THE RUMANIAN RAID ACROSS THE DANUBE
On the following day general attention was again attracted toward the
Dobrudja by a feat on the part of the Rumanians which for the moment
gave the impression that she was about to strike the enemy an
unexpected and decisive blow. A day or two before a Turkish and a
Bulgarian division had been severely repulsed near Toprosari, south of
Tuzla. Immediately there succeeded a general assault along the entire
line to which Mackensen had retreated on the 20th, but though thirteen
guns were captured, he did not again give ground.
Suddenly, on the morning of October 2, 1916, the Rumanians threw a
pontoon bridge across the Danube at Rahova, about halfway between
Rustchuk and Tutrakan, and well in the rear of Mackensen's line.
Before the small Bulgarian forces stationed at this point were aware
of what had happened they were completely overwhelmed by the
Rumanians, who were streaming across the bridge. All the villages in
the neighborhood were seized and for twenty-four hours it was expected
that Mackensen was about to suffer a sensational repulse. But
apparently the Rumanians lacked the forces necessary for the
successful carrying out of what would have been a brilliant stroke, or
possibly the Bulgarian forces which appeared here against them were
larger than had been expected, for the next day they announced that
the force which had been thrown across the river had again retired,
unharmed, the object of its demonstration having been accomplished.
According to the Bulgarian accounts their retreat was forced because
of the appearance of an Austrian monitor, which began shelling and
destroying the pontoon bridge, and that before the retreat had been
completed the bridge had been destroyed and a large remnant of the
Rumanian force had been captured or killed. In general, however, the
fighting during these first few days of the month gave neither side
any advantage, and again the situation calmed down to comparative
inactivity.
That the retirement of the Rumanians was well ordered is shown by the
fact that even the Berlin dispatches claimed very few prisoners, in
addition to a thousand taken at Brasso, while the Austro-Germans had
lost considerably over a thousand. On the 6th Fogaras had been
relinquished. North and east of Brasso the Rumanians had also
retreated. On the 8th Berlin announced that "the entire eastern front
of the enemy was in retreat." This was, in general, quite true, except
that for a few days longer they still held their positions in the
valley of the Maros.
Aside from the advantage in his superiority of numbers, Falkenhayn
also had at his disposal the better railroad accommodations. A line
running parallel with almost the entire front enabled him to shift his
forces back and forth, wherever the contingencies of the situation
made them needed most. By the 12th he was facing the Rumanians in the
passes. Heavy fighting then began developing at Torzburg, Predeal, and
Buzau Passes. Finally the Rumanians were forced back toward Crasna on
the frontier. A critical moment seemed imminent. Averescu, who had
defeated Mackensen, was now recalled from the Dobrudja and sent to
take command of the Rumanian forces defending the passes behind
Brasso.
By the middle of the second week of October, 1916, the Rumanians had
lost all the territory they had taken, except a little in the
northeast. The German-Austrian pressure was now heaviest in two areas:
about the passes behind Brasso and before the Gyimes Pass in the
northeast.
In the latter region, on the 11th, the Rumanians had retired from
Csikszereda and from positions higher up on the circular strategic
railroad in the valley of the Maros. Before Oitoz Pass they resisted
fiercely, and for a time were able to hold their ground. But it was in
the passes behind Brasso that Falkenhayn's weight was being felt most
severely. On the 12th the following description of the general
situation was issued from Bucharest:
"From Mount Buksoi as far as Bran the enemy has attacked, but is being
repulsed."
On the following day came better news than the Rumanians had heard for
some weeks. The Germans had not only been checked in the Buzau and the
Predeal Passes, but they had suffered a genuine setback there, being
forced to retire. This victory was important in that Predeal Pass had
been saved, for not only was this pass close to Bucharest, but through
it ran a railroad and a good highway, crossing the mountains almost
due south of Brasso at a height of a little over 3,000 feet. On the
next day, however, the Rumanians were driven out of the Torzburg Pass
and forced to retire to Rucaru, a small town seven miles within
Rumanian territory. Falkenhayn's forces were now flowing through the
gap in the mountain chain and deploying among the foothills on the
Rumanian side of the chain. Here the situation was growing dangerous
to an extreme degree. Only ten miles farther south, over high, rolling
ground, was Campulung, the terminus of a railroad running directly
into Bucharest, only ninety miles distant.
But Falkenhayn made no further progress that day. In the neighboring
passes he was held back successfully while his left flank in the Oitoz
Pass and his right flank in the Vulkan Pass were each thrown back. All
during the 15th and the 16th the fighting in the passes continued
desperately, the battle being especially obstinate before the railroad
terminus at Campulung, up in the foothills. At about this same time
the Russians in the Dorna Vatra district, where they joined with the
Rumanians, began a strong offensive, in the hope of relieving the
pressure on the Rumanians farther down. This attempt was hardly
successful, as the German opposition in this sector developed to
unexpected strength. On the 17th Falkenhayn succeeded in squeezing
himself through Gyimes Pass and reaching Agas, seven miles inside the
frontier. At about the same time strong fighting began in the Red
Tower Pass. The battle was, indeed, raging at a tense heat up and down
the whole front. It was now becoming obvious that the Central Powers
had determined to make an example of Rumania and punish her
"treachery," as they called it, even though they must suspend activity
in every other theater of the war to do so. Not a little anxiety was
caused in the Allied countries. The matter was brought up and caused a
hot discussion in the British Parliament. In the third week France
sent a military mission to Bucharest under General Berthelot, while
England, France, and Russia were all making every effort to keep the
Rumanians supplied with ammunition, in which, however, they could not
have been entirely successful.
The Rumanians, on their part, continued defending every step forward
made by the enemy. On the 18th they won a victory in the Gyimes Pass
which cost the enemy nearly a thousand prisoners and twelve guns. At
Agas, in the Oitoz region, the Austro-Germans also suffered a local
defeat. Nor had they so far made very marked progress in the passes
behind Brasso. There seems to be no doubt that had the Rumanians been
able to devote all their forces and resources to the defense of the
Hungarian frontier, they would probably have been able to hold back
Falkenhayn's forces. But Mackensen had forced them to split their
strength.
On October 19, 1916, the situation in Dobrudja again began assuming an
unpleasant aspect. On that date Mackensen began a new offensive. Since
his retirement a month previous he had remained remarkably quiet,
possibly with the purpose of making the Rumanians believe that he had
been more seriously beaten than was really the case, so that they
might withdraw forces from this front for the Transylvania operations.
This, in fact, they had been doing, and when, on the 19th, he suddenly
began renewing his operations, the Russo-Rumanian forces were not in a
position to hold him back.
After a vigorous artillery preparation, which destroyed the
Russo-Rumanian trenches in several places, Mackensen began a series of
assaults which presently compelled the Russo-Rumanian forces to
retire in the center and on the right wing. On the 21st the Germans
reported that they had captured Tuzla and the heights northwest of
Toprosari, as well as the heights near Mulciova, and that they had
taken prisoner some three thousand Russians. This success now began to
threaten the railroad line from Cernavoda to Constanza. This line had
been Mackensen's objective from the beginning. On the 23d a dispatch
from Bucharest announced that the Rumanian lines had retired again and
were barely south of this railroad. Having captured Toprosari and
Cobadin, the Bulgarians advanced on Constanza, and on the 22d they
succeeded in entering this important seaport, though the Rumanians
were able to remove the stores there under the fire of the Russian
warships.
[Illustration: General von Mackensen and his staff in Rumania. Already
victorious in campaigns in Galicia and Serbia, Mackensen won new
laurels in the Dobrudja. His troops pushed on to Bucharest, which fell
December 6, 1916.]
On the same date Mackensen began an attack on Medgidia, up the
railroad about twenty-five miles from Constanza, and succeeded in
taking it. He also took Rasova, in spite of the fierce resistance
which the Rumanians made at this point. In these operations Mackensen
reported that he had taken seven thousand prisoners and twelve guns.
Next he attacked Cernavoda, where the great bridge crossed the Danube,
and on the morning of the 25th the defenders were compelled to retire
across the structure, afterward blowing it up. Thus the railroad was
now in the hands of Mackensen. The Russians and the Rumanians had been
driven across the river or up along its bank. But it would be no small
matter for the enemy to follow them. With the aid of so effective a
barrier as this broad river it now seemed possible that the Rumanians
might decrease their forces very considerably on this front, still
succeed in holding Mackensen back, and turn their full attention to
Falkenhayn in the north. Of course, there still remained the northern
section of Dobrudja, passing up east of southern Rumania to the head
of the Black Sea and the Russian frontier, along which Mackensen might
advance and get in behind the rear of the main Russian lines. But this
country in large part constitutes the Danube delta and is swampy, and
is certainly not fitted for operations involving heavy artillery.
Moreover, Mackensen was now at the narrowest part of Dobrudja, whose
shape somewhat resembles an hourglass, and a farther advance would
mean an extension of his lines. Aside from this, by advancing farther
north, he laid his rear open to a possible raid from across the river,
such as the Rumanians had attempted on October 2, 1916,
unsuccessfully, to be sure, but sufficiently to show that the whole
bank of the river must be guarded. The farther Mackensen advanced
northward the more men he would require to guard his rear along the
river. For the time being, at least, the river created a deadlock,
with the advantage to whichever side should be on the defensive. The
Rumanians might very well now have left a minimum force guarding the
river bank while they turned their main forces northward to stem the
tide of Teuton invasion through the passes.
For over a week this seemed exactly what the Rumanians were doing. On
November 4, 1916, the situation along the Rumanian front in the
mountains looked extremely well for King Ferdinand's armies. At no
point had the Teutons made any appreciable headway, while in two
regions, in the Jiul Valley and southeast of Kronstadt, Bucharest
reported substantial gains. Berlin and Vienna both admitted that the
Rumanians had recaptured Rosca, a frontier height east of the Predeal
Pass.