The Battle of Segesvár (Transylvania, now Sighișoara, Romania), also called the Battle of Fehéregyháza, was a battle in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, fought on 31 July 1849 between the Hungarian revolutionary army under the command of Lieutenant General Józef Bem and the Russian V Corps under General Alexander von Lüders. The battle ended with the victory of the Russian army, which was presumably the death location of the Hungarian poet and national hero Sándor Petőfi, but his body was never found. Furthermore, The Chief of Staff Russian V corps, General Grigory Skariatin was killed at the battle. Although heavy, the defeat was not decisive for the Hungarian army of Transylvania, Lieutenant General Józef Bem continuing his resistance in the province until the Battle of Nagycsűr on 6 August 1849.
Background
Between 20–21 July, after several battles, Lieutenant General Józef Bem chased out the Austrian corps of Transylvania commanded by General Eduard Clam-Gallas from Székely Land. Then, on 23 July, passing the Ojtoz pass, he broke into Moldova, where he defeated the Russian troops of General Ustrugov, advanced to Onești and Târgu Ocna, making a proclamation to the people from here. Seeing that the population had no will to rise up against the Russians, he returned to Transylvania. His next plan was to take back Nagyszeben and the Vöröstorony Pass.
On 19–20 June the Russians broke into Transylvania, scoring some victories against the Hungarian forces, but Bem, with his clever tactical movements, managed to prevent them from accomplishing their task of pacifying the Székely Land and breaking into Hungary in order to attack from behind the Hungarian troops fighting against the main Austrian army, led by Lieutenant Field Marshal Julius Jacob von Haynau, and the Russian army led by Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich. The commander of the V. Russian corps, General Alexander von Lüders, was forced for the third time to return from the Maros valley because Bem threatened to cut his supply lines in the Székely land. He decided to eradicate once and for all the resistance from the Székely land, and for this he concentrated all the troops at his disposal: 30,000–35,000 men for a concentric attack against the enemy. For this purpose the army under his command had to advance through Segesvár to Székelyudvarhely the column of General Magnus Johann von Grotenhjelm to Marosvásárhely, the Austrian corps led by General Clam-Gallas and the Dannenberg column which had to break into Transylvania by the Ojtoz Pass to Csíkszereda, and finally the column of Major General Dyck stationing at Fogaras to Kőhalom, and to join, if needed, with the main army of Lüders.
Prelude
Lüders's main column, which started its march from Nagyszeben to Segesvár had 9,100–9,200 soldiers and 32 cannons. Bem too wanted to crush the Russians also with a concentrated attack. With the column under his command, consisting of the Beszterce, Nagyszeben and Székely divisions, the units of the Kolozsvár and the brigade of Volonel József Dobay coming from Rika he planned to attack Lüders' Russian troops from three directions. If all three columns had arrived on the battlefield, Bem would have had around 8000 soldiers at his disposal, while the siege troops from Gyulafehérvár under the command of Colonel Miksa Stein had to execute a diversion attack towards Nagyszeben. But, without Bem's knowing, the troops from Kolozsvár of Colonel Farkas Kemény on 31 July arrived only in Marosvásárhely, while Dobay was beaten on 30 July by the Russian troops of Major General Dyck at Kőhalom. Initially Bem wanted to march through Székelykeresztúr towards Székelyudvarhely, but when he heard that Lüders was around Segesvár, he turned towards the same direction. However, he sent a battalion to help the division of Székely land under the leadership of colonel Sándor Gál, so at the start of the battle he had only 2400 soldiers. When Bem arrived, he found in Fehéregyháza the Russian vanguard, chasing them out of the village.