deva) and the Austrian-Romanian administration retreated to Wallachia and Wallachian Oltenia (both were, at the time, under Russia's occupation).

Attrition

On 8 November, Iancu, along with his 4,000 combatants of the "Auraria Gemina" Legion, took part in joint military actions with Austrian forces. The Legion reached Turda, and the city surrendered without a fight on 20 November. Then, he and his troops returned to the mountains.^[13] On 29 November, Iancu had another 1,500 troops mobilized for action. On 4 December, he reached Săcuieu, and on 6–7 December, he and his men were ordered to attack the enemy lines by surprise. However, the attack failed due to the incompetence of an Austrian officer, and the Romanians were forced to withdraw by 10 December.^[13] By early January 1849, the control over Transylvania was almost entirely regained by the Hungarian army. The Romanian fighters holding out in their mountain stronghold were running low on supplies, having only 800 rifles to arm a few thousand men, and were completely surrounded by Hungarian troops by the end of March.^[14][13]

By February and March 1849, numerous attacks launched by the Hungarians ended in failure. Among these were the two battles of Mărișel, the first one fought in February and the second one in March. The first, fought against a Hungarian detachment of 600 soldiers, ended in their defeat.^[15] Their losses amounted to 13 dead and many wounded, who had to be loaded onto 4 carts and brought to Gilău, while the Romanians lost 6 dead.^[16] Wanting to wash away the shame brought by this defeat, the Hungarian military commander of the Gilău garrison sent an even larger force in March, made up of 1,600 soldiers. The Romanians under Iancu received support from the women of Mărișel, led by Pelaghia Roșu. With their combined help, the Hungarians were routed. They lost 30 dead on the battlefield, including a captain and a sergeant major, and another 100 drowned in the Someș River, while their many wounded were loaded onto 6 carts. The Romanians only had 2–3 men wounded.^[17]

In April 1849, Iancu was approached by the Hungarian envoy Ioan Dragoș [ro] (in fact, a Romanian deputy in the Hungarian Parliament). Dragoș appeared to have been acting out of his own desire for peace, since Iancu's troops were tying down too many Hungarian troops: about 10,000, a third of its army in Transylvania, according to Hungarian general János Czetz.^[10] He worked hard to get the Romanian leaders to meet him in Abrud and listen to the Hungarian demands. Iancu's direct adversary, Hungarian commander Imre Hatvany [ro], seems to have taken advantage of the provisional armistice to attack the Romanians in Abrud.^[18] He did not, however, benefit from a surprise, as Iancu and his men retreated and then encircled him. Meanwhile, Dragoș was lynched by the Abrud crowds, in the belief that he was part of Hatvany's ruse.

Hatvany also angered the Romanians by having Buteanu captured and murdered. While his position became weaker, he was permanently attacked by Iancu's men until the major defeat of 22 May. Hatvany and most of his armed group were massacred by their adversaries, as Iancu captured their cannons, switching the tactical advantage for the next months. Hatvany's troops lost 5,000 soldiers and all of their artillery.^[11][6][18] Kossuth was angered by Hatvany's gesture (an inspection of the time dismissed all of Hatvany's close collaborators), especially since it made future negotiations unlikely.

On 8 June, the Romanian stronghold in the mountains was attacked by the largest Hungarian force yet: 4,000 men supported by 19 cannons led by General Farkas Kemény [hu]. The battle lasted between 11 and 17 June and ended in a crushing victory for the Romanians, the Hungarians having at least 500 troops killed during the battle.^[12] The Hungarian historian and philosopher Pál Vasvári, with a force of 3,000 men and 5 cannons, was killed on 6 July 1849 during an engagement with Romanian forces under the tribunes Nicolau Corcheș and Iacob Olteanu, and local forces of Mărișel under the centurion Indrei (Andrei) Roșu, the son of Pelaghia Roșu. They had 440–500 men under their command, only 123 of whom had rifles, in the Apuseni Mountains, in the area between present-day Mărișel and Fântânele, Cluj County. The battle cost the Hungarians between 800^[19] and 850^[20] dead soldiers and many wounded, with many of their officers and Vasvári himself killed. The Romanians captured 1 cannon, a lot of ammunition, and a considerable number of different weapons. Their losses were 4 dead and 12 wounded.^{[21] [22]} The exact location of his death remains disputed among historical sources.

The Russian intervention in June precipitated events, especially since Poles fighting in the Hungarian revolutionary contingents wanted to see an all-out resistance to the Tsarist armies. People like Henryk Dembiński mediated for an understanding between Kossuth and the Wallachian émigré revolutionaries. The latter, understandably close to Avram Iancu (especially Nicolae Bălcescu, Gheorghe Magheru, Alexandru G. Golescu, and Ion Ghica), were also keen to inflict a defeat on the Russian armies that had crushed their movement in September 1848. Fighting also continued in July, during the peace negotiations, on 2, 4, and 22 July, all Hungarian attacks being repulsed yet again. Finally, the conflict ended on 29 July, as Iancu offered a guarantee to the Hungarian troops that he would not attack them, allowing them to withdraw in front of the Austro-Russian offensive.^[23]

Negotiations

Bălcescu and Kossuth met in May 1849, in Debrecen. The contact has long been celebrated by Romanian Marxist historians and politicians: Karl Marx's condemnation of everything opposing Kossuth had led to any Romanian initiative being automatically considered "reactionary". In fact, it appears that the agreement was in no way a pact: Kossuth meant to flatter the Wallachians by getting them to champion the idea of Iancu's armies leaving Transylvania for good, in order to help Bălcescu in Bucharest. While agreeing to mediate for peace, Bălcescu never presented these terms to the fighters in the Apuseni Mountains. His personal documents (commented by Liviu Maior [ro]) show that the unrealistic assumptions of Kossuth had made him view the Hungarian leader as a demagogue.^[24]

Even more contradictory, the only thing Iancu agreed to (and which no party had asked for) was his forces' neutrality in the conflict between Russia and Hungary.^[24] Thus, he secured his position as the Hungarian armies suffered defeats in July, culminating in the Battle of Segesvár (Sighișoara), and then the capitulation of 13 August.