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From the railway station far away the sharp clang of a bell has announced the doleful fact that in half an hour the train will start for Arad, thence to Brassó, where the recruits will be enrolled, ticketed, docketed like so many heads of cattle mostly unwilling made to do service for their country.
Fanny pulled her tin of English "Brasso" from a pocket-flap, and began to rub a lamp. At the far, far end of the long shed four men were standing with their backs to her, round a car. The globed lamp was tricky, and the chamois-leather would slip and let her bark her knuckle on the bracket.
On the same day a Rumanian official report gave a long list of villages and towns which the Rumanians had taken beyond the frontier, their Fourth Army Corps also having taken 740 prisoners. Within two days Averescu had advanced so rapidly that he was in possession of Petroseny, north of the Vulkan Pass, and of Brasso, beyond Predeal Pass.
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.
The first news of the actual fighting was given to the world through an official Austrian communiqué, dated August 28, 1916, announcing that, during the preceding night, the Rumanians had begun a determined attack on the Austrian forces in the Red Tower Pass and the passes leading to Brasso.
Some little progress was still made in this direction in the third week of the month; after a few slight engagements the Rumanians occupied Homorod Almas and Fogaras, the latter a town of some importance halfway between Brasso and Hermannstadt. During these operations nearly a thousand prisoners were taken.
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.
On the following day another report added that the attempted invasion had become general and that the Imperial troops were resisting attacks in all the passes along the whole frontier. But, added the report, everywhere the Rumanians had been successfully repulsed, especially near Orsova, in the Red Tower Pass, and in the passes south of Brasso.
There is railway communication, but not direct; you have to get on the main line at the junction of Klein Köpisch in Hungarian, Kis Kapus and hence to Kronstadt, called Brasso by the non-Germans. This confusion of names is very difficult for a foreigner when consulting the railway tables. I have often seen the names of stations put up in three languages. Herrmannstadt is Nagy Szeben.
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.
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