At the onset of the Romanian Campaign, starting on 27 August 1916 with the Battle of Transylvania, the Romanian 1st Army, under the command of General Ioan Culcer, consisted of six divisions, of which four comprised the I Corps, led by General Ioan Popovici. In the middle of September, General Culcer moved the I Corps headquarters to Nagytalmács (Tălmaciu/Talmesch). General Popovici arrived in Nagytalmács along with his staff on 16 September. Popovici had two divisions under his command at Nagyszeben (Sibiu/Hermannstadt): the 13th and the 23rd. While concentrating their forces northwest of Nagyszeben in preparation for the impending battle for that city, the Germans kept the Romanians under artillery fire in order to keep them from sending out patrols that could have discovered the German build-up. Romanian frustration with having to endure this bombardment boiled over, and on 22 September General Popovici ordered his 13th Division to take the heights at Veresmart (Roșia/Rothberg), east of Nagyszeben. Although this action was against Culcer's orders, it was still Culcer himself who decided to appoint Popovici as commander of the two Romanian divisions headquartered at Nagytalmács.