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Roumania's experience in 1877, under M. Bratiano's father, when, after having helped Russia to defeat the Turks, she was deprived of Bessarabia and obliged to content herself with the Dobrudja, was the main motive for this striving after definite conditions, while her readiness to look upon that loss of Bessarabia as final moved her to demand every rood of Austro-Hungarian territory which was inhabited by her kinsmen or had belonged to them in bygone days.
In Rumania, west of the river, continuous and at times heavy fighting continued, sometimes assuming almost the proportions of pitched battles. During the last week of the month Mackensen apparently realized the hopelessness, for the present at least, of driving the enemy out of Dobrudja, and shifted some of his forces over to the west bank of the river.
Through Russian influence the commission appointed to delimit the boundary between Roumania and the new principality of Bulgaria put the town of Silistria upon the Bulgarian side of the boundary. Now the heights of Silistria command absolutely the Roumanian territory opposite to it and the Dobrudja.
Nor was he more successful against Moldavia, and November arrived with its promise of snow to block the mountain-routes before he had advanced more than four miles into Rumanian territory. Mackensen, too, was held up in the Dobrudja, and a month's inactivity was only relieved by rival raids across the Danube.
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.
All this jugglery of mutual assurances broke down with the unexpected rout of the Turks; the formula 'the Balkans to the Balkan peoples' made its appearance, upon which Bulgaria was at once notified that Rumania would insist upon the question of the Dobrudja frontier being included in any fundamental alteration of the Berlin Convention.
Completely cut off from those allies, she was compelled in March to sign the humiliating Treaty of Bukarest, which surrendered the Dobrudja, the Carpathian passes, and her supplies of corn and oil to the enemy, while leaving Mackensen in control of her capital and the greater part of the kingdom.
That nothing of this sort did actually happen, either in Macedonia or in Dobrudja and Rumania, where the Russians also faced Bulgarians, may perhaps be ascribed to the revulsion of feeling against the Russians which many Bulgarians had begun experiencing of recent years, on account of the many black intrigues which the Russian Government had hatched against the independence of Bulgaria.
On the other hand names like Koumanova or Dobrudja must be given as the natives of these places pronounce them, as there is no recognized English pronunciation. In certain cases where there are several current pronunciations, the author has been forced to make a selection, arbitrarily. Thus a seaport in Greece, which has changed hands recently, has no less than five names.
Two railroads traverse this country; the one running from Bucharest to Constanza, an important seaport; another branching off from this line below Medgidia, running down to Dobric, thence over the frontier into Bulgaria. The former was of special importance to the Rumanians, as it was the only line of communication between Rumania and any Rumanian force that might be operating in Dobrudja.
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