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Other parts of this group which had advanced east from Brest-Litovsk along the Minsk railroad reached the Jasiolda River, a tributary of the Pripet, at a point near Bereza, while Austro-Hungarian troops forming part of Von Mackensen's army advanced to east and south of Boloto and Dubowoje.
Thus the Turks at Gallipoli, who had been running short of ammunition, could now be relieved. This opening of communication with Turkey was made much of in the German official reports and some of the newspapers began referring to Mackensen's army as "the army of Egypt." On the first day of November, 1915, Mackensen could really say that he had conquered all of northern Serbia.
The heaviest losses occurred among Dmitrieff's troops in the first days of May, 1915, but in the battles on the San, at the close of the month, the forces of Von Mackensen's "phalanx" were also greatly reduced. Along the entire Galician front, it is computed that quite 600,000 Austro-German troops were put out of action.
Well might the Dardanelles expedition be hailed in the press as a stroke of strategical genius and associated with Mr. Churchill's imagination. Easy also is it to understand the concentrated fear and force which the Germans put into Mackensen's coming drive in Galicia.
A vast force of military engineers moving like a human screen in front of von Mackensen's array, followed routes carefully mapped out by German spies during the period of Roumanians neutrality. Military bridges, measured to the inch, had been prepared to carry cannon, material and men over streams and ravines. Every Roumanian oil well, mine and storehouse had been located and mapped.
Toward this important point Mackensen's first move was obviously directed. On September 3, 1916, a Rumanian dispatch announced that Mackensen was attacking in full force along his front below Dobric and that he had been repulsed. But as developed within twenty-four hours Mackensen was not repulsed.
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.
Besides the menace from the northwest of Von Mackensen's swiftly approaching right, a third blade was gradually growing on the deadly scissors, in the shape of Boehm-Ermolli's and Von Bojna's forces, threatening to grind them between two relentless jaws of steel.
If the military situation did not look so black for the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx. Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only on winning cards.
Here on 1 November Sakharov arrived to take the command with several new divisions, for Alexeiev did his best to redeem the failings of his Government, and a counter-offensive was begun. On the 9th Sakharov recaptured Hirsova, and by the 15th he had advanced to within seven miles of Mackensen's lines defending the Constanza railway.
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