Overall command was now under Erich von Falkenhayn (recently replaced as German Chief of Staff), who started his own counterattack on 18 September. The first attack was on the Romanian First Army near the town of Hațeg; the attack halted the Romanian advance. Eight days later, German troops attacked Sibiu, and on 29 September, the outnumbered Romanians began retreating to the Vulcan and Turnu Roșu Passes. The latter, however, had been occupied by Bavarian mountain troops in a flanking movement, and the Battle of Turnu Roșu Pass ended with the Romanians retaking the pass at a cost of 3,000 men. On October 17, the Romanian Second Army attacked the Austro-Hungarians at Brașov, but the attack was repulsed and the counterattack forced the Romanians to retreat from there also. The Romanian Fourth Army, in the north of the country, retreated without much pressure from the Austro-Hungarian troops, so that by 25 October, the Romanian army was back to its initial positions. The Central Powers succeeded in taking the strategic initiative in Transylvania by concentrating significant military forces rapidly brought in from the other theatres of operations in Europe and exploiting a quick shift of Romanian units to the battlefront in Dobruja.