United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Still a wedge was for the moment driven between Mackensen and Falkenhayn's centre, and the movement might have succeeded had the reserves been up to time. Bukarest fell on the 5th, and for the rest of the year the Germans continued their progress eastwards until the Russo-Rumanian forces were able to stand on a line formed by the Danube, the Sereth, and the Putna ascending to the Oitos Pass.
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.
By October 8 a Teutonic invasion of Roumania from the northwest was imminent, and two days later the Roumanians were pursued through the passes by Austrian troops. By the 17th Teuton forces were five miles inside the frontier. On October 25 Von Falkenhayn's army stormed the Vulcan Pass and pushed nearer the railroad at Kimpolong, seventy-five miles from Bucharest.
Falkenhayn's orders for the use of gas shell, mentioned above, although they represent by no means the best final practice, were definite evidence that gas had come to stay with the Germans. The writer has vivid recollections of their use of lachrymators in the Loos Battle.
The relief which Russia secured thereby almost seems to support the sinister view of Stuermer's policy. It was not until 10 October that the northern Rumanian armies were forced back to the Moldavian border; and all Falkenhayn's efforts to debouch from the central passes towards Bukarest were defeated by Rumanian valour.
Should good prospects offer of beating the British decisively in Syria before they have been reinforced I will take up General von Falkenhayn's proposal again, as far as it appears possible to carry it out, having in view the question of transport and rationing, which still has to be settled in some respects. Turkish Main Headquarters, ENVER.
In Roumania last December I followed General von Falkenhayn's armies to the forts of Bucharest. On Thanksgiving Day I crossed by automobile the Schurduck Pass. The Roumanians had defended, or attempted to defend, this road by mounting armoured guns on the crest of one of the mountain ranges in the Transylvanian Alps. I examined a whole position here and found all turrets were made in Germany.
The backbone of the system was a great fleet of trucks driven by men whose average daily rest was four hours, and upon whose horizon-blue uniforms the stains of snow and sleet, of dust and mud, were indelibly fixed through the winter, spring, summer and fall of 1916, for the glorious engagement continued from February 21st until November 2d, when the Germans were forced into full retreat from the field of honor, the evacuation of Fort Vaux putting a period to Germany's disastrous plan and to von Falkenhayn's military career.
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.
Even here the effects of the Russian collapse dogged or rather prevented our steps and barred our advance from Baghdad; and without Russian co-operation Maude had to think rather of safeguarding his conquests against Falkenhayn's projects from Aleppo than of striking farther from his narrow base into the almost limitless enemy country.
Word Of The Day