Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania

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Romania Enters the War

OPENING SALVOES, 27 AUGUST 1916

At 3 PM, 27 August 1916, traffic ceased along the five hundred miles of the Austrian-Romanian border. The change took a while to register with the Austrian guards, because Romanian soldiers initially stopped the flow a dozen miles from their side of the border. The Austrians first noticed things were amiss when scheduled trains failed to appear. They duly reported this troubling development to their headquarters, suspecting and dreading what it probably meant. They did not have long to wait.

At 8:45 PM in Vienna, Ambassador Edgar Mavrocordato (1857–1934) handed Romania’s declaration of war to Count Istvan Burian (1851–1922), the Austrian foreign minister. Mavrocordato knew its contents well; he had kept the document in his safe for several days after it had been hand delivered from Bucharest in a manner befitting a spy novel. Romanian statesmen had long realized that their cherished goal of liberating their kinsmen in Hungarian-ruled Transylvania could be achieved only if the Allies won the world conflict. After reneging on the late King Carol’s pledge to support the Central Powers in the fateful days of July and August 1914, the Romanian government had waited for the opportune moment to enter the war, while its diplomats secured Allied promises to allow Bucharest to annex Romania irredenta, the Austro-Hungarian province of Transylvania. In the late summer of 1916, a combination of Allied military success with a concomitant teetering of the Central Powers and Allied pressure indicated to Romania that the moment when her intervention might tip the balance had arrived. The declaration of war minced no words: Romania … sees itself forced to place itself at the side of those who would be able to assure the realization of its national unity.¹

Officials in Vienna immediately relayed the news to the army field headquarters in Teschen, on the Eastern Front in Austrian Silesia. There, General August von Cramon (1861–1940), the German liaison officer, called his own nearby headquarters in Pless to pass on the bad news. The duty officer summoned the army chief of staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn (1861–1922), to the phone. At 8:45 this evening, von Cramon reported, the Romanian Ambassador to Vienna handed the Austro-Hungarian Government a declaration of war. Impossible, cried von Falkenhayn. It’s a fact, Excellency, insisted von Cramon.² Von Falkenhayn immediately called Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941), who was equally stunned. The news hit him like a bolt from the blue. He told General Mortiz von Lyncker (1853–1932), head of the Military Cabinet, that this means the end of the war.³ Up to the moment of the declaration, the kaiser believed it impossible that Romania’s King Ferdinand (1867–1927) – a German from the Catholic branch of his own Hohenzollern family and a sovereign who had pursued a policy of neutrality since Romania defected from its alliance obligations at the war’s onset – would go over to the enemy. Although Romania’s perfidy and disavowal of blood ties shocked the kaiser, von Falkenhayn was not totally taken aback. Romania’s timing, more than her declaration of war, had taken him by surprise. Despite warning signs that Romania was gradually tilting toward the Entente, he had given credence to faulty intelligence from the German military attaché and ambassador in Bucharest and firmly believed that the invasion would not come before the completion of the fall harvest.⁴

Von Falkenhayn had nonetheless hedged his bets and consulted with his Austrian counterpart, Colonel General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf (1852–1925). The two army chiefs had met twice in July to discuss what actions to take in the event that Romania intervened. They faced limited options, given the crises on the other fronts of the war. About all they could do was to threaten Romania from Bulgaria, where a small German-Bulgarian army led by German Field Marshal August von Mackensen (1849–1945) blocked Allied forces in Thessalonica (Greece) from moving north. A thrust from Bulgaria would almost certainly force the Romanians to pull back some of their units invading Transylvania to defend the capital of Bucharest, dangerously close to the Bulgarian border along the Danube River. The diversion of enemy forces would slow the pace of their advance in Transylvania, permitting Austria and Germany to assemble sufficient units in northern Transylvania to drive the invaders back over the mountains onto the plains of Walachia. The Central Powers would pursue the retreating enemy and, reinforced by the German-Bulgarian army coming from Bulgaria, crush Romania in a concentric advance on Bucharest.⁵

This ambitious plan remained almost entirely on paper. The prevailing wisdom was to avoid provoking the Romanians by reinforcing the border, a step von Falkenhayn found easy to implement because he had no spare divisions to send to the Balkans. The consequences of a Romanian declaration of war were far more serious for the Austrians, and Conrad did take some minor action. He moved his heavy bridging equipment and the Austrian navy’s Danube Flotilla to river ports in Bulgaria, opposite Romania. He had already ordered the regional hinterland commanders in Transylvania to prepare for an invasion, telling them to consolidate second-line and militia units that were scattered here and there into coherent combat units.⁶ At the end of July, he dispatched two divisions to Transylvania, although both came from the Russian front and needed reconstitution and recuperation owing to crushing losses. These were the 51st and 61st Honved, or Hungarian, Infantry Troop Divisions, both in sad shape. The 61st went to Csik County north of Brasov (Kronstadt) in the Burzenland; the 51st went to Alba Julia (Karlsburg).

The Austrians formed twenty-three new infantry battalions from reserve units, foraging artillery and miscellaneous equipment from other fronts, and organized these into the 71st and 72nd Infantry Troop Divisions, located in Brasov, Sibiu (Hermannstadt), and Petrosani (Petroszeny). In one of the subordinate units of the 72nd Division, the 144th Infantry Brigade, coal miners from Petrosani were formed into several battalions. Hungarian state-of-siege laws allowed the conscription of people in many professions, including miners, on declaration of war. It is not certain if the miners ever received any military training, but on paper they existed as a unit and were already under martial law, waiting for orders to drop their picks and shovels and to move to the front.⁷

Conrad did send one first-rate infantry regiment, the 82nd, from his 4th Army in Russia. The unit’s members belonged to the Szekeler population of the Burzenland, a Magyar subgroup living in the southeast apex of Transylvania. Finally, as the signs from Romania grew more ominous, Conrad created an army headquarters, the 1st, to command this mélange of units, with its area of operations extending from the Danube border with Hungary to the Russian Front in the Bucovina. He placed Lieutenant General Artur Arz von Straussenburg (1857–1935) in charge on 7 August 1916.⁸

Born in Sibiu, Arz proved a good choice. Good-humored, he was liked by both the Germans and his Austrian superiors. Possessed of an affable personality that successfully sought compromise, he had had assignments in the management and personnel branches of the general staff rather than taking the more customary route to general officer rank via the operations division. When the war broke out, he held the rank of major general and headed the administrative section of the War Ministry. Nevertheless, he asked for a field command in August 1914. He commanded an infantry division in the battle of Komorów, but the grim hand of Darwinist laws led to many changes at the top of the Austrian forces, and he took charge of the VI Corps by September 1914. He was still commanding the VI Corps when Conrad moved him to Transylvania in August 1916.⁹

Political reasons as well as Arz’s military talent were responsible for his selection. Arz was the first Austrian commander in the war to receive Prussia’s coveted Pour le Mérite medal, which he earned for leading the VI Corps in the Gorlice-Tarnow Campaign as part of von Mackensen’s 11th Army. The ability to work with von Mackensen was important, as Conrad anticipated that the field marshal would be in charge of all the troops in Siebenbürgen (the southern region of Transylvania bordering Romania) as well as of the Bulgarians and forces south of the Danube.¹⁰

Arz reported to Conrad for guidance in early August, en route from Russia to Transylvania. He received precious little. The chief never mentioned that he had worked out a tentative plan with his German counterpart. Conrad simply told Arz that Romania’s entry into the war was a certainty; she had virtually mobilized her forces and had some 400,000 soldiers on active service, and Arz could expect an invasion at any moment. Armed with that cheery news, Arz reported next to Hungarian Prime Minister Count Istvan Tisza (1861–1918), who also expressed his conviction that a Romanian invasion was imminent. That nation’s mercurial prime minister, Ion I. C. Bratianu (1864–1927), had again declared Romania’s neutrality, but Tisza scoffed, giving no credence whatsoever to that assertion.¹¹

Arz arrived in Cluj Napoca (Klausenburg) on 14 August. Awaiting him was Colonel Josef Huber (1864–1944), his chief of staff, who had traveled directly from Russia to Siebenbürgen, and he brought the general up to date. Huber knew that the High Command wanted the 1st Army to delay for as long as possible while withdrawing from the mountain border regions to prepared positions along the line of the Mures (Maros) and Tarnava (Kokel) Valleys. A lengthy withdrawal would give the Central Powers the time needed to send reinforcements for the next phase, throwing the Romanians from Transylvania. The alternative strategy of abandoning the eastern half of Transylvania and defending the province along the line of the two river valleys generated little enthusiasm because of the devastating impact it would have on the morale of both soldiers and civilians.¹²

Arz’s 1st Army had four weak divisions (about thirty to thirty-five battalions) and roughly a hundred pieces of artillery in thirteen batteries. Opposing him, noted Huber, the Romanians had 240 full-strength battalions, 12,000 cavalry, and 840 guns and howitzers. For the time being the 1st Army reported to Army Group Archduke Karl. The mission was to deter or delay a Romanian invasion along the Transylvanian border from the Danube to the Bucovina, where the Austrian 7th Army was engaged with the Russians – some 500 miles of frontier. Especially critical was keeping in contact with the 7th Army. If the Russians or Romanians broke that connection, they could roll up the entire southeast front. If the enemy pressure proved superior, a phased retreat to defensive positions prepared along the Mures-Tarnava (Maros-Kokel) Valleys was authorized.¹³

The new 1st Army commander then issued his own guidelines, dividing the army’s area of operations into four sectors. Major General Artur Fülöpp (1854–?) had responsibility from the extreme southern flank (the border on the Danube) to Sebes, east of the Szurduk Pass. Next in line heading east, with his headquarters in Talmaciu (Talmacs), was Brigadier General Edmund von Lober (1857–1930). The Red Tower Pass, with its key rail link to Walachia, lay in this area. Major General Erwin von Mattanovich (1861–1942) commanded the next sector, which ran east from Fagaras (Fogaras) past Brasov and the vital passes leading toward Bucharest, then north to the line of the Mures and Tarnava Valleys. Brasov was his headquarters. Brigadier General Konrad Grallert von Cebrow’s (1865–1942) 61st Infantry Troop Division had the huge northern sector with four major passes (Tulghes, Bekas, Gyimes, and Uz), running from Odorheiu Secuiesc to Vatra Dornei in the triangle where Hungary, Austria, and Romania met.¹⁴ Once General Arz had moved his units into these areas, all he could do was to mark time. The Romanians did not keep him waiting long.

Shortly after Ambassador Mavrocordato delivered the declaration of war, reports from the border crossings between Romania and Austria indicated that trains entering Romania were being fired on. At the Gyimes Pass in the Wooded Carpathian range, a train came flying back in reverse at high speed, with holes in many places and two of the crew badly wounded. Soon, customhouses and guard posts all along the frontier came under attack. Romanian army units swept through major border crossings, firing at Austrians who resisted. Word came back from several of the Austrian border crossings indicating heavy casualties. Then, ominously, phone traffic ceased.¹⁵

Two hundred miles to the south, on the Danube River, the war started a half-hour later, at 9:30 PM, with a torpedo fired from a well-concealed Romanian boat lying off Ramadan Island in the harbor of the city of Giurgiu. The torpedo streaked across the river, where vessels from the Austrian navy’s Danube Flotilla were at anchor in the Bulgarian city of Rutschek. Aimed at the flagship Bosna, the shot missed, hitting instead a nearby barge loaded with fuel and coal, which exploded and burned. At first, the Austrian sailors suspected an attack, but when no further activity ensued, they concluded that the fire was a product of spontaneous combustion or carelessness. However, at 10:30 PM, the army headquarters sent a teletype stating that Romania had declared war. The flotilla commander gave orders to weigh anchor immediately.¹⁶

All along the border, the pattern repeated itself. The Austro-Hungarian gendarmes and customs officials, older men armed only with rifles and pistols, were thrown off guard by the unexpected assault and the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. The second line of defense, army units cobbled together from recruits, coal miners, and the shattered remnants of units recovering from combat in Russia, occasionally bloodied the nose of the oncoming Romanians, slowing their advance, but in general, they fell back when the enemy mustered sufficient numbers and artillery. Ammunition shortages and the malfunctioning of captured Russian rifles with which some of the Austrians were armed added to the problem, as did significant desertions¹⁷ from ethnic Romanians in the Austro-Hungarian ranks. Each day saw the Romanians advance northward or westward. But each day also saw the pace slow a bit as the Romanians moved farther from their bases and the frictions of war mounted, while their enemies rallied to mount an increasingly effective defense.

THE ROMANIAN CAMPAIGN PLAN

The Romanian forces followed a detailed invasion plan, Plan Z. Officers on the Romanian general staff began work on a scheme for invading Hungary almost immediately after Romania’s heady gains at the expense of Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War in 1913. A draft document had appeared by the summer of 1914, but Romania’s wait-and-see attitude once World War I started allowed the staff to refine the plan, and Bulgaria’s commitment to the Central Powers in September 1915 forced major revisions in it. Plan Z emerged as the final product.¹⁸ It called for Romania to occupy most of eastern Hungary, overrunning Transylvania and the Banat of Temesvar region and holding a strong, easily defended position from which she probably could not have been evicted, given the strains on the Central Powers in 1916. The brainchild of General Vasile Zottu (1853–1916), chief of the general staff, Plan Z addressed Romania’s political goals.

The Romanian general staff knew that when Romania entered the war, she might have to fight on two fronts. Austria-Hungary lay to her west and north, and Bulgaria abutted most of Romania’s entire southern border. In fact, German forces had spilled into Bulgaria after the Serbian campaign, and a combined German-Bulgarian army stood guard against the Entente Army of the Orient in northern Greece.

Recognizing these facts, Plan Z called for Romania to mobilize four armies for service in the field. The 1st, 2nd, and North Armies would cross the mountains and advance into Transylvania; the 3rd Army would safeguard the southern frontier with Bulgaria. The three armies in the north would consist of 420,000 soldiers, or 75 percent of Romania’s field force of 563,000; 72,000 soldiers, or 15 percent, would have to hold off the Bulgarians if they entered the war.¹⁹

The Romanians assumed that when they executed Plan Z, the Central Powers would be exhausted from the offensives the Allies had planned for 1916 in the west, south, and east, so that the unanticipated blow from Romania would devastate already low morale. Their estimates of the strength of Austro-Hungarian forces along the border proved wildly inaccurate. Within Transylvania the Romanians calculated that there were approximately 70,000 men in battalions or smaller units whose mission was to hold the frontier. The Austrians did not have half that number. The Romanians thought that stronger units, numbering some 100,000 men, could be mobilized to face them on the very edges of western Transylvania. The Central Powers eventually sent three times that number of soldiers to the region.

Focused on Transylvania, the Romanians weighted their campaign plan accordingly. After mobilization, three armies headed into Siebenbürgen. The Romanians recognized that the geography of the region would initially work against them. The mountains formed a formidable barrier that had to be crossed rapidly. Any delay here would mean that the enemy will have time to raise his strength in order to stop us.²⁰ The finite number of passes, and their modest roads, both defined and limited Romanian access to the Siebenbürgen region. To move large numbers of soldiers over the mountains, Romania had to utilize the crossings as efficiently as possible. The narrow roads in the passes and the requirement for speed meant that the Romanian battalions would have to march in lengthy columns with similar units bunched together, which facilitated rapid movement. In other words, the infantry would march together so as not to be slowed by the artillery or the plodding wagon trains of supplies. These columns could not be shifted into battle formations; thus smaller, combat-ready units would have to clear the passes of any resistance prior to the advance of the main body. The bulk of the Romanians would be at their most vulnerable when they emerged from the passes on the Hungarian side. The soldiers would be tired and without their critical artillery pieces and machine guns. Even if these weapons were scattered throughout the formations – which would be both unlikely and unwise, as such arrangements would tend to slow the advance – the weapons and ammunition would be packed for transport and not readily available. The units that were to clear the way over the mountains were of course expected to provide security for the main body, but by definition those units were small and would not have many heavy weapons, as speed would be essential to their success. If the vanguard units could sweep resistance aside and fan out in front of the passes on the Hungarian side, giving the infantry columns time to march over the mountains in an efficient manner before massing in tactical formations, the Romanians had a good chance of getting their forces across largely unscathed. If they were held up in the passes or attacked as the columns emerged, however, their situation would be precarious.

No less formidable were logistical concerns. The Romanians assumed that at the start of hostilities the Austrians would destroy the railroads in the Red Tower, Tömöser-Predeal, and Gyimes Passes that linked Hungary and Romania. The Romanians would have to carry everything with them. Food for soldiers and animals and ammunition constituted the largest quantities of supplies that had to accompany the advancing troops. Forgotten today are the enormous number of draft animals employed by the armies and the staggering quantities of forage essential to keeping the animals healthy and working. Subsistence for just the horses accompanying the forces crossing the mountains required 2,500 tons of hay and oats or barley daily.²¹ In addition, in an era when portable refrigeration did not exist, essential fresh meat for the troops could be provided only by driving herds of livestock along with the advancing soldiers, and these animals required food as well.²² Not feeding the animals intended for consumption defeated the purpose. The temptation, of course, was to have the foot soldiers carry extra ammunition and food and place all the supply columns at the rear. But if the infantry was burdened with carrying extra commodities, the rate of advance slowed appreciably, and one ran the risk of having the soldiers arriving exhausted in the operational area – reducing the undertaking’s chance of success. Another ill-advised temptation was to eat off the land, particularly appealing given the lush countryside of Siebenbürgen and the timing of the invasion with the harvest season. Even discounting the certainty of an Austrian scorched-earth policy, however, the drawbacks to living off the land outweighed the lure. The height and barren terrain of the mountains eliminated any possibility of finding sustenance there, and once through that zone, soldiers sent to forage for food would not be available to fight. Finally, forces eating off the land had to keep moving and could not retreat.

Romanian railways had the capacity to move the armies with their supplies to the foot of the passes on their side of the mountains, but from there the columns would have to proceed on foot, carrying everything they needed. Because the Austrians had so few soldiers in Transylvania, the Romanians could disperse their attacking forces in more and smaller columns than was ordinarily prudent, easing the problem of congestion in the passes considerably. Taking advantage of all the routes into Transylvania, Plan Z called for a division-size column for each pass, some twelve in all. Although the Austrians might not have many soldiers guarding the region, the egress from the passes and the marching columns still required some protection. For this purpose, the general staff created what it called covering forces. These were tactical units the size of a regiment, with artillery and machine guns, deployed to the mountain pass areas before mobilization. The general staff allocated about 25 percent (130,000 men) of its forces invading Transylvania to this mission. Housed in temporary camps and garrisons near or in the border crossing areas, they stood poised to surge over the passes, securing them for the passage of the main body of the army.²³ Even then the danger would not be over, because the Romanian armies would be widely separated, too far apart to offer one another mutual assistance, and liable to be defeated if the Central Powers could react fast enough.

Covering forces for the 1st Army, whose area of operations ran from the Danube to east of the Red Tower Pass, were to advance from the city of Varciorova along the Danube to Orsova and into the Cerna Valley on the Hungarian border, effectively blocking the Danube as a line of communication for the Austrians. Additional units would cross the Vulkan and Szurduk Passes, taking the key coal-mining city of Petrosani (Petroseny) and moving north into the Merisor Valley, blocking any efforts by the Austrians to advance south from Hateg (Hatszeg) to Petrosani. The 1st Army’s Olt-Lotru Group was to dispatch its covering units north through the Red Tower Pass to secure the basin between Talmaciu and Sibiu. To the east, the 2nd Army expected its covering forces to roll through the five passes at the apex of Transylvania and occupy the region around Brasov (Kronstadt) and to the west along the Olt River, toward Fagaras (Fogaras). To the north, the covering forces for that army were to advance through the Trotus Valley passes into Csik County (Miercurea Ciuc and Targu Secuiesc) and, in the far north, through the Bekas and Tulghes Passes to the Upper Olt and Mures Valleys, respectively, holding there until the main body had crossed the mountains and assembled in battle order.²⁴

While the covering forces crossed the mountains and secured the exits from the passes inside Hungary, mobilization would commence inside Romania. Calling up the reserves would be followed by the movement of units to their assembly areas at the foot of the mountains. As the units arrived, they would be organized into marching columns. The general staff allocated twelve days for this process, the culmination of which on M+12 (twelve days after mobilization day, or M Day) marked the end of Phase Ia, the assembly and concentration of the Romanian Army.²⁵ Phase Ib, a five-day window from M+12 to M+17, constituted the crossing of the mountains and organization of the main body of Romanian forces into battle formations on the Hungarian side of the border. At the end of this phase, the 1st Romanian Army would have its I Corps (2nd and 11th Divisions) and the 12th Division spread from Petrosani to Hateg, while the Olt-Lotru Group and the 13th Division held the area between Talmaciu and Sibiu. The 2nd Army would have its divisions running from Fagaras to Brasov, while the North Army would have the bulk of its forces (the IV Corps, 7th and 8th Divisions) around Miercurea Ciuc (Csik Zereda) on the Olt River, with the 14th Division far to the north, from Toplita to Gyergyo-Szt. Miklos.²⁶

The Romanians would initially have an advantage in strength, but the Central Powers could be expected to rush units to the region as quickly as possible, attempting to achieve a local numerical superiority over one of the Romanian armies, permitting its defeat. Establishing contact among the three Romanian armies in this phase and linking them together was critical, because once the armies were joined, the Central Powers would not have the strength to assure a favorable outcome. The 1st and North Armies, on the western and eastern extremities of the Transylvanian Front, respectively, had the vital mission of safeguarding the flanks. The 1st Army was to advance from Petrosani through the Merisor Valley to Hateg, then to Deva on the Mures River, where it would block any Austrian attempts to reinforce Transylvania or to launch a flank attack from the Banat region of Hungary. At the other end of the front, by linking up with the Russians from the Bucovina near Vatra Dornei-Prundu Bargaului (Dorna Vatra-Borgoprund), the North Army could thwart any efforts by the Austrian 7th Army to turn the Romanian or Russian flanks in that region. The Romanians gave themselves seven days to complete this phase of the mission, starting from their positions on the Hungarian side of the Carpathian pass exits on M+18 and arriving at the Mures River by M+25.²⁷ If the Romanians attained this goal, the Central Powers would probably not be able to push them back over the mountains in 1916, assuming that the weather held true to form.

Phase II was the critical part of the entire operation. In the first part (IIa) of this phase, the Romanian armies were to advance across Siebenbürgen to the line of the Mures River, with the 1st Army stretched from Deva in the far west through Alba Iulia. The 2nd Army, centered at Targu Mures (Maros Vasarhely), held the middle of the Mures River, while to its northeast, the North Army held from Reghin (Szasz-Regen) to Deda on the upper Mures. All three armies were, at this stage, to establish contact with one another, while the North Army would link up with the southern flank of the Russian army above the Mures River, near the line Vatra Dornei-Prundu Bargaului. This phase (IIa) was to be complete not later than M+25.

Phase IIb consisted of continuing the advance west of the Mures River, allowing the troops of the Central Powers no time to regroup, rest, or receive reinforcements. The 2nd and North Armies would move first into the area between Cluj Napoca and Dej and then to the western end of the Apuseni Mountains, on the eastern edge of the great Hungarian Plain. To the southwest, the 1st Army was to advance west along the Mures Valley and later the Temes Valley, blocking any movement from the west into Transylvania.²⁸

Although the Romanians anticipated meeting the first stiff enemy resistance on the Mures River, they expected the 2nd and North Armies to be able to drive through the enemy forces, reaching a line running from Cluj Napoca to Dej along the Somes (Szamos) River in four days, discounting any fighting,²⁹ while to the west, the 1st Army could advance in that direction, toward Caransebes in the Temes Valley.

Their timetable indicated that once clear of the Mures River, the Romanians thought resistance would end, as they anticipated their units advancing at a rate of twenty miles daily. The expectation that opposition would be crushed by this stage also accounts for the otherwise inexplicable action of sending the 1st Army west along the Mures and Temes Valleys. Such a campaign caused the two axes of the Romanian advance to diverge, sending the Romanian armies farther away from each other with every passing day.

By M+39, the North and 2nd Armies, now combined into a single force, would be poised on the edge of the Hungarian Plain, threatening the cities of Oradea and Debrecen. To the south, a newly formed operational group would advance simultaneously with the combined 2nd and North Armies in the region south of Oradea to Bekescsaba. If the enemy abandoned the Banat and the area north of the Mures Valley, the 1st Army was to advance north with this operational group and link up with the 2nd and North Armies as they entered the Hungarian Plain. In the event that the 1st Army had to conduct operations in the Banat, possibly in conjunction with the Allied force from Thessalonica, a force of sufficient strength would be detached to block any Central Power advance from the Austrian line of fortifications along the Mures River into Transylvania.³⁰

Although the Romanians focused their major effort on Transylvania, the entry of Bulgaria into the war in 1915 on the Central Power side dictated protecting their southern border. On that border, they credited the Bulgarians and their German allies with having slightly over 100,000 men, with over 90 percent of them located east of the junction of the Olt River with the Danube. The terrain along the Danube from the Bulgarian border with Serbia to the junction with the Olt did not favor military operations, which explains the relatively small number of soldiers estimated to be stationed in that area, 10,000–15,000 men. Between the Olt and the Bulgarian city of Rutschuk, the stretch of the Danube most favorable for crossing, the Romanians estimated there were 25,000–30,000 Bulgarians. From Rutschuk to the coast, along the Dobrogea border, the estimate was 70,000 enemy soldiers. The overly high number reflected the Romanian general staff’s concern that the Dobrogea provided relatively easy egress into Romania.

The Romanians believed the Bulgarians would try to draw to their border area as many Romanian units as possible, intending on making a large Romanian offensive in Transylvania impossible, or at the least blunting its force. The Romanians expected the Bulgarians would attempt to accomplish this goal with shows of force along the Danube border, accompanied by heavy artillery bombardment of the Romanian cities along the river and perhaps threatening or even executing a crossing of the Danube. In the unlikely event that the Central Powers did succeed in crossing the Danube, the Romanian general staff ruled out an advance on Bucharest because Bulgaria does not have the strength.³¹ The Romanians expected twenty to twenty-five squadrons of Bulgarian cavalry to conduct raids in the Dobrogea. To thwart these, the Romanians had fortified bridgeheads at Turtucaia and Silistria, and an infantry division would be stationed behind the Dobrogea frontier, with the mission of slowing or halting Bulgarian raids until an expected army corps of Russian reinforcements arrived by M+10. The combined Romanian and Russian forces in the Dobrogea would then advance into Bulgaria.³²

THE ROMANIAN ARMY

On paper Plan Z looked bold and feasible; in reality, the ambitious plan led to the overextension of the largely untested Romanian army.³³ Despite having sat on the sidelines of the European bloodbath for two years, the army was not ready for the demands of modern war. Ironically, while the reprieve had allowed Romania time to expand her armed forces, husband her resources, and – above all – save blood, remaining neutral had prevented her leaders and men from attaining experience, a critical factor that her potential opponents had acquired at terrible cost in the hardest school of all. The Romanian army had last taken the field in 1913, in an advance on Bulgaria that impressed observers³⁴ but was uncontested, constituting little more than an advanced training exercise. In fact, Romania’s most recent combat foray had been alongside Russia in the latter’s war with Turkey in 1877–1878, fighting closer in spirit and technology to that of Waterloo than that of the Somme or Verdun. Cognizant of their lack of experience, Romanian leaders tried to bring their forces up to the level of the actual combatants between 1914 and 1916. They published manuals based on French and German ones, and they made sure that commanders recognized that the infantry could not act without effective artillery support. They developed regulations for the use of aircraft, automobiles, radio, and telegraphy. They recognized the level of skill that the Central Powers had reached and knew their forces fell short.³⁵

As one would consequently expect, Romania’s infantry did not fare well initially facing the experienced forces of the Central Powers. As befit neophytes, Romanian infantry felt more secure in large masses; thus, they favored frontal assaults and undertook these with great bravery, amid much trumpet blowing and yelling to encourage themselves. The German writer Hans Carossa, serving as physician in a German infantry unit, noted that before each attack, one could hear Romanian officers giving speeches, then a wild march would blast out, transforming music, that serene art, … into a drug which drives men past the bounds of reason and fills them with such overflowing life that they yearn to fling it away.³⁶ They liked attacking at night. However, they wilted in the face of artillery and machine-gun fire – even when incurring only moderate losses. The Romanian inexperience revealed itself at all levels: they massed their forces too soon, making them lucrative targets for enemy artillery; and, fearing the short rounds of their own artillery, they tended to fire high, and their infantry advanced too far behind their own barrages, forfeiting protection.³⁷

In addition to inexperience, the Romanians faced personnel and materiel deficiencies. Like all continental armies, Romania’s relied on conscription to fill the ranks, with recruits selected through a lottery system and serving seven years with the colors, then twelve more in a reserve component. A militia existed for those lucky enough to escape the lottery. The military establishment in 1914 was almost 100,000 men, organized into five army corps and two cavalry divisions. Each corps had two divisions, a cavalry brigade, a regiment of light howitzers, an engineer battalion, and support units. The divisions (numbered one through ten) were square – that is, each division had two brigades of two infantry regiments each. In addition, each division had an artillery brigade of two regiments of French or Krupp quick-fire field guns.³⁸

With the onset of hostilities across Europe in 1914, Romania began an expansion of her army that continued unabated until her mobilization in 1916. Five divisions (numbers 11–15) were formed, and in the summer and fall of 1916 another five (numbers 16–20) were added, along with two more corps headquarters to handle the extra units – Army Corps VI and VII. Three additional divisions were created in the first ten days after Romania’s entry into the war, giving her twenty-three in all. The expansion wreaked havoc. Although Romania could bring to the field 366 infantry battalions, 104 cavalry squadrons, and 287 batteries when the war began – a field force of some 658,088 officers and soldiers³⁹ – the units and equipment were by no means uniformly distributed among the twenty-three divisions. Battalions ranged from as few as eleven in the 18th Division to as many as twenty-five in the 14th Division. In general, however, the original ten divisions had the most battalions – nineteen, as a rule – while the newer, higher-numbered divisions had only thirteen on average. The assignment of such a large number of battalions to a division was accomplished by adding an extra brigade to the original ten divisions, while the thirteen divisions raised after the war began in 1914 usually had two brigades. Artillery batteries ranged from a low of eight in the newer divisions to an average of sixteen in the original ten divisions. Most of the artillery consisted of field guns, principally the 75mm M1904 and the smaller 53mm guns, not howitzers. In fact, the army only had twenty-five batteries of far more useful 120mm howitzers, scattered among ten lucky divisions. Thirteen of the divisions had no howitzers at all. The situation with machine guns was worse. The original ten divisions averaged thirty machine guns each; the thirteen war-time divisions had only half that many guns. In comparison, by late 1916 a typical German division had fifty-four heavy machine guns, and light machine guns were making their way into the hands of the Jäger (light infantry) units as fast as industry could deliver them. The few aircraft, heavy artillery, and vehicles that Romania had came only from her allies.

The rank and file soldiers were generally peasants, who could deal well with the hardships of war, but widespread illiteracy undermined their effectiveness.⁴⁰ The chief of staff of the Russian Southwest Front, General Anton Denikin (1872–1947), thought that the Romanian soldiers were splendid, excellent war materiel, but as infantry they were woefully untrained in 1916.⁴¹ There were few noncommissioned officers, a scarcity made worse by a program that led to commissioning those few who had experience in the 1913 Bulgarian Campaign.⁴² Some of the junior officers had been trained in the German or Austro-Hungarian armies, but for the most part, the officers were insufficient both in number and quality. Denikin contemptuously dismissed them as effeminate and inefficient, although he grudgingly admitted that a few Romanian generals were capable.⁴³ Aware of these problems, the Romanian general staff increased the output of officer training academies, producing some 1,167 regular and 2,643 reserve officers between 1914 and Romania’s entry in August 1916, and peremptorily mustering out and commissioning 800 officer candidates in the second year of their training the month before Romania entered the war.⁴⁴

Following the German model, the monarch (Ferdinand) was the commander in chief and was expected to take the field. The war minister, a member of the cabinet, had responsibility for budgetary and administrative matters. As a rule, war ministers were generals, but Prime Minister Ion I. C. Bratianu had served as both prime minister and war minister from January 1915 until the day the war broke out, 27 August 1916. His brother Vintila followed in his footsteps as war minister until July 1917. The War Ministry conducted the administrative business of the armed services. Within the ministry, but subordinate to the monarch, was the army’s general staff, which bore responsibility for war planning, mobilization, logistics, and operations.⁴⁵

The General Staff Corps constituted the army’s elite. Selected by examination and then trained at a special staff academy in Bucharest or abroad, General Staff Corps officers rotated between commands of field units and staff assignments at various senior levels (division and corps commanders or positions on the general staff); they were favored by accelerated promotions. Some 600 officers worked in the general staff and the War Ministry, far too many to function smoothly in the field. In the event of war, an operational field headquarters, the general headquarters, instead accompanied the monarch to the field. Much smaller in size, it consisted of the chief of staff and his deputies; key leaders from the intelligence, operations, personnel, and logistics sections; and a few representatives from the medical, financial, arms and munitions, and quartering sections. The general headquarters staff numbered around fifty to sixty officers and men, and its function was to direct the operations of the field armies.⁴⁶

The materiel situation likewise proved dire. Romania had no armaments industry, and before 1914 she had acquired her munitions abroad, principally from Austria-Hungary and Germany. Those sources slowly dried up, as a result of anger over Romania’s neutrality and the demands of the mobilized forces of the Central Powers. Romania had also turned to the Allies and neutral countries. From Italy she had bought millions of rounds of small-arms ammunition, shrapnel shells, and tons of dynamite for her nascent armament industry. From Spain had come swords; from England, motorcycles, clothing, boots, medicine, and food; and from Switzerland, chemicals for munitions. Portugal had sold brass for ammunition manufacture. Alas, the primary line of communication ran through Thessalonica and Bulgaria, and this traffic ended in November 1915. In desperation, the Romanians tried to route war materiel through Archangel in northern Russia, but the route was excessively long, and the Russians helped themselves to the supplies.⁴⁷ To address materiel shortfalls, the Romanian government launched a crash armaments and materiel production program that encompassed eleven state-owned industries with fifty-nine factories and numerous private contractors. Between 1914 and 1916, they produced 400,000 artillery rounds, 250,000 artillery fuses, 1,500 caissons, 332 artillery carriages for 57- and 75mm guns, 45 million small-arms cartridges, 110 million primers, and 70 million bullets. Grenades and pyrotechnics were fabricated, with three factories producing 1,500 kilograms of explosives daily.⁴⁸ Although the results sound impressive, the sad reality was that the entire Romanian production of 400,000 artillery rounds was but a fraction of the supply needed for a day’s firing by an advancing army on the Western Front.

Romania’s materiel situation was far from perfect, but Prime Minister Bratianu had concluded in the summer of 1916 that the general military situation had reached the point where Romania had to join the Allies in order to have any chance at attaining the lands pledged to her in the event of victory. The Romanians sought to overcome their ammunition and materiel shortages with an assistance treaty demanded by Bratianu as a prerequisite for Romania’s entering the war. The Allies pledged to supply 300 tons of ammunition daily, not a fraction of which was delivered.⁴⁹ Their failure to deliver did not change the fact that Romania’s entry represented a carefully calculated gamble, rather than what Denikin described as a levity in matters of equipment and ammunition [that was] almost criminal.⁵⁰

THE CROSSING AT ORSOVA

Orsova, in the far west where the Transylvanian Alps ended on the Danube, held out until 4 September, falling to the Romanian 1st Division under General Ion Dragalina (1860–1916). Orsova’s location at the juncture of Romania, Bulgaria, and Transylvania and at the end of a railroad coming from Caransebes in Hungary gave it importance as both a logistics center and a choke point on the Danube. The city was on the west bank of the Cerna River, which merged with the Danube. The Cerna emerged from the Transylvanian Alps, running southwest toward Orsova and forming the border between Hungary and Romania. About thirty miles north of Orsova, just above a resort area called the Baths of Hercules, the border left the Cerna and went directly south and overland to Vericorova, a Romanian city about seven miles east of Orsova. Vericorova marked the entry point from Austria-Hungary into Romania on the Danube. Between Vericorova and Orsova, a tall and steep ridge ran north-south, presenting a formidable barrier, and one used to advantage by Orsova’s defenders. Situated in the far corner of Romania and isolated not just from the rest of General Ioan Culcer’s (1853–1928) 1st Army but from all the forces in Transylvania, Orsova was an important objective for the Romanian general headquarters. If the Austro-Hungarians held on to it, they could use the region to stage an end run around the extreme western Romanian flank. Orsova’s isolation multiplied the logistical difficulties associated with poor roads, steep terrain, dense forests, and poor transportation facilities that the Romanians faced. Dragalina was on his own, but he had the entire 1st Division with its 1st Jäger Regiment and six regiments of regular infantry, reflecting the importance of his mission.⁵¹

In reality, the size of the Romanian force amounted to overkill, considering the facts that Orsova’s position and weak transportation links had led the Central Powers to reject the idea of using it for a staging facility and that the Romanians did not have to capture the town to deny its use to their enemy. If the Romanians seized the steep ridge east of Orsova, their artillery could render the town uninhabitable.

The collection of Austro-Hungarian units in Orsova received the designation 145th Infantry Brigade,⁵² and Colonel Rudolf von Fiebich-Ripke (1860–?) took over just before the Romanians attacked. He had the equivalent of a regiment, with three infantry battalions and one rear area guard battalion, as well as three machine-gun sections, two batteries (thirty-one artillery pieces of varying sizes and modernity), and the monitor Almos. Fiebich-Ripke had his units along the ridgeline between Orsova and the border.⁵³ The Romanians did not attack the night of the 27th, but they did put Orsova under artillery fire around noon on the 28th, perhaps in retaliation for the bombardment of Turnu Severin by the Almos that morning. Almos had left Orsova at dawn and bombarded harbor facilities, the rail yards, a cavalry barracks, and some shipyards in Turnu Severin, where Dragalina’s 1st Division had its headquarters. The Austrian vessel let loose almost five hundred rounds of 75mm artillery and, for