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Falkenhayn, who had taken Moltke's place as chief of the German Staff and was responsible for the German strategy at Verdun, was removed to another sphere of activity; but the Germans themselves were right when they attributed failure less to their own defects than to the valour of their foes. These, they exclaimed, were not the French they had met at Sedan in 1870. They were not.
General von Falkenhayn was sent to take supreme command, and on June 28th of this year Jemal the Great refused to receive orders from him. In consequence General von Falkenhayn refused responsibility for any offensive movement there if Jemal remained in command.
Yet it was true: besides an Alpine corps of Bavarians, Germany sent no fewer than eight divisions to the Carpathians, and put Von Falkenhayn at their head. She also sent a lavish supply of guns, munitions, and aeroplanes to which Rumania had not the wherewithal to reply.
General von Falkenhayn, co-operating with von Mackensen, smashed his way through Vulkan Pass, and cut the main line running to Bucharest at Craiova. The Dobrudja region was over-run and the central Roumanian plain was swept clear of all Roumanian opposition to the German advance.
During my stay at the General Headquarters, General Falkenhayn, although he was there at the time, carefully avoided me, which I took to be a sign that he was in favour of war with America. In fact, I heard afterwards that he had insisted on giving his views on the subject, but that a very high authority had told him to confine himself to military operations.
While the town was still burning from the final bombardment in which some of the famous Austrian mortars of heavy caliber participated the German Emperor, accompanied by Field Marshal von Hindenburg, General von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff, General von Beseler and many other high officers, entered this latest conquest of his victorious armies, over which he later held a review.
The Turks had made their headquarters at the Hospice of Notre Dame in Jerusalem, and, taking their cue from the Hun, carried away all the furniture belonging to that French religious institution. They had also deported some of the heads of religious bodies. Falkenhayn wished that all Americans should be removed from Jerusalem, issuing an order to that effect a fortnight before we entered.
It will be observed that Colonel House had taken the advice of Sir William Tyrrell, and had sailed directly to Germany on a German ship the Imperator. Ambassador Gerard had made preparations for his reception in Berlin, and the American soon had long talks with Admiral von Tirpitz, Falkenhayn, Von Jagow, Solf, and others.
A great feat of the Bavarian Alpine Corps was the capture on the 26th of the Roterturm Pass in the rear of the First Rumanian Army; elsewhere the retreat was carried out with skill, valour, and comparatively slight losses, and Falkenhayn found it no easy task to break the Carpathian barrier despite the advantages he possessed in every kind of equipment and in the experience of his men.
When von Falkenhayn resigned and von Hindenburg arrived at Great Headquarters to succeed him the two generals met for the first time in many months. "I have always had the courage, Your Excellency," replied von Hindenburg, "but not the soldiers." In the Reichstag there has been only one real democratic party. That is the Socialist.
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