On 29 August, the Jiu Covering Force of the I Corps of the Romanian 1st Army, under the command of General Ioan Culcer, occupied the crucial Transylvanian coal-mining center at Petrozsény (Petroșani).

The Romanians easily swept aside the weak resistance offered by the Hungarian coal-miner battalions, inflicting heavy casualties.

The 187th Regiment, with the exception of its III Battalion, was moved to Mezőlivádia on 8 September, to reinforce the Austro-Hungarian 144th Infantry Brigade (Colonel Ludwig Berger).

Also on 8 September, the German XXXIX Reserve Corps (General Hermann von Staabs) assumed responsibility for the operations in the southern region of Transylvania.

On the 9th, Major Radu R. Rosetti from the Romanian headquarters stated to General Andrei Zayonchkovski — the Russian commander in Dobruja — that the 2nd and 12th Divisions "were coming from Transylvania".

[5] According to post-war Austrian military maps, the Central Powers front on 14 September ran just outside Puj, immediately to the northwest of the village.