The Pressburg Front.
Henryk Dembiński had no idea how many commanders had been transferred in before him. He had originally been fighting the Transylvanians in the east.
But his record had been so outstanding that he had caught the attention of the authorities in Budapest. And so he was transferred to Pressburg, where the stalemate had dragged on without a breakthrough.
Truthfully, Henryk Dembiński felt he hadn't done much. He had merely burned down 61 villages in 34 days and killed more than 50,000 "enemies." That was all.
Still, compared to his historical record of burning down 108 villages and slaughtering nearly 80,000 people, it really did fall short.
But compared with the record of Artúr Görgei, another member of the Three Giants, his results were far better. Unfortunately for Artúr Görgei, he had run into the main force commanded by Anton von Puchner.
The latter might not have been an outstanding tactician, but he had more men and better equipment. On top of that, he had the support of the local Transylvanians. Somehow, a third-rate general had managed to fight Hungary's strongest commander of 1848 to a standstill, and had even gained a slight upper hand.
Of course, this was also thanks to Puchner's long-standing defensive strategy, which left Görgei no opening to exploit. So long as Puchner stayed on his own turf, every Transylvanian in the area served as his eyes and ears.
No matter how brilliant Görgei's tactics were, he still needed his opponent's cooperation. Historically, his strongest tactic was to lure the enemy deep into his territory, cut off their supplies, then divide and annihilate them.
But now, under Franz's orders, Puchner stayed on his own turf and gave Görgei no such opportunity.
As Franz saw it, when the two sides were evenly matched, if you