Notes

PREFACE

1. Hans von Seeckt, Thoughts of a Soldier, trans. Gilbert Waterhouse (London: Ernest Benn, 1930), 38.

2. The best is still Norman Stone, The Eastern Front 1914–1917 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975).

1. ROMANIA ENTERS THE WAR

1. Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946 [hereafter RRM]), Anexe 1, No. 1, 3–5. See also No. 95, telegram, Prime Minister and Minister of War, No. 2823, 27 August 1916, 227. Glenn E. Torrey provides an updated and succinct account of Bratianu’s machinations that brought Romania into the war in The Romanian Battlefront in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 5–13. The same story, in much greater detail, can be seen in Sherman David Spector, Rumania at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of the Diplomacy of loan I. C. Bratianu (New York: Bookman, 1962), 18–37, 228–231. For both authors, Romania’s lust for Transylvania and pressure from the Allies drove her to a poorly considered and ill-timed decision to enter the war. An English translation of the declaration is in Gerard E. Silberstein, The Troubled Alliance: German-Austrian Relations 1914 to 1917 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970), 243–245.

2. August von Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 76.

3. Georg Alexander von Müller, The Kaiser and His Court: The Diaries, Notebooks and Letters of Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, Chief of the Naval Cabinet, 1914–1918, ed. Walter Görlitz and trans. Mervyn Savill (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), 198.

4. Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege, 76; Ernst Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 (Berlin: O. Schlegel [c. 1938]), 16.

5. Erich von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1916/17 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921), 1:6–8; August von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1938), 280; Oskar Regele, Kampf um die Donau: Betrachtung der Flussübergänge bei Flamanda und Sistow (Potsdam: L. Voggenreiter, 1940), 49–50.

6. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 49–50; ÖStA, AK1/k1, KuK Militär Kommandant Nagyszeben 16/9131, 8 July 1916; Op. 230. 1 August 1916.

7. ÖStA, AK1/k2, General Artur Fülöpp to War Ministry, 4 August 1916.

8. Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 30; Erich von Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung 1914–1916 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 237; ÖStA, AK1/ k2KuK AOK, Q. Op. No. 70.720, 11 August 1916, and AOK, Op. 282863, 12 August 1916; Oberkommando [Heeresgruppe] Karl, Op. 713, to HQ, Südarmee, 7 August 1916.

9. Conrad had rated Arz excellent as a corps commander. See his Private Aufzeichnungen. Erste Veröffentlichungen aus den Papieren des k.u.k. GeneralstabsChef, ed. Kurt Peball (Vienna: Amalthea, 1977), 242; Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, K. und k. Generalstabsoffizier und Historiker, vol. 1 of Ein General im Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau, ed. Peter Broucek (Vienna: Hermann Böhlau, 1980), 397.

10. ÖStA, Nachlass August von Cramon, 13.

11. Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges 1914–1918 (Graz, Austria: Akad. Druck- u. Verlagsanst., 1969), 102–106. The staff members assigned to the 1st Army are listed in ÖStA,AK1/k2, KuK AOK, Q. Op. No.70.720, 11 August 1916.

12. ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Rudolf Kiszling, “Vorbereitung Osterreich-Ungarns für einen Krieg mit Rumänien – Die rumänische Aufmarsch und Kriegsplan” (1925), 15–16.

13. ÖStA, AK1/k2, 1 AOK, Op. 28863, 12 August 1916; Hans von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917 (Leipzig: V. Hase und Koehler, 1938), 427. Construction of defensive positions and fortifications had started on the Maros-Kokel Line in 1915 during an earlier scare.

14. ÖStA, AK1/k2, 1 AOK, Op. 20, 14 August 1916.

15. For the Romanian order to cross the border, see RRM, Anexe 1, No. 103, War Ministry, Great General Staff, Order No. 2765, for Headquarters, I Army Corps, Bucharest, 13 August 1916, 254–255; Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 108–110. Austrian troops on the border immediately notified their headquarters (the AOK) in Teschen. See ÖStA, AK1/k11, 1 AOK to AOK, Heeresgruppe Erzherzog Karl, 7 AOK, et al., Op. 343/24, 27 August 1916. Telegraph reports from the border guards are in the same document box.

16. Olaf Richard Wulff, Österreich-Ungarns Donauflottille in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1917 (Vienna: L. W. Seidel, 1918), 173–176. Wulff commanded the monitors Temes I, Temes II, Bodrog, and Enns, and one of the monitor divisions for two years. Published in the last year of the war, this volume covers 1914–1916 and is much more detailed than his later work, Die österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege, 1914–18; Dem Werke “Österreich-Ungarns Seekrieg, 1914–18” (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1934), in which the same events are also discussed (82–84). For the contemporary Romanian perspective, see Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:316. The first edition of this work appeared after the war in 1921. Readers clamored for more, and Kiritescu accommodated them with a second edition in 1925 and a third in 1959. An abridged translation appeared in France as well (La Roumaine dans la Guerre Mondiale [1916–1919], trans. L. Barral [Paris: Payot, 1934]. There is an imperfect English translation of this book by Alexandru Razu, “The Romanian Campaign of 1916,” The Great War Forum, http://1914–1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=119322.

17. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 447. The Austrian second- and third-line units were issued captured Russian arms and munitions, specifically Moisin-Nagant “3 Line” M91 rifles.

18. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 21–25, gives a brief summary of Plan Z. See also Victor Atanasiu, Anastasie Iordache, Mircea Iosa, Ion M. Oprea, and Paul Oprescu, Romania in primul razboi mondial (Bucharest: Editura militara, 1979), 165–166. The plan is sometimes called Hypothesis Z, but ipoteza (hypothesis) can also mean plan, which seems more appropriate as it was a guide for a campaign.

19. RRM, Anexe I: No. 43, “The Operations Project Concerning the War Against the Central Powers and Bulgaria, Implementation of Plan Z,” 112–113. The document is divided into chapters, not sections.

20. Ibid., chapter 3.2, 114.

21. Both sides allocated about twenty-five pounds of grain and hay per day per draft horse or large mule. Smaller animals got slightly less. For examples, see BAMA PH 5/II 541; AOK 9, Ic 20, 20 September 1916; and Major G. N. R. Collins, Military Organization and Administration (London: Hugh Rees, 1918), 191. The ratio of men to horses was about two to one, so an invading Romanian force of 400,000 soldiers would have close to 200,000 horses, requiring 2,500 tons of fodder daily.

22. BAMA PH 5/II 541; AOK 9, Ic 20, 20 September 1916. The Germans authorized twenty-two pounds daily of hay for cattle; sheep and goats received eight pounds each, and pigs two pounds or kitchen scraps. Romanian tables of authorization for fodder are not available, but they could not have differed by much.

23. RRM, vol. 1, appendices 31 and 35, “Situation of the Covering Forces in the North in the First Week of September 1915 and … [in] 14 August 1916.”

24. Ibid., 111–115. Document Nos. 100–102 are detailed instructions for the “Organization and Concentration of the 1st [2nd and North] Army according to Plan Z,” respectively (233–247).

25. Ibid., No. 43, 111–115.

26. Ibid., “Fulfillment and Execution of the Concentration,” 116–117.

27. Ibid., “The General Advance of the Army in Transylvania,” 117–118.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., 120.

30. Ibid., 117–118.

31. Ibid., 112.

32. Ibid., 111, 122–123.

33. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 21.

34. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 35–36.

35. Costica Prodan, in Dumitru Preda and Costica Prodan, eds., The Year 1916 during the First World War: Romania’s Entry into War; Political and Military Consequences (Bucharest: Romanian Commission on Military History, 1999), 22–23.

36. Hans Carossa, A Roumanian Diary, trans. Agnes N. Scott (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1930), 73.

37. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:22; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, vol. 35, Akt. 1, Alpenkorps, 116/Ia, 26 September 1916: Intelligence reports from KK Schmettow; ÖStA, AK1/k12, German Liaison Officer to 1AOK, 7 September 1916.

38. Philip J. Haythornthwaite, The World War One Source Book (London: Arms and Armour, 1992), 277–281.

39. RRM, vol. 1, Annex 20, “Order of Battle, 15 August 1916,” 15; Prodan, in Preda and Prodan, eds., The Year 1916 during the First World War, 32.

40. Torrey quotes a figure of 60 percent for illiteracy (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 15).

41. Anton Ivanovich Denikin, The Russian Turmoil: Memoirs; Military, Social and Political (London: Hutchinson, 1922), 134–135.

42. ÖStA, AK1/k1, Ev. Bureau d. Generalstabes, B. 1050, 8 August 1916.

43. Denikin, The Russian Turmoil, 135.

44. ÖStA, AK1/k1, Ev. Bureau d. Generalstabes, B. 1050, 8 August 1916; Prodan, in Preda and Prodan, eds., The Year 1916 during the First World War, 14.

45. RRM, vol. 1, appendix 22, “Organization of the General Staff of the Army,” 27 August 1916.

46. Ibid., appendix 23, “Organization of the General Headquarters”; Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 43–44.

47. Prodan, in Preda and Prodan, eds., The Year 1916 during the First World War, 14–18. Prodan indicates the Romanians received 75 percent of the small arms munitions they had purchased from abroad and a mere 2 percent of the artillery shells, but he is not clear why or where the discrepancy originated.

48. Ibid.

49. The military convention and assistance treaties can be seen in TNA, FO 371/2607.

50. Denikin, The Russian Turmoil, 135.

51. RRM, vol. 1, Annex “Order of Battle,” 6, and appendix 40; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:236–239.

52. ÖStA, AK1/k3, Tel. Hocharpad, Op. 545, 1 September 1916. Prior to receiving the numerical designation 145th Infantry Brigade, the unit was called the 210th Infantry Brigade (see AK1/k2, AOK 1, Op. 218, 22 August 1916).

53. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 1AOK, Op. 19/9, 20 August 1916.

54. ÖStA, AK1/k11, report from Almos, 107, 28 August 1916; Wulff, Österreich-Ungarns Donauflottille in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1917, 178–182; Heinz Steinrück, “Das österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege,” Militärwissenschaftliche und technische Miteilungen 1–2 (1928): 57.

55. ÖStA, AK1/k12, 1AOK, Op. 550/16, “Situation Report, 1 September 1916”; Commandant of Temesvar to AOK, Op. 145/1, 1 September 1916; 1AOK, Op. 640/47, 4 September 1916; RRM, Anexe 1, No. 126, “Report 1st Division, 1 September,” 288–293. See also Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:237.

56. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 102bis, Directive No. 2, For Headquarters, 1st, 2nd, and North Armies, “Implementation of Hypothesis Z,” 247–253. This is a shorter version of Plan Z, probably issued during the first week of the campaign.

57. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 1AOK situation reports, 27–28 August, 1AOK, Op. 402/5, 29 August; Hateg Group to 1 AOK, 213, 28 August; 1AOK to AOK, AGAD K, 7AOK, etc., Op. 343/24, 27 August 1916; midnight report, Group Talmacs, Op. 829/52, 29 August, 1800; AK1/k11, Hateg 259 I, 29 August; 1AOK, Op. 402/5, 29 August; Hateg Group, Op. 327, 31 August, 0740 hours. The organization of the Romanian units is in the order of battle in RRM, vol. 1, 6–7, and appendix 35, “Disposition of the Covering Forces of 14 August 1916.”

58. Kiritescu criticized Culcer for not advancing north of Hateg (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:238), but Culcer never received orders to move forward. In fact, he was restricted from moving because Plan Z stated that general headquarters would direct the operations of the covering forces (see RRM, Anexe 1, No. 103, from General Army Headquarters to I Army Corps, Order 2765, 13 August 1916). Still, Culcer knew his objective was the Mures River, and he should have advanced, especially since he faced negligible resistance.

59. ÖStA, MS/1-Wk/Ru 10, Gendarme Station, Red Tower Pass, report on the events of 27 August 1914. For reports all along the border, see ÖStA, AK1/k11, “Mid-Day Situation Report,” 27–28 August 1916; 1AOK, Op. 451/28, 30 August mid-day report. The orders for the Olt-Lotru Group are in RRM, Anexe 1, No. 117, “Olt-Lotru Order No. 1, the 27th of August 1916, 10 PM,” 273–275.

60. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 117, “Olt-Lotru Order No. 1, the 27th of August 1916, 10 PM,” 273–275.

61. ÖStA, AK1/k2, Telegram from Commander, Armored Train IX, 29 August 1916; AK1/k11, Talmacs Group, No. 828/60, 29 August 1916.

62. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 117, Olt-Lotru, “Operations Order No. 1,” the 27th of August 1916, 10 PM,” 273–275.

63. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 51 H.I.T.D., Op. 238/8, “Transportation Situation,” 26 August 1916.

64. This halt complied with both Plan Z and RRM, Anexe 1, Nos. 102bis and 103, “I Army Corps, Order 2765, 13 August 1916.” See also ÖStA, AK1/k11, 28 August 1916 file, teletype notes between Major Phleps (GSO, 72 ITD) and Captain Roenne, 51st Honved Division; 71ITD/k3638, “Situation Report,” 1AOK, Op. 550/10, 1 September 1916; AK1/k11, 51 H.I.T.D., Op. 238/8, “Transportation Situation,” 26 August 1916; “Situation Reports,” 51st Honved ITD, Op. 240/1, 240/5 and 240/28, 30 August 1916; ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Rudolf Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916 von Ausbruch des rumänischen Krieges zur Befreiung Siebenbürgens,” 7.

65. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 118, “Operations Order no. 8,” 31 August 1916, 8:30 PM, 275–277. The 23rd Division was formed from units in the Olt-Lotru Group.

66. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:247; Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 33–34, 54; Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 111–113; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:19–20.

67. ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916 von Ausbruch des rumänischen Krieges zur Befreiung Siebenbürgens,” 6–7. The author was the 71st Infantry Division’s general staff officer.

68. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 1AOK “Situation Report,” night of 27/28 August; 1AOK to AOK, AGAD K, 7AOK, etc., Op. 343/24, 27 August 1916, “Midnight Report; 1AOK Situation Report,” Op. 365/49, 28 August.

69. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:247; ÖStA, AK1/k4, Panzerzug VI, No. 314, 14 September 1916; AK1/k11, Commandant Brasso, Op. 233, 28 August, 8:30 AM. For maps showing the location of the regiment in the passes and on the Olt River, see the history of the 82nd Regiment by A. M. Kir, 82. Szekeley Gyalogezred Történte 1883–1919 (Budapest: Modach Nyomda, 1931), 171, 178.

70. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:249; ÖStA, AK1/k11, 1AOK Situation Report, Op. 365/49 28.8.1916; handwritten notes, 29 August 1916.

71. ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916 von Ausbruch des rumänischen Krieges zur Befreiung Siebenbürgens,” 7–8. A map of the division’s defense line can be seen in ÖStA, 71 ITD/Op. 292/10, 31 August 1916.

72. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:247.

73. The lineage of the 61st Division is confusing. When it came to Transylvania in late July 1916, it was an Austro-Hungarian or combined army (k.u.k.) division. In mid-October, the unit was redesignated the Austrian Army (Landwehr) Infantry Troop Division (see ÖStA, AK1/k2, AOK Gstbs 99, 20 October 1916). György Ságvári says the unit was a Honved unit that was disbanded in February 1917 (The Hungarian Honvéd Army (1868–1918), trans. Orsolya Frank [Budapest: Verlag Militaria, 2010], 55). An officer investigating the poor performance of the unit likewise said it arrived in the theater as a Honved Landsturm unit (see ÖStA, AK1/k8, Report of Major Schmidt [GStKps], 8 December 1916).

74. ÖStA, AK1/k2, Status of kuk 61st ITD, Op. No. 2115/5, n.d. [22 July 1916]. Without citing a source, Kiszling (in ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, “Vorbereitung Osterreich-Ungarns für einen Krieg mit Rumänien,” Annex 2) claimed the 61st had 9,124 other ranks when the invasion began. The division did pick up some locally formed units in August, hence the discrepancy between the figures.

75. Ziegler had five officers and 580 other ranks, of whom only 366 were combat soldiers. See ÖStA, VIAK/k709, 11AK, Op. 859, 27 August 1916.

76. ÖStA, AK1/k2, kuk 61st ITD, Op. 235/22, “Instructions for Defense,” 21 August 1916. A map with the location of the units is in AK1/kn, 1AOK, Op. 65/11, n.d. [17–18 August], “Billeting of the 61st ITD,” and another map is in AK1/k22, 61st ITD Situation Map, 18 August 1916. See also AK1/k11 61st ITD, Op. 213/8, 23 August 1916, and AK1/k2, kuk 61st ITD, Op. No. 2115/5, n.d. [22 July 1916]; 61 ITD Op. 229/18 to AK1, 16 August 1916; Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 106–107; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:253.

77. The Austrians had made a list of targets for demolition before the Romanian invasion. ÖStA, AK1/k1, HQ Nagyszeben, Op. 340, 5 August 1916, has a list of permanent demolitions, including one in the Gyimes Pass area.

78. Steflea was chief of staff of the Romanian army, 1942–1944.

79. Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 74–75. Rosetti was an operations officer in the general headquarters. Colonel Octav Boian commanded the 14th Regiment. For more on this unlucky officer, see chapter 7, “Ambush in the Trotus Valley.”

80. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 61st ITD Op. 243/10, 29 August; 61st ITD report, No. 93, 31 August, 0845 hours; 1AOK, Op. 402/5, 29 August; 1AOK, Op. 451/28, 30 August 1916 mid-day; 1AOK, Op. 500/10, 31 August 0900 hours; 71ITD/k3638, “Situation Report,” 61st ITD, 245/32, 31 August; [General Konrad Grallert von Cebrow], “Der Überfall von Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916”; Von einem ehemaligen k. u. k. Generalen. Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Mitteilung, 5/6 (1924): 310–311; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:253.

81. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 61st ITD “Situation Report” 242/20 to 1 AOK, 28 August and Op. 243/10, 29 August; 71ITD/k3638, “Situation Report,” 61st ITD, 245/32 31 August; AK1/kn, 1AOK “Situation Report,” Op. 451/28, 30 August 1916, mid-day; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:253.

82. Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 109–110. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:13; Albert Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rümanien: Ein Gedenkwerk für rümanische Kriegsteilnehmer (Munich: A. Reich, 1917), 52–55; ÖStA, AK1/k11, Op. 342/13, 28 August. Keeping the fearful refugees from the rail stations to free military traffic became a problem that plagued the Austrian command (see ÖStA, AK1/k2, 1AOK Eb Nf 17.873, 31 August 1916; AK1/k4, AOK, No. 18968, 10 September).

83. Alexandru Marghiloman, Note Politice (Bucharest: Machiavelli, 1994), 2:17–18; Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 25–26.

84. Zottu’s collusion with the enemy is scarcely mentioned in Romanian accounts, and when it is, it is passed over rapidly. See Rosetti, Marturisiri, 102, and Calin Hentea’s Brief Romanian Military History, trans. Cristina Bordianu (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007), which says Zottu “was suspected of collaborating with the enemy” (121) without further elaboration, as if the sensational implication that the senior officer of the army had dealings with the enemy did not warrant further explanation.

85. Dumitru Iliescu, Documente privitoare la rasboiul pentru intregirea României (Bucharest: Impr. Statul, 1924), 3–7.

86. Quoted in Charles, comte de Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 327.

87. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 99.

88. Marghiloman, Note Politice, 2:18.

2. THE CENTRAL POWERS RESPOND

1. Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918 (New York: Harper, 1919), 1:294–295; Paul von Hindenburg, Aus meinem Leben (Leipzig: Hirzel Verlag, 1934), 147.

2. Georg Wetzell, Kritische Beiträge zur Geschichte des Weltkrieges; von Falkenhayn zu Hindenburg-Ludendorff. Der Wechsel in der deutschen Obersten Heeresleitung im Herbst 1916 und der rumänische Feldzug, Beiheft z. 105 Jahrgang des Militär Wochen Blattes.(Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921), 20–21. Wetzell was the operations officer at the OHL (see Erich von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1916/17 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921), 1:6–8; Die Oberste Heeresleitung, 1914–1916 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 237–238.

3. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:295.

4. Von Hindenburg, Aus meinem Leben, 146.

5. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:293.

6. Ibid., 1:290.

7. BAMA, PH 5/II 285, 9AOK KTB, 19–25 September 1916,3–4.

8. The most recent and best work on this topic in English is Robert T. Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870–1916 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). In German, see Holger Afflerbach, Falkenhayn: Politisches Denken und Handeln im Kaiserreich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1994).

9. Conrad shared as little information as possible with him. See Lawrence Sondhaus, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf: Architect of the Apocalypse (Boston: Humanities, 2000), 160.

10. ÖStA, AOK 12/k1, 12AOK, Op. 27.643, 16 July 1916. Initially designated the 12th Army, in official documents the headquarters was almost immediately called Army Group (or Army Front) Archduke Karl.

11. ÖStA, AOK 12/k1, OHL, von Falkenhayn 1521 pers[onal communication] to von Seeckt, 3 June 1916; Nachlass von Cramon, 1–10; Hans von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 1866–1917 (Leipzig: V. Hase und Koehler, 1938), 395–397; Hans Meier-Welcker, Seeckt.(Frankfurt: Bernard und Graefe, 1967), 87–89.

12. ÖStA, AOK OOK Ru Gruppe/551, Ludendorff Ia 34574 op, 11 September 1916; Conrad to Ludendorff, AOK, Op. 30423, 11 September 1916. Von Seeckt wrote his wife on 7 September that von Falkenhayn was going to receive command of an army – the one against “our new enemy” (Aus meinem Leben, 449). That information could only have come from Ludendorff.

13. ÖStA, AK1/k22, 1AOK KTB, 13 September 1916.

14. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:332 (see also 333, 292–294).

15. ÖStA, AOK, OOK, Ru Gruppe/k 551, AOK to 1st Army, Op. 29706 I, 31 August; Ludendorff to Conrad, Op. 33786, 30 and 31 August; Op. 33695, Op. 33868, Op. 33919, 1 September 1916. See also Ernst Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 (Berlin: O. Schlegel [c. 1938]), 35.

16. After the war, von Staabs wrote Aufmarsch Nach Zwei Fronten, Auf Grund der Operationspläne von 1871–1914 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1925) to prove that Chief of General Staff Count Helmuth von Moltke was wrong when he had famously reported to Kaiser Wilhelm II immediately before the war’s outbreak that inflexible railway plans prohibited a switch from war in the west to the Eastern Front.

17. Hanns Möller-Witten, Geschichte der Ritter des Ordens “Pour le Mérite” im Weltkrieg (Berlin: Bernard u. Graefe, 1935), 2:353–358.

18. Kurt von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), frontispiece illustration.

19. Either Conrad’s information was out of date or von Morgen’s memory was faulty. An order of battle shows that von Morgen had four weak divisions: the 61st, 71st, and 72nd Austrian Divisions and the 39th Honved Division (see ÖStA, VIAK/k/709, 1st Austrian Army Order of Battle, 5 September 1916; this document is in the folder dated 27 September in box k709).

20. Quoted in ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 10.

21. Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946 (hereafter RRM), Anexe 1, No. 1, 130; AOK 29.706/I Op., 31 August 1916; ref. 29.706/ III Op., 295; von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe, 99–101.

22. August von Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 100. According to Sondhaus, Conrad gave the archduke two daily thirty-minute briefings about the situation, and “otherwise, the titular supreme commander played no role at all” (Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, 160). The wealthiest of the Habsburgs, Friedrich’s estate at Teschen served as the site of the AOK. He donated enormous amounts of scarce butter to the officers’ mess, leading to his being called the Dairy Farmer or Butter Marshal behind his back (von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 410; Edmund K. Glaise von Horstenau, K.und k. Generalstabsoffizier und Historiker, vol. 1 of Ein General im Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau, ed. Peter Broucek [Vienna: Hermann Böhlau, 1980], 344).

23. Von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe, 99–101; BAMA, Nachlass Morgen, 227/6, 1. There is no biography of this colorful general.

24. In German, these terms were kaiserlich und königlich, usually abbreviated “k.u.k.,” for imperial and royal, used for the common monarchy; kaiserlichköniglich, or “k.k,” for the Austrian half; and königlich ungarn, or “k.u.,” for royal Hungarian, the Hungarian portion.

25. Erwin A. Schmidl, “A State with Three Armies – the Military System of Austria-Hungary,” in The Austrian Mountain Troops: History, Uniforms and Equipment of the Austrian Mountain Troops from 1906 to 1918, ed. Hermann Hinterstoisser et al., trans. Ian Mansfield (Vienna: Verlag Militariia, 2006), 12–16. Also see Gunther Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1976), 80–81, 110–111.

26. Magyars and Czechs for the most part fleshed out the rest of the officer corps. See Rothenberg, Army of Francis Joseph, 127.

27. The most significant Romanian war novel, Liviu Rebreanu’s The Forest of the Hanged (translated by A. V. Wise [London: Owen, 1967]), is based on the desertion and execution of Rebreanu’s brother during the war. The novel uses the rejection of a request for a transfer from its protagonist, Lieutenant Apostol Bologa, a Romanian in the Austrian army, from the Romanian Front in order to avoid fighting his countrymen as the catalyst for his consequent attempt to desert. Rebreanu sets the novel amid the fighting at the Gyimes Pass on the Moldavian border. The author never says which division Bologa is in, but he does give the commander’s name, General Karg. A general of this name, Major General Johann Freiherr Karg von Bebenburg (1859–1934), commanded the 38th Honved Division in the fall of 1914. He disappears from the army roster with a brevet promotion to lieutenant general in early 1915, apparently being retired. The unit that fought in the Gyimes Pass, Grallert’s 61st Infantry Division, did allow Romanians to transfer to other fronts (see ÖStA, AK1/k7, 1AOK Q. Op. 22.93/II, 25 November 1916, which shows that in September, thirty-five ethnic Romanians were transferred to other fronts). The policy seems to have been in effect across the 1st Army, but whether it included officers, whose numbers are absent in these figures, is not known. From the 39th Honved, 13 Romanian noncommissioned officers and 317 soldiers were transferred from Transylvania in November (ÖStA, Q. Op. 21.280, 1AOK to War Ministry, 17 November 1916).

28. For the concept of march battalions, see Glenn Jewison and Jörg C. Steiner, “Austro-Hungarian Army – Troops and Unit Histories,” in Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848–1918, http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/index.htm. For the way in which the system actually worked, see ÖStA, VIAK/k710, kuk War Ministry, Abt 10, 182800, 8 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 15250, 12 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2404, 27 October 1916; VIAK 1028/20, 28 October 1916, Endorsement of 1AOK, Op. 2365, 26 October 1916; ÖStA, VIAK/k711, 1AOK, Q. Op. 11227/I 28 October 1916, “Training of Replacements in March Battalions”; VIAK KTB, 8 November, AOK, Op. 31.721, “Information Concerning the Situation in Replacement Units, 26 October 1916.”

29. ÖStA, VIAK/k711, VIAK KTB, 8 Nov, AOK, Op. 31.721, “Information Concerning the Situation in Replacement Units, 26 October 1916.”

30. ÖStA, VIAK/k711, 1AOK for Inspector of March Formations, Q. Op. 11227/I 28 October.

31. During the formation of the 1st Army in August 1916, the XXIII March Battalions in Siebenbürgen and Temesvar were converted in desperation to frontline units (see ÖStA, AK1/k2, “Instructions for the 1st Army,” Op. 282863, 12 August 1916).

32. See Conrad’s admonitions against this sort of practice in ÖStA, VIAK/k711, VIAK KTB, 8 Nov, AOK, Op. 31.721, “Information Concerning the Situation in Replacement Units, 26 October 1916.” Necessité fait loi ruled in other armies as well. For example, Martin Breitenacher relates how his recruit contingent was taken from training in Bavaria and deployed directly into combat in the Red Tower Pass – without ammunition (Das Alpenkorps 1914–1918 [Berlin: Vorhut Verlag O. Schlegel, 1939], 113–115).

33. ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 4. An excellent account of life and routine in the AOK comes from then Captain Glaise von Horstenau, K. und k. Generalstabsoffizier und Historiker, 321–385.

34. Sondhaus, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chapters 2–5.

35. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 409.

36. ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 1–10.

37. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 409. See also ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 4; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 129.

38. Timothy Dowling, The Brusilov Offensive (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 167–173; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 131.

39. This comment comes from General Habermann of the XXI Corps, explaining why he relieved Colonel Colbert Zech von Deybach, Freiherr von Hart und Sulz, commander of the 22nd Cavalry Brigade (ÖStA, XIAK/k1421, XI AOK to 7AOK, Op. 970/4, 1 November 1916). See also ibid., XI Army Corps, Op. 963/3 and 956/4; XIAK to 1AOK, Op. 931/5, 20 October 1916, for related examples.

40. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 372.

41. Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 129.

42. Rothenberg, The Army of Francis Joseph, 218.

43. Martin Samuels, Command or Control? Command, Training and Tactics in the British and German Armies, 1888–1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1995), 77–78.

44. Ibid., 78–82. For a contemporary account of organization and training, see General Friedrich von Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War, trans. Allen H. Powles (New York: Charles Eron, 1914). The latitude given to commanders could backfire. As Eric Brose illustrates in The Kaiser’s Army: The Politics of Military Technology in Germany during the Machine Age, 1870–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), many commanders paid the new regulations no attention at a terrible cost in lives in 1914.

45. Brose, The Kaiser’s Army, 178, 184–186.

46. Samuels, Command or Control?, 176–177 and chapter 6.

47. ÖStA, AK1/k11, 30 August 1916 file, “Aerial Reconnaissance Report.”

48. Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:233–234. Glenn E. Torrey mentions the hesitation of the Romanian forces on entry into Transylvania, noting that it proved a godsend to the Central Powers, but he does not mention the war council at Peris (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I [Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011], 45–57).

49. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 140, Army General Headquarters, Operation Order 1, 2 September 1916, 302.

50. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:238; Gerhard Friedrich Dose, “The 187th Infantry Regiment in Romania, 1916–1917.” trans. Glen Grady and Gerben Van Vlimmeren, http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/02-Romania-01.htm.

51. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 118, Olt-Lotru Group, Operation Order 8, 31 August 1916; No. 123, Olt-Lotru Group, Operation Order 8, 1 September 1916; and No. 124, 1st Regiment of Border Guards, “Report Concerning the Operations Conducted on the 1st and 2nd of September 1916.”

52. Ibid., No. 167, HQ First Army, “Concerning the Army’s Strategic Organization for the Olt Group,” 2 September 1916, 333–336.

53. Ibid., No. 118, 2nd Army Operations Order No. 1, 4 September 1916.

54. ÖStA, AK1/k2, 1AOK, Op. 750/7, 7 September 1916.

55. Ibid., AK1/k11, 1AOK handwritten note, 29 August 1916, 1100 hours; 1AOK situation report, night of 29–30 August; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:249.

56. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 152, 7th Division Operation Order 6, 6 September 1916, 316–318.

57. ÖStA, AK1/k3, conversation between Colonel Huber (1st Army) and Major von Hahnke (I Reserve Corps), 7 September 1916; USAHEC, Rudolf Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania, 1916–1917,” in Der Deutsche Land Krieg, vol. 5, part 2, of Der Grosse Krieg, 1914–1918, ed. Max Schwarte and Wilhelm Dommes, trans. Major Paul Harms, Army War College (Leipzig: Barth, 1923), 4–5.

58. ÖStA, AK1/k3, conversation between Oberst Huber, 1AOK, and Major von Hahnke, I Reserve Corps chief of staff, 7 September 1916.

59. Immortalized by Bram Stoker as the gateway to the realm of Count Dracula.

60. ÖStA, AK1/k4, AOK to 1AOK, Op. 30.635, 16 September 1916.

61. ÖStA, AK1/k4, IRK to 72nd ITD, Op. 406, 16 September 1916; Max Ritter von Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerländer Infanterie-Regiements Nr. 73 (Vienna: Verlag Amon Franz Göth, 1939), 378–379.

62. ÖStA, AK1/k13, XXIAK, Op. 835/6 II, 19 September; VIAK Op. 923/41, 23 September; AK1/k13, XXIAK, Op. 835/6 II, 19 September 1916.

63. Ibid., AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 1853,7 October 1916; Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerländer Infanterie-Regiements Nr. 73, 381–382.

64. ÖStA, AOK, OOK, Ru Gruppe 551, Ludendorff to Conrad, Ia 34486 op., 11 September 1916. Conrad had Arz investigate von Morgen’s accusation. Arz said that the troops in question were no better or no worse than usual (1st Army to AOK, Op. 973, 12 September 1916). See also 71ITD/k3638, IRK Op. 57, 10 September; IRK Op. 296, 14 September; VIAK/k709, IRK Op. 579, 20 September; VIAK/k710, 1AOK Pers. Res. 417, 5 October; VIAK Op. 1005/32, 5 October; and 61st Division, Res. 2452, 13 October 1916.

65. ÖStA, AK1/k4, conversation, Huber and Major von Hahnke, IRK, 18 September 1916.

66. Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 115; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:249–251.

67. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:250; RRM, Anexe 1, No. 170, 2nd Army Order No. 314, 27 September, 172; No. 209, General Headquarters to 2nd Army, No. 1296, 29 September, 210; No. 213, 2nd Army Operation Order 7, 29 September, 211–212; BAMA, PH 6/IV, Kavallerie Korps Schmettow, Ic 33, 23 September 1916. The Austrian 6th Cavalry Brigade was led by a famous equestrian, Colonel Artur Pongrácz de Szent-Miklós et Óvár (1864–1942), who competed in the 1936 Olympics – at age seventy-two, the oldest person ever to compete in the Olympics. Goldbach received Austria’s highest award for valor, the Military Maria Theresia Order, for his action.

68. ÖStA, VIAK/k709, VI Corps Ib 4392, 11 September 1916; 1AOK, Op. 1047 to VIAK, 14 September; 1AOK 1327, 19 September; VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, 14–18 September and 1 October 1916. See also AK1/k4, IRK, Op. 520, 18 September 1916, and MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Rudolf Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916 von Ausbruch des rumänischen Krieges bis zur Befreiung Siebenbürgens” (n.d.), 53.

69. ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 12.

70. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:294.

71. Von Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung, 231–232; von Hindenburg, Aus meinem Leben, 128.

72. The actual document is reproduced in Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges 1914–1918 (Graz, Austria: Akad. Druck- u. Verlagsanst., 1969), 128–130, and Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1938), 11:19–23. See also BAMA, PH 5/II 285, 3–4. A codicil that allowed the Austrians to contest orders, which then had be resolved between the two emperors, was kept secret from the other two Central Powers (see Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege, 72–73). On Hindenburg’s letter, see ÖStA, Nachlass von Cramon, 10–12.

73. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:305–307. See also Order No. 1 of the new Oberste Kriegsleitung, 15 September 1916, reproduced in ÖStA, MS-WK/Ru/1, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916,” 2; Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:23.

74. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:295, 333.

75. ÖStA, AK1/k3, 1AOK, Op. 786, notes of conversation between Huber and von Hahnke, 7 September 1916; BAMA PH 6/II 139, XXXIX RK KTB, 8 September 1916. See also USAHEC, Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania,” 5. The Alpine Corps left Verdun on 9 September; advance parties had left earlier. See BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, Alpenkorps 2323/Ia, 9 September 1916; Bund 3, Akt 5.

3. THE FIRST DOBROGEA CAMPAIGN

1. August von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1938), 285. On the meeting at Gorne Orechevita, see Fritz Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan (1. bis 6. September 1916.),” Wissen und Wehr 5 (1932): 238.

2. Gerard E. Silberstein, The Troubled Alliance: German-Austrian Relations 1914 to 1917 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970), 114–129.

3. Jan Karl Tennenbaum, General Maurice Sarrail 1856–1929: The French Army and Left-Wing Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974); Jere King Clemens, Generals and Politicians: Conflict between France’s High Command, Parliament and Government, 1914–1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974).

4. Doros Alastos, Venizelos: Patriot, Statesman, Revolutionary (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International, 1978); George Leon, Greece and the Great Powers, 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki, Greece: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1978); George B. Leontarities, Greece and the First World War: From Neutrality to Intervention, 1917–1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940).

5. The best account of this affair is still Alan W. Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika (New York: Simon Schuster, 1965). A firsthand, apologetic account appears in G. Ward Price, The Story of the Salonica Army (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918), 70–71.

6. Richard C. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough: The Battle of Dobro Pole, 1918 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 13–26, 63–64.

7. Oskar Regele, Kampf um die Donau: Betrachtung der Flussübergänge bei Flamanda und Sistow (Potsdam: L. Voggenreiter, 1940), 49–50; von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 280.

8. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 281–282; Erich von Falkenhayn, Die Oberste Heeresleitung, 1914–1916 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 236–237.

9. Hall, Balkan Breakthrough, 68; Glenn E. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 35–37.

10. Joseph J. C. Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, trans. T. Bentley Mott (New York: Harper, 1925), 2:624; TNA FO 371/2606, Barclay to FO, No. 509, 30 June 1916 with marginalia, and FO No. 912, Foreign Office to Ambassador in Italy, 11 July 1916.

11. Maurice Sarrail, Mon Commandement en Orient, 1916–1918 (Paris: Flammarion, 1920), 366–369.

12. Ibid., 363–364. The instructions from the British Government to its general at Thessalonica, Lieutenant General Sir George Milne (1866–1948), mentioned only the first task, not the linking up with the Romanians in the Dobrogea (see TNA, FO 371/2607, CIGS to AHQ Thessalonica, 19 August 1916).

13. Sarrail, Mon Commandement en Orient, 363; Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre, 2:621–624; Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika, 29; Price, The Story of the Salonica Army, 139–147.

14. Charles, comte de Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 341. See also Hall, Balkan Breakthrough, 68–69; Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika, 75–78.

15. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 281.

16. On 29 August, at the High Command in Pless, General Moriz Freiherr von Lyncker, the Kaiser’s adjutant, wrote: “What the Bulgarians would do was anyone’s guess” (Lyncker’s diary, in Holger Afflerbach, ed. Kaiser Wilhelm II als oberster Kriegsherr im Ersten Weltkrieg: Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers 1914–1918 [Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2005], 418–419).

17. Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1938), 11:199–200. Von Cramon claimed to have been the one who suggested this attack to the OHL (see ÖStA, August von Cramon, 14). He admitted that the damage was slight, but the confusion and uproar was “unholy,” an impression confirmed by Austrian Ambassador Ottokar Czernin, who said that the infuriated Romanians pledged to execute ten Austrians or Bulgarians for every Romanian killed (see Ottokar Czernin von und zu Chudenitz, In the World War [London: Cassell, 1919], 104).

18. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 281–282.

19. BAMA, Nachlass Tappen, Diary, 31 August 1916 entry.

20. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 285.

21. These were the troops that Russia had pledged to provide in the military convention of 14 August.

22. Quoted in Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:362.

23. A. A. Brusilov, A Soldier’s Notebook, 1914–1918 (1918; reprinted Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971), 225. See also Miodrag Milin, in Dumitru Preda and Costica Prodan, eds., The Romanian Army during the First World War (Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 1998), 105–106.

24. Brusilov, A Soldier’s Notebook, 177, 261–263; RGVIA, Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 516, Zaionchkovsky Report, “The Dobrogea: August-October, 2 November 1916” [hereafter Zaionchkovsky Report].

25. Brusilov, A Soldier’s Notebook, 262.

26. RGVIA, Fond 55, Inventory 4, Archival Number 1, 4/1, Zaionchkovsky to Alekseyev, 23 August 1916; Zaionchkovsky Report.

27. RGVIA, Fond 55, Inventory 4, Archival Number 1, Alekseyev to Zaionchkovsky.

28. The infantry divisions went by train and barge; the cavalry division marched, crossing the frontier (the Danube River) on a pontoon bridge at Isaccea on 1 September (see Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 [Bucharest: Imprimeria Nation-ala, 1934–1946 (hereafter RRM], Anexe 1, No. 277, Army General Headquarters, Operational Directive No. 2 for 3rd Army, 27 August 1916, 523–525).

29. Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:193; RRM, 1:14–15, “Order of Battle.”

30. ÖStA, AOK RuGruppe 551, “Report of Austro-Hungarian Liaison Officer [Major Viktor Frantz] at Army Group Mackensen, Battles of Turtucaia, Silistria and Dobrich,” Op. No. 545, 21 September 1916.

31. Olaf Richard Wulff, Die österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege, 1914–18; Dem Werke “Österreich-Ungarns Seekrieg, 1914–18” (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1934), 111–114. A contemporary drawing of the barrier can be seen in ÖSta, DF, “Combat Report of the Danube Flotilla in the Time from 29 September to 9 October 1916,” appendix 2.

32. Glenn E. Torrey, “The Battle of Turtucaia (Tutrakan) (2–6 September 1916): Romania’s Grief, Bulgaria’s Glory,” East European Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2003): 379–403.

33. The orders for the bridgehead fortresses can be seen in RRM, Anexe 1, Nos. 270, Army General Headquarters, Order 2431, 10 March 1916, “Special Instructions for the Silistra [Silistria] and Turtucaia Bridgehead Headquarters,” 471–479; and No. 277, Army General Headquarters, 2nd Operational Directive for the 3rd Army, 27 August 1916, 523–525. This second order permitted the bridgeheads to launch “small” counteroffensives against the flanks of a Bulgarian advance.

34. Preda and Prodan, The Romanian Army during the First World War, 20–21, 46. The War Ministry had General Constantin Coanda inspect the fortifications throughout the Dobrogea in late July. His report, with comments from the War Ministry, may be seen in RRM, Anexe 1, No. 253, Ministry of War, No. 80/5 August 1916, V Army Corps Defense Works, 428–430. Further field fortifications south of the Cernavoda-Constanta line were ordered by the ministry on 9 August (see ibid., No. 261, War Ministry to V Army Corps, No. 2014, 9 August 1916, 460–461).

35. The Austrian liaison officer at von Mackensen’s headquarters, Major Viktor Frantz, was impressed by the Romanian fortifications (see his report, ÖStA, AOK RuGruppe 551, “Report,” 21 September 1916). During the battle an additional eight howitzers and twelve field guns were transported by barge across the river from Romania (see Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 227–232). Both Ortlepp and Torrey (“Battle of Turtucaia”) provide excellent summaries of the battle. Torrey is sympathetic toward, but not uncritical of, the Romanians; Ortlepp, who wrote his account in conjunction with von Mackensen, leans toward the Central Powers, although he did use Romanian sources.

36. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 232, General Constantin Teodorescu, “Memoir Concerning the Fall of the Turtucaia Bridgehead,” No. 227, for 3rd Army, 9 September 1916, 574–579.

37. Their report of the engagement is in RRM, Anexe 1, No. 262, “Report Concerning the Danube Squadron’s Actions, 2–6 September 1916,” 609–611.

38. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 232–234.

39. The Bulgarians followed the Russian practice of naming divisions and regiments after cities and regions.

40. BAMA, Nachlass Frithjof Fhr v. Hammerstein-Gesmold, 309/Heft 9. Some histories mistakenly identify him as Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, who was head of the German Reichswehr in 1930–34. However, the major in Bulgaria was Frijthof Freiherr von Hammerstein-Gesmold (1870–1944).

41. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 234.

42. In fact, according to Torrey, Teodorescu was so ill informed about the situation that he first learned about the declaration of war from public rumors (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 67).

43. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 310.

44. See RRM, Anexe 1, No. 281, “Report No. 20 from the Turtucaia Bridgehead to the General Headquarters: About the Events from 2 PM 2 September until 2 PM 3 September [1916],” 533–534. Torrey says Teodorescu showed signs of alarm over the size of the enemy assault on the 2nd (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 69), but the general’s report that day (above) merely asked for ammunition, aerial reconnaissance, and reinforcements.

45. Alexandru Marghiloman, Note Politice (Bucharest: Machiavelli, 1994), 2:21–22. The Café Capsa was in the hotel of the same name a few blocks from the royal palace and was the unofficial office of the Allies. Across a plaza from the royal palace was the Athenée hotel, the hotbed of the Central Powers until the war began (see Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate, 317–318; Charles J. Vopicka, Secrets of the Balkans: Seven Years of a Diplomatist’s Life in the Storm Centre of Europe (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1921), 82).

46. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 240–244.

47. Teodorescu thought at this point, 10:45 AM, that he could control the battle (see RRM, Anexe 1, No. 338, “Phone Conversation Note,” 582–583).

48. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 307.

49. Quoted in Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:330.

50. ÖStA, AOK RuGruppe 551, Major Frantz, kuk Liaison Officer, “Report,” 21 September 1916.

51. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 312. For Basarabescu’s orders on the 5th, see RRM, Anexe 1, No. 339, “Telephonic Report No.5” from 3rd Army to the General Headquarters, “Concerning the events of rhe Days 5 and 6 September,” 6 September 1916, 583–584. General Basabarescu’s reports of the engagement are No. 355, “Report Concerning the Operations Executed by the 9th Division during the Afternoon[s] of the 5th and 6th of September,” 602–605, and No. 346, “Draft: Concerning the Operations Executed by the 9th Division, from the 5th of September 1916 (the mobilization day) to the 30th of September 1916.” n.d., 587–589. Basarabescu’s losses were not that great. A Bulgarian situation report indicated they captured 3 officers and 130 soldiers (see ÖSta, AK1/k12, 1AOK, Op. 890/1, 10 September 1916).

52. RRM, Anexe 1, documents 328, 329, and 343, on 572–573, 586. These were telegrams sent on 3 September from the Turtucaia bridgehead to the Russian XLVII Corps, advising Zaionchkovsky about the situation at the bridgehead and urging him to attack the Bulgarians.

53. Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 303, 310–311.

54. BAMA, Nachlass Frithjof Fhr v. Hammerstein-Gesmold, 309/Heft 9, entry for 6 September 1916; Ortlepp, “Die Eroberung der rumänischen Donaustellung Tutrakan,” 307. Kiritescu has nothing but contempt for Teodorescu, thinking he fled to save his skin (see Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:336). Compare Nicolae Ciobanu, “Pierderile umane ale României in timpul Razboiului de intregire,” www.once.ro/sesiuni/sesiune_2007/3_Pierderi.pdf.

55. ÖStA, AOK RuGruppe 551, Major Frantz, kuk Liaison Officer, “Report,” 21 September 1916.

56. Torrey, “Battle of Turtucaia,” 379–403. Iliescu laid the blame for the city’s fall on its commander (see Dumitru Iliescu, Documente privitoare la rasboiul pentru intregirea României [Bucharest: Impr. Statul, 1924], 89–94).

57. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 232, General Constantin Teodorescu, “Memoir Concerning the Fall of the Turtucaia Bridgehead,” No. 227, for 3rd Army, 9 September 1916, 574–579.

58. ÖSta, AK1/k13, 1AOK, Op. 950/11, 11 September 1916. The Romanian officer is later identified in the same report as Colonel Anastasiu. See also Ion Culcer, Note si cugetari asupra Campaniei din 1916, in special asupra operatiunilor Armatei I-a (Iasi, Romania: Tipografia ziarului “Tribuna,” 1919), 62–66, 119; Torrey points out that the commanders of the Romanian field armies did not learn of their assignments until a few days before the war (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 42–43). See also Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918 (New York: Harper, 1919), 1:34–35.

59. Zaionchkovsky Report.

60. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 288, “Phone Conversation between General Arghirescu and Colonel G. Dabija [3rd Army], 31 August 1916,” 539; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:340.

61. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 328, 3rd Army telegram, No. 134, to XLVII Army Corps, 17th Division and 9th Division, 3 September 1916, 572–573.

62. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 322, “19th Infantry Division to 3rd Army, Report Concerning the Operations from the 2nd to the 8th of September” [hereafter 19th Infantry Division Report], 567–570. In this report, Arghirescu estimated that 300 of his men had been killed and many more were missing. In contrast, Zaionchkovsky, who arrived at Dobrich the next day, claimed that Arghirescu had suffered only two casualties (see Zaionchkovsky Report).

63. RRM, Anexe 1, no. 322 19th Infantry Division Report, 567–570. For Bulgarian claims about Romanian hostage taking and atrocities, see ÖSta, AK1/k13, 1AOK, Op. 1000/3, 11 September 1916.

64. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 343, 3rd Army, telegram no. 151, to Zaionchkovsky, 586. There is no date, but the item’s placement in the document collection indicates that it was from 5 September, as does corroborating evidence in Zaionchkovsky’s reports. The 9th Division never reached Silistria.

65. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and General N. N. Dukhonin, quartermaster general ‘chief of operations,’ Russian Southwest Front, 6 September 1916; Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, Zaionchkovsky, “Summary of Operations of the Headquarters of the 47th Independent Corps, 14 July–19 October 1916”; Zaionchkovsky Report. For the confusion caused in the 19th Division by the orders and counterorders, see 19th Infantry Division Report, 567–570.

66. Zaionchkovsky Report.

67. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and Dukhonin, 6 September 1916.

68. Ibid. See also Zaionchkovsky Report.

69. RRM, Anexe 1, no. 322, 19th Infantry Division Report, 567–570. See also RGVIA,, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and Dukhonin, 6 September 1916; Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, “Summary of Operations of the Headquarters of the 47th Independent Corps, 14 July–19 October 1916.” See also Zaionchkovsky Report.

70. RGVIA, Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, “Summary of Operations of the Headquarters of the 47th Independent Corps, 14 July–19 October 1916”; Zaionchkovsky Report.

71. Ibid., Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and Dukhonin, 6 September 1916.

72. Ibid., Stavka, telegram no. 4603 [signed by General Pustovoitenko], n.d.

73. Ibid., teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and Dukhonin. There is no date on this recording of the Hughes apparatus, but internal evidence indicates that it was most likely later in the day on the 6th.

74. Ibid., Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, “Summary of Operations of the Headquarters of the 47th Independent Corps, 14 July–19 October 1916.” See also Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Generals Sherbov Nefedotovich from Stavka and Zaionchkovsky, n.d. (probably 7 September 1916); Miodrag Milin, in Preda and Prodan, The Romanian Army during the First World War, 107. The characterization of the loss as a serious defeat comes from Alekseyev’s successor in November 1916 (see Basil Gourko, War and Revolution in Russia, 1914–1917 [New York: MacMillan, 1919], 233). On the terrain, see ÖStA, AOK RuGruppe 551, Major Frantz, kuk Liaison Officer, “Report,” 21 September 1916.

75. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 287.

76. Marghiloman, Note Politice, 2:22–26.

77. Preda and Prodan, The Romanian Army during the First World War, 46–47.

78. Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 100, 112.

79. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 6, Romanian General Headquarters, No. 363, 6 September 1916.

80. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 59–60.

81. Marghiloman, Note Politice, 2:23; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 113.

82. Marghiloman, Note Politice, 2:23.

83. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 113.

84. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 172, 1st Army Operations Order No. 1, dated 7 September 1916, 342. See also No. 213, General Army Headquarters for 2nd Army, Operation Order No. 4, 11 September 1916, 389–90; No. 214, General Army Headquarters to North Army, telegram no. 584 (addendum to Operations Order No. 4), 11 September 1916, 390–391.

85. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 287.

86. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and Nefedotovich, 8 September 1916.

87. ÖSta, AK1/k12, 1AOK, Op. 890/35, 9 September 1916; von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 287.

88. RGVIA, Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3/1/3, telegram no. 4609, from Alekseyev to Tatarinov, 7 September 1916.

89. Ibid.

90. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversation between Zaionchkovsky and a staff officer at Stavka, probably General Nefedotovich, 9 September 1916. Two days later, Joffre cabled Alekseyev, asking him to send two divisions to Zaionchkovsky (see Joffre, The Personal Memoirs of Joffre 2:621–622).

91. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 114–115.

92. Zaionchkovsky Report, section VI.

93. Ibid., section III.

94. The unit hugging the Danube flank was Colonel Paul Bode’s Brigade, a unit of the German 101st Infantry Division (see von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 288). The brigade came from Thessalonica, where the rest of the division remained (see Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:339).

95. The fighting was hard. Zaion-chonksvsky’s Serbs lost 3,970 killed, wounded, or missing in this set of engagements (Miodrag Milin, in Preda and Prodan, The Romanian Army during the First World War, 108).

96. Ibid.; RGVIA, Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, Zaionchkovsky to King Ferdinand, No. 1350, 22 September 1916; von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 288. The Turks provided the 15th and 25th Divisions, veterans of the Gallipoli Campaign, and formed them into an army corps, the VI, under Brigadier General Mustafa Hilmi (see Edward J. Erikson, Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War [Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001], 142–144).

97. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 288.

98. See Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:31, 339.

99. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 289–290.

100. Zaionchkovsky Report, section VI; Preda and Prodan, The Romanian Army during the First World War, 46–47. The units were sent between 10 and 18 September.

101. Major Rudolf Frantz, the 9th Army’s operation officer, claimed that the Germans orchestrated their attacks to produce exactly this effect (see USAHEC, Rudolf Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania, 1916–1917,” in Der Deutsche Land Krieg, vol. 5, part 2, of Der Grosse Krieg, 1914–1918, ed. Max Schwarte and Wilhelm Dommes, trans. Major Paul Harms, Army War College [Leipzig: Barth, 1923]).

4. CLEARING TRANSYLVANIA

1. Erich von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1916/17 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921) 1:13–14. The headcount for the 9th Army headquarters comes from Austrian transportation records (ÖStA, AK1/k4, AOK I 30.452, 14 September1916). See also Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918 (New York: Harper, 1919), 1:331; Ernst Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 (Berlin: O. Schlegel [c. 1938]), 17–19, 186–188; Hans von Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, General der Infanterie: Eine biographische Studie (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1926), 228–229.

2. Von Engelbrecht left a small memoir of his duty, which appears in Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, 336–337, as “Vom Leben im Stabe des AOK 9.”

3. Cited in Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 186.

4. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:14–15.

5. The casualty figures vary. Timothy Dowling cites 1.5 million casualties for Germany and Austria-Hungary, of whom 400,000 were captured, by the time the offensive ran its course in November 1916 (The Brusilov Offensive [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008], 167–168).

6. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:30–31.

7. ÖStA, AK1/k4, AOK No. 30.740 II to 1AOK, 9AOK, OHL, 19 September 1916. This seems to be the actual mission statement for the 9th Army. There is an earlier order for this, AOK 30.483, undated, in AOK OOK, Ru Gruppe, Karton 550. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1: 30–31; Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges 1914–1918 (Graz, Austria: Akad. Druck- u. Verlagsanst., 1969), 114–115.

8. ÖStA, AK1/k13, “Intelligence Report, N. Fr. Pr. Berlin,” 11 September 1916. See also chapter 3.

9. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:14–15. See also Engelbrecht, “Vom Leben im Stab des AOK 9,” in Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, 337.

10. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:13–15.

11. ÖStA, AOK, OOK, Ru Gruppe/k 551, Conrad to OHL, AOK 30740, 18 September 1916; Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946) (hereafter RRM), Anexe II, No. 73, AOK, Op. 30438, Hindenburg to von Falkenhayn, 13 September 1916. See also BAMA, PH 5/II 288, OHL Ia No. 34698 Op., Hindenburg to von Falkenhayn, 1st Directive for the 9th Army, 13 September 1916, a slightly different version of the AOK document.

12. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:13–15.

13. Besides the usual artillery and cavalry supporting units, the division also had several cycle companies (see Günther Herbert, Das Alpenkorps: Aufbau, Organisation und Einsatz einer Gebirgstruppe im Ersten Weltkrieg [Boppard am Rhein: Boldt Verlag, 1987], 20–24). Arz had assigned Krafft’s division to the XXXIX Reserve Corps (BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, 3/5, 1st Army, 977/Ia, 11 September 1916).

14. See Roland Kaltenegger, Das Deutsche Alpenkorps im Ersten Weltkrieg: Von den Dolomiten nach Verdun, von den Karpaten zum Isonzo.(Graz-Stuttgart: Leopold Stocker Verlag, 1995), 115–131.

15. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:17. See also BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, 9th Army 12/Ia, 19 September 1916; Alpenkorps 44/IA, 20 September 1916.

16. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:16.

17. BAMA PH 6/II 139 XXXIX RK, 8 September 1916.

18. Gerhard Friedrich Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17,” http://www.deutsche-kriegsgeschichte.de/ir187–1.html. See also BAMA PH 6/II 139 XXXIX RK, Op. 800/41, 8 September 1916; ÖStA, AK1/k4, conversation between Colonel Huber (1st Army) and Captain Merkl, XXXIX RK, no date. The 187th Division’s three infantry regiments were the 187th, 188th, and 189th; the artillery regiment was the 6th Field Artillery.

19. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entries on 15–17 September 1916, 11–13. See also Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

20. Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17”; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:20; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 74, 187th ID, Op. 82, 13 September, 1916, 84–85; No. 75, 11th Rom. ID, Op. 22, 14 September, 86–87; No. 88, HQ 1st Rom. Army to GHQ, Situation Report, No.136, 18 September 1916, 96–97. The Romanians relieved Muica, replacing him with General Cocorascu (see Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:239–240.

21. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:21.

22. Ibid., 1:22.

23. Fritz Ortlepp, “Die Kämpfe bei Hermannstadt,” Wissen und Wehr 3 (1930): 177. A Romanian source, Alexandru Babos (in Dumitru Preda and Costica Prodan, eds., The Romanian Army during the First World War [Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 1998], claims that the 9th Army outnumbered Popovici’s force at a ratio of 1.7 to one, but this assessment is based on counting divisions. In reality, the Central Power divisions were under-strength and outnumbered, while the Romanian divisions were both larger and at full strength.

24. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:23–24.

25. ÖStA, AOK, OOK, Ru Gruppe/k 551, 9AOK I a 10 Op., 19 September 1916; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 34, Akt. 1, 20 September 1916.

26. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 34, Akt. 1, 9AOK, Ia/32, 20 September 1916. See also RRM, Anexe 2, No. 99, AOK 30740, Op. I, 19 September 1916, 113–115 for the assembly of forces, and No. 104, 9AOK, I.a. Op. 36, 21 September 1916, 117.

27. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:29–30; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 103, 9AOK Ia Op. 22, to OHL/AOK, 20 September 1916, 116–117.

28. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:24–25.

29. Ibid., 1:29–30.

30. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 89, 11th Division, Order 423, 6 September 1916, 97–100.

31. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entries 19–20 September 1916. See also Karl Paulus, Das königlich bayerische Jäger-Regiment Nr.1 im Weltkrieg (Munich: Verlag Bayerisches Kriegsarchiv, 1925), 176–184. Paulus was the regimental commander of the Bavarian Jägers.

32. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:33–34.

33. Ibid. The offending directive seems to be AOK 30740 Op. I, to 1st and 9th Armies, 19 September, in RRM, Anexe 2, No. 99, 113–115. A slightly different version, AOK 30740/II, dated 20 September, is in BAMA PH 5/II 288.

34. BAMA, PH 5/II 288, 9AOK KTB, 3.

35. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 106, 9AOK Ia. Op. 41, 21 September 1916, 119–120; No. 107, 9AOK, Ia Op. 71, 22 September 1916, 120–121; No. 108, 9AOK, Ia 97 Op., 24 September 1916, 121; No. 109, 9AOK Ia Op. 79, 23 September 1916, 122.; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, 9AOK, Ia Op. 108, 25 September 1916.

36. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:36.

37. Ion Culcer, Note si cugetari asupra Campaniei din 1916, in special asupra operatiunilor Armatei I-a (Iasi, Romania: Tipografia ziarului “Tribuna,” 1919), 88–89.

38. RRM, Anexe 1, No. 172, HQ 1st Army, Opord #1, 7 September 1916, 342–342; No. 195, HQ 1st Army, Opord #2, 11 September 1916, 363–366.

39. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 126, Ion Popovici, “Memoir Concerning the Command of the 1st Army Corps in the Operations in the Olt [Region],” 5 October 1916, 133–135.

40. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, Gruppe Krafft Ia/1021, 22 September 1916.

41. Christian M. Ortner, “Austrian Troops for Mountain Warfare,” in The Austrian Mountain Troops: History, Uniforms and Equipment of the Austrian Mountain Troops from 1906 to 1918, ed. Hermann Hinterstoisser et al., trans. Ian Mansfield (Vienna: Verlag Militariia, 2006), 23–26.

42. H., “Die Verteidigung des Monte Robu,” in Wilhelm-Carl Maxon, ed., Die “Leiber” im Weltkrieg: Erinnergungen aus den Kämpfen der Bayer; Infanterie – Leib-Regiments seit Anfang des Krieges bis Sommer 1918; Geschrieben von Angehörigen des Regiments (Munich: Verlag der Archiv-Kommission des Bayer. Infanterie-Leib-Regiements, 1918), 146.

43. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entry for 24 September, Anl. 88.

44. Ibid., 22–25 September 1916, 17–20; Kaltenegger, Das Deutsche Alpenkorps im Ersten Weltkrieg, 135–137. Even the supernationalist Romanian historian Kiritescu admitted the crossing of the Cibini Mountains under combat conditions was a tour de force that only an elite unit could accomplish (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:265–266).

45. Culcer, Note si cugetari asupra Campaniei din 1916, 100; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 123, 23rd Infantry Division No.482, 23 September 1916, 132.

46. RRM, Annex 2, No. 117, 13th Division, Opord 10, 21 September 1916, 126–128.

47. See ibid., No. 118, situation report 7, 26th Infantry Brigade, 22 September, 128, and BAMA, PH 6/IV Kavallerie Korps Schmettow, situation report, 22 September 1916. See also Walter Vogel, “Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch,” in Der grosse Krieg in Einzeldarstellungen. Im Auftrage des Generalstabes des Heeres, no. 33 (Oldenburg, Germany: Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1918), 24.

48. ÖStA, AK1/k4, 1AOK, Op. 1478 to IRK, 24 September 1916.

49. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 126, Popovici, “Memoir,” 136–137; BAMA, PH 5/II 288, 9AOK KTB, 22 September 1916, 6–8. von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:37–39, 43–44; ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Rudolf Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916 von Ausbruch des rumänischen Krieges bis zur Befreiung Siebenbürgens” (n.d.), 38–43.

50. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 161, 1st Army No. 185 to Romanian Army HQ, 23 September, 167.

51. Ibid., No. 127, Lupescu to General Popovici, 25 September 1916, 144–145. For Popovici, see his “Memoir,” in RRM, Anexe 2, No. 126, 138–139; Culcer, Note si cugetari asupra Campaniei din 1916, 101–103.

52. See the account in Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

53. BAMA, PH 5/II 285, 9AOK KTB, 26 September 1916, 13–14. Orders for the attack on the 27th repeat the thrust of previous orders: drive on! See PH 5/II 289, 9AOK, Ia 134 Op., 26 September 1916, 2200 hours. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:54.

54. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:54.

55. Ibid., 1:50–51; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 126, Popovici, “Memoir,” 139–143.

56. Quoted in Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, 327. The aphorism comes from Sextus Aurelius Propertius (50–45 BC-15 AD). See also BAMA, PH 5/II 285, 9AOK KTB, 27 September 1916.

57. Ortlepp, “Die Kämpfe bei Hermannstadt,” 178.

58. Ibid., 178–179. A company commander’s account appears in L. v. B., “Caineni. 26. und 27. September 1916,” in Maxon, Die “Leiber” im Weltkrieg, 153–58.

59. Albert Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rümanien: Ein Gedenkwerk für rümanische Kriegsteilnehmer (Munich: A. Reich, 1917), 15–22.

60. Quoted in Martin Breitenacher, Das Alpenkorps, 1914–1918.(Berlin: Vorhut Verlag O. Schlegel, 1939), 99. Breitenacher was a member of the Guards.

61. Ortlepp, “Die Kämpfe bei Hermannstadt,” 181; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:52; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 154, 1st Army, No.. 242 to 2nd Army, 27 September 1916, 163.

62. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 155, I Army Corps, No. 942, 27 September 1916, “Operation Order for 28 September,” 164; No. 165, phone conversation Lupescu-Rosetti, 26 September 1916, 170–171; No. 167, 1st Army to Romanian Army HQ, No. 244, 27 September 1916, 171; No. 168, Romanian Army HQ No. 1217, 27 September 1916, 172; No. 150, Romanian Army HQ No. 1222, 27 September 1916, 161; No. 151, I Corps to 2nd Army, No. 3, 27 September 1916, 162; No. 153, 1st Army to Romanian Army HQ, No. 250, 27 September 1916, 163; No. 169, 2nd Army to Olt [I Corps] Corps, No. 313, 27 September 1916, 172; No. 173, 2nd Army No. 317, 27 September 1916, 173–174; No. 180, letter Popovici to General Crainiceanu, 27 September 1916, 179–180.

63. Ibid., No. 209, Romanian Army HQ to 2nd Army, No. 1296, 29 September 1916, 210.

64. Ortlepp, “Die Kämpfe bei Hermannstadt,” 183. Also BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 28 September 1916.

65. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:54–59, 60–61; ÖStA, MS-WK/Ru/1, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916,” 45–46.

66. Kiritescu claimed that Popovici lost his head and told Culcer he had been betrayed by spies, and that the entire civilian population should be hanged (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:270).

67. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 160, 1st Army Corps, “Order No. 26, for 23rd Infantry Division,” 28 September, 167–168.

68. Ibid., No. 126, Popovici, “Memoir,” 139–142; Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 65–68; Breitenacher, Das Alpenkorps, 103–106; Alexandru Marghiloman, Note Politice (Bucharest: Machiavelli, 1994), 2:37.

69. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 29 September 1916; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 34, Akt. 1, Kriegszeitung der 9th Armee, vol. 1, No. 2, 30 September 1916.

70. Quoted in Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

71. The two battalions were the 1st Bavarian Jäger and II/187 Infantry Regiment. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 34, Akt. 1, 9AOK, Ia/32, 20 September 1916; liaison officer report, 22 September 1916; 9AOK Ia/239, 23 September 1916. A stirring, firsthand account of the climb to the Vulkan Pass and the assault on the 22nd is in Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.” Von Falkenhayn had wanted to move these two battalions to Sibiu after taking the Vulkan Pass, but Sunkel had told him it was out of the question (see von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:37–39).

72. Von Falkenhayn to Conrad, ÖStA, AOK, OOK Ru Gruppe k/552, AOK, Op. 31142 and 9AOK Ia 121, 26 September.

73. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 3 October, 14–17; PH 5/II 543, AOK 9 Id 118 Op., 27 September 1916; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:37–39, 43–44, 68–69; Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17”; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:243.

74. Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/1.”

75. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:276–277.

76. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 187, North Army Op. Order 12, 27 September 1916, 181–182; No. 189, 8th Division No. 16, 27 September 1916, 185–188; No. 190, 8th Division No. 17, 28 September 1916, 188–191; No. 191, 7th Division, “Assembly Order 112,” 27 September 1916, 192; No. 192, 7th Division, “Operation Order 13,” 27 September 1916, 193–194; No. 194, 2nd Cavalry Regiment No. 8, 29 September 1916, 195–196.

77. Ibid., No. 170, 2nd Army Order No. 314, 27 September 1916, 172; ÖStA, AK1/ k4, IRK, 1836, 29 September 1916.

78. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:62–63; ÖStA, AK1/k4, 9AOK Ia 163 Op., 28 September 1916; AOK to 9AOK, Op. 1616, 28 September 1916; AOK to 9AOK, Op. 1637, 29 September 1916; 9AOK to 1AOK, 183 Op. 183, 29 September 1916; MS-WK/Ru/1, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916,” 53–54.

79. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, chapter 1.

80. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, Ia 177 Op. to Hindenburg, 29 September 1916; Ia 180 Op., 29 September 1916.

81. Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 71–73.

82. Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17”; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:70–72. BAMA PH 6/II 140 XXXIX RK, a 3/30, 1 October 1916; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 238, 9AOK, I/258 Op. I/258, 3 October 1916, 238.

83. Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, 238–239.

84. ÖStA, AK1/k4, 9AOK to 1AOK, Nr. Ia 200 Op., 30 September 1916; IRK 871 to 1AOK, 30 September 1916; 1AOK to AOK, Op. 1665, 30 September 1916; AOK to 1AOK, Op. 31.345, 30 September 1916; Huber-von Hahnke conversation, 1AOK to 9AOK, Op. 167, 30 September 1916; AOK to 1AOK, Op. 31.401, 30 September 1916. See also Arz, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges, 116; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:62–63, 70–72.

85. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 224, Army General Headquarters to 2nd Army, No. 1342, 30 September 1916, 217; No. 233, 2nd Army to General Headquarters, report no. 371, 1 October 1916, 222; No. 234, Army General Headquarters to 2nd Army, No. 1366, 1 October 1916, 223. See von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:74–75, for his assessment.

86. ÖStA, VIAK/k710, IRK, Op. 922, 2 October 1916. 1AOK, Op. 964, 10 October, reported casualties of 23 officers and 855 soldiers in this battle. See also Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 71–72; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 2 October 1916, 13–14.

87. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 213, 2nd Army No. 7, 29 September 1916, 211–212; No. 205, 7th Division No. 97, 1 October 1916, 206; No. 214, II Army Corps, No. 10, 29 September 1916, 212; ÖStA, MS-WK/Ru/1, Kiszling, “Die Operationen der k.u.k. 1. Armee 1916,” 59.

88. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 2 and 3 October 1916, 13–17; Kurt von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 106–109. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:73–74.

89. ÖStA, AOK, OOK Ru Gruppe k/552, AOK, Op. 31344/III, 4 October 1916. Arz was probably not upset at the transfer of his stormy petrel to von Falkenhayn. For Arz’s letter of appreciation and thanks to von Morgen, see AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 1807, 5 October 1916.

90. Ibid., AK1/k5, 9AOK Ia 378, 4 October 1916; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 5 October 1916, 18–20.

91. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:80–81. The orders are in BAMA, PH 5/ II 288, 9AOK Ia 302 to 1AOK, 5 October 1916; ÖStA, AFK1/k115, 9AOK Ia 301 [5–6] October 1916. See also 1AOK, Op. 1821, 6 October 1916, and 9AOK Ia 331, Op., 8 October 1916.

92. BAMA PH 6/II 140, XXXIX RK, Ia No. 3/5, 5 October 1916; PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 5 October 1916, 18–20; ÖStA, AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 1843, 6 October 1916; Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 125; Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 103–104.

93. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:80–81. See also Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 75–77.

94. Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rümanien, 19–20. Breitenacher puts the number killed at twenty-four, with seven wounded (see Das Alpenkorps, 98).

95. Marghiloman, Note Politice, 2:40. The general headquarters sent several officers to the units in the passes leading south from Brasov to prevent them from fleeing. It is not certain what was said or done, but Rosetti deemed the effort a success (see Marturisiri, 125).

96. The order for the advance on 6 October is in BAMA, PH 5/II 289, 9AOK, 5 October 1916.

97. BAMA, PH 5/II 289, XXXIX RK Ia 1/6, 6 October 1916; Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17”; Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 77–78; Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch, 48.

98. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 6 October 1916.

99. Stirbey (1873–1946), administrator of the royal domains, and the queen were lovers, and he probably fathered Prince Mircea, her last child. The queen and her children stayed at his estate in Buftea during the war until Bucharest was evacuated. He was prime minister in 1927.

100. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 125–126.

101. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 332, Romanian General Headquarters No. 1616, through General Coanda to Stavka, 7 October 1916, 319.

102. Ibid., No. 333, Romanian General Headquarters No. 71, through General Coanda to Stavka, 8 October 1916, 320. See also Doc. 336, Romanian General Headquarters No. 1803, through General Coanda to Stavka, 10 October 1916, 332–323.

103. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 339, Stavka, Alekseyev to Romanian General Headquarters, No. 5260, 11 October 1916, 324–325. See also No. 338, Stavka, Alekseyev to Romanian General Headquarters, No. 5256, 11 October 1916, 323–324.

104. Ibid., No. 341, Bratianu to Coanda, 13 October 1916, 325–326. Coanda managed a private audience with the tsar a day later, but he downplayed the dangers, saying the Romanians should have “confidence in everything that General Alexseyev advised [us] to do” (No. 343, Coanda to Bratianu, No. 71, 14 October 1916, 326–327).

105. ÖStA, AK1/k5, 9AOK Ia 316, 6 October 1916.

106. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 7 October 1916, 21–23; PH 5/II 289, 9AOK orders, Ia 327 Op., 7 October 1916.

107. Ibid., PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 8 October 1916, 23; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 26.

108. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:95. See also BAMA PH 6/II 140, XXXIX RK Ia 1/8, 1a/9, 8 and 9 October 1916; Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

109. Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

110. Ibid.

111. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 9 October 1916, 24–27.

112. Ibid., Ia 392 Op., 10 October 1916. The full text is quoted in Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch, 60–61.

113. BAMA, PH 5/II 288, 9AOK Ia 302 to 1AOK, 5 October 1916; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919; ÖStA, 1AOK operation orders 1922/I and II, 9 October 1916; AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 1925, 10 October 1916.

114. ÖStA, VIAK KTB, 11 October 1916: VIAK Op. 1011/18, 11 October 1916.

115. Ibid., 11 October 1916, KK Schmettow, reinforced by 71 ITD, to advance on Ocna; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 9 October 1916; PH 6/II 140, XXXIX RK Ia 3/9, 10 October 1916; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1:94–96; von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe, 110–111.

116. BAMA PH 6/II 140, XXXIX RK Ia 3/12, 13 October 1916.

117. Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rümanien, 23–28; Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17.”

5. THE SECOND DOBROGEA CAMPAIGN

1. August von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1938), 291–292.

2. Alexandru Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda (Bucharest: Cultura Nationala, n.d.), 8–13, 24–25. Averescu developed this theme in a memorandum presented to the monarch on 11 September, reproduced as appendix 2 in his book, 119–123. See also Oskar Regele, Kampf um die Donau: Betrachtung der Flussübergänge bei Flamanda und Sistow (Potsdam: L. Voggenreiter, 1940), 59–61.

3. Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 113–115. On 9 September King Ferdinand sent Rosetti and another officer to Zaionchkovsky, imploring him in the king’s name to step up his action against the Bulgarians.

4. Ibid., 102.

5. Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda, 24–26. He had explained these concepts to the king in two memoranda, dated 10 September and 11 September 1916, which are reproduced as appendices 1 and 2 in his book. See also Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:356–357.

6. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 116. For Rascanu’s plan, see Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946 (hereafter RRM), Anexe 2, No. 1, “Memoir Concerning the War Situation and the Dispositions That Are Supposed to Be Taken on the 15th of September 1916,” n.d. [13 September 1916 is probably when this memoir was composed], 3–6.

7. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 116. See also Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda, 24–26.

8. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:366.

9. Quoted in ibid., 1:367.

10. Ibid., 1:367–368; Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 63–64, 67–68.

11. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 62–63. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 12, “Group of Southern Armies Operations Order No. 168,” 30 September 1916, 23–25; No. 13, “V Army Corps Operations Order 1,” 29 September 1916, 25–27.

12. ÖStA, AOK, OOK, Ru Gruppe/k 550, “Reconnaissance Report of Romanian Fortification on the North Side of the Danube, Col. v. Brosch,” 20 June 1916. Compare Brosch’s report with that from the Austrian military attaché in Bucharest, in Evidenz Bureau, file DF 3–800, B 150/1, mid-December 1915-mid February 1916; Olaf Richard Wulff, Österreich-Ungarns Donauflottille in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1917 (Vienna: L. W. Seidel, 1918), 168; Heinz Steinrück, “Das österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege,” Militärwissenschaftliche und technische Miteilungen, 1–2 1928): 56.

13. ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Rudolf Kiszling, “Darstellung der Teilnahme der dem Oberkommando Mackensen unterstellten k.u.k. Truppen und der Donauaflotilla am Feldzüge in der Dobrudscha, Donauübergang bei Sistov und Vormarsche nach Bukarest,” n.d., 4–5.

14. The Danube Flotilla in the Romanian Campaign consisted of nine monitors, twelve patrol boats, several minesweepers and mine layers, and nine assorted logistical vessels (see Wulff, Österreich-Ungarns Donauflottille in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1917, 11–12). For a list of the vessels and armaments, see ibid., 260–261. All Austro-Hungarian monitors were named after rivers within the Dual Monarchy (Anthony E. Sokol, The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy [Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1968] 151–157). See also Steinrück, “Das österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege,” 11–18.

15. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 68, 71; Fritz Ortlepp, “Der. Rum. Donaübergang bei Flamanda-Rahova,” Wissen und Wehr 10 (1930): 587–589.

16. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 71; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 123.

17. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 71–72. Glenn E. Torry says that Averescu’s paranoia about security led to the king’s waiving the requirement that his operation plan for the crossing be reviewed by the general headquarters – “a step that might have corrected some of its faults” (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I [Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011], 82). Given Averescu’s prickly personality and sensitivity, it is hard to imagine his agreeing to any staff officer’s suggestions.

18. Before 1914 the army corps was the largest peacetime formation of the various German states. As the war progressed, the Germans created several General Commands for Special Purposes (General Kommando zur besonderer Verwendung), which were corps-level commands with staffs but no subordinate units, employed where additional command and control headquarters were needed. The name general command was probably adopted because an army corps had a defined territorial recruiting area, which the general command did not. At the front, however, for all intents and purposes, there was no difference between the general command and the army corps, given the German practice of moving divisions and subordinate units from corps to corps as needed. To minimize confusion, the term army corps is used for both formations.

19. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 77–78.

20. Ibid.; Ortlepp, “Der. Rum. Donaübergang bei Flamanda-Rahova,” 584; Ernst Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 (Berlin: O. Schlegel [c. 1938]), 126–128; RRM, Anexe 2, No. 12, “Group of Southern Armies No. 168, Operation Order,” 30 September 1916, 17–25.

21. The Romanians crossed in four locations, with the largest crossing of three army corps led by then Crown Prince Ferdinand at Corabia (see Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 35–36).

22. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September-9 October 1916, 5–6. The aircraft came from the 1st Fighter Squadraon and there were plenty of them: twenty-four (see von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 289–292).

23. The Romanian official history, RRM, says that the 3rd Army (3rd Aviation Group Bucharest) had four Nieuports, seven Farmans, and one Caudron (see vol. 1, Appendix 27). Regele claims the Romanians sent nine of their own aircraft to Flamanda, but two crashed on landing (Kampf um die Donau, 67). Five Russian planes came later but did not arrive until the 3rd, far too late to influence anything.

24. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 19, “Commander 3rd Army to Commander, Group of Southern Armies,” 1 October 1916, 38–39; No. 21, “V Army Corps to 3rd Army, Op. 347,” 2 October 1916, 39–40; Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 77–78.

25. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September-9 October 1916, 5.

26. Ibid., 6–7.

27. ÖStA, MS1/Wk Ru 1916/1–9, Kiszling, “Darstellung der Teilnahme der dem Oberkommando Mackensen unterstellten k.u.k. Truppen und der Donauaflotilla am Feldzüge in der Dobrudscha,” 8.

28. See ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September-9 October 1916, 7; Kiritescu, Istoria raz-boiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:369; and RRM, Anexe 2, No. “Vth Army Corps, Op. 347,” 2 October 1916, 39–40.

29. Quoted in Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda, 94. See also Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:369.

30. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:371; Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 78–80, 84–85.

31. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September-9 October 1916, 8–9; Ortlepp, “Der. Rum. Donaübergang bei Flamanda-Rahova,” 589–590.

32. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 78–80.

33. Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda, 95–96.

34. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September-9 October 1916, 9–10. For the Romanian perspective, see Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:371–372.

35. RGVIA, Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 516, Zaionchkovsky Report, “The Dobrogea: August-October, 2 November 1916” [hereafter Zaionchkovsky Report]. The report on the 61st Division is in Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, “Telegram from Zaionchkovsky to the Southwest Front and Stavka, No. 1360,” 4 October 1916. An unusually frank review written by Zaionchkovsky about the performance of each of his subordinate generals can be seen in Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 108, Order 1423.

36. Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 84–85.

37. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 122.

38. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 23, “Group of Southern Armies No. 7 to 3rd Army,” 2 October 1916, 41; No. 24, “3rd Army No. 9, to V Army Corps,” 2 October 1916, 42; No. 25, “21st Division to 34th Brigade,” 2 October 1916, 42–43; Averescu, Operatile dela Flamanda, 96–97.

39. RRM, Anexe 2, No. 30, “Romanian General Headquarters No. 1453 to Group of Southern Armies 3 October 1916, 46.

40. Ibid., Nos. 33–35, “3rd Army to V Army Corps, Orders 560, 11, and 12,” 3 October 1916, 47–49; No. 65, “Group of Southern Armies to Dobrogea Army, No. 283,” 6 October 1916, 75; No. 66, “Army General Headquarters to Army of the Dobrogea, No. 1694,” 8 October 1916, 75.

41. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September–9 October 1916, 11–14; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:373.

42. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29.9–9.10.1916, 14.

43. Ibid., 15.

44. ÖStA, DF, KuK DF Kommando, Res. 1416, “Combat Report,” 29 September–9 October 1916, 19–25. See also KuK DF Kommando, II Monitor Group to k.u.k Donauflotilla Commander, Combat Report, Res. 21 Op., 9 October 1916. This report has, as enclosures, Monitor Group II’s operations order for the undertaking, along with a map. For an eyewitness, dramatic account of the storming of the island, see Oskar Regele, “Aus des Kriegestagebuch einer Österreich-ungarischen Pionier-Feld-Kompanie,” in Im Felde Unbesiegt, Erlebnisse im Weltkrieg erzählt von Mitkämpfern, ed. Gustav von Dickhuth-Harrach (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1922), 2:170–171. Regele’s later book on the topic, Kampf um die Donau, likewise has a good if brief account of the operation (87–89). For photographs of captured soldiers and materiel, see Wulff, Österreich-Ungarns Donauflottille in den Kriegsjahren 1914–1917, 206–208.

45. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 289.

46. Ibid., 291–292.

47. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:373–374.

48. See Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, vol. 11 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1938), 31, 212–213.

49. In actuality, the Romanians took only two of their divisions, the 12th and 15th. RGVIA, Fond 2270, Inventory 1, Case 3, Zaionchkovsky No. 1456, to King Ferdinand, Stavka and Commander-in-Chief, Southwestern Front.

50. Zaionchkovsky Report, 9. Alexseyev dispatched the 4th Siberian Corps to the Dobrogea and later relented and pressured the Romanians to bring the 3rd Rifle Division back, which they did on 21 October, too late to provide any real help (see RGVIA, 2270/1/3, 69/1/85, General Puistovoitenko (Stavka) to Zaionchkovsky, No. 5441, 20 October 1916; Stavka (Alexseyev) to Zaionchkovsky, No. 5281, 20 October 1916).

51. Ibid., 69/1/85, Stavka (Alexseyev) to Zaionchkovsky, No. 5281, 20 October 1916.

52. Ibid., Stavka to Zaionchkovsky, Nos. 5033, 5262, n.d.

53. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 294.

54. Zaionchkovsky Report; RGVIA, 2270/1/3, 69/1/85, Southwest Front to XLVII Corps, 20 October 1916; Stavka (Alexseyev) to XLVII Corps, Nos. 5053, 5262, and 5281, n.d. [internal evidence indicates these were dated 20 October 1916]; and teletype conference call with Generals Monkevits, Dukhonin and Pus-tovoitenko, 20 October 1916.

55. Zaionchkovsky Report, section 4, “About the Necessity to Organize the Rear”; Rosetti, Marturisiri), 133.

56. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, teletype conversations between Monkevits, Dobrogea Army, and Stavka Deputy Chief of Staff General Pustovoitenko, and a second one adding General Dukhonin, Southwest Front, 20 October 1916.

57. Zaionchkovsky Report.

58. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 294–295.

59. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 31, No. 93, Iliescu to Coanda at Stavka, 23 October 1916, 27–28; part 2, No. 1042, Zaionchkovsky to Ferdinand, 24 October 1916, 367; and No. 1043, “Army of the Dobrogea, No. 1550,” 25 October 1916, 367.

60. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 295.

61. Ibid.

62. The orders are in RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 1047, “Dobrogea Army, No. 1547,” 25 October 1916, 368–370; No. 1050, “Dobrogea Army, No. 3621,” 26 October 1916, 371–372.

63. Zaionchkovsky Report.

64. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 33, No. 98, Iliescu to Coanda and Alexseyev, 25 October 1916, 29; No. 37, No. 105, Coanda to Romanian High Command, 25 October 1916, 32. The Russians had previously offered to transfer Zaionchkovsky, as this document notes that “it is regrettable that General Zaionchkovsky wasn’t replaced when General Alexseyev proposed that.” See also Rosetti, Marturisiri, 142.

65. Quoted in Zaionchkovsky Report.

66. RGVIA, Fond 69, Inventory 1, Case 85, Alexseyev to Zaionchkovsky, Nos. 6626 and 5605, 28 October 1916.

67. Zaionchkovsky Report; Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 108, Telegram 1573, Zaionchkovsky to Stavka, 29 October 1916. The army’s strength did improve daily, as stragglers returned to their units.

68. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 38, “Danube Army Order No. 1,” 30 October 1916, 32–33. In his report to Stavka, Zaionchkovsky said he objected with all his might to Sakharov’s slanderous characterization of his Dobrogea Army. The men, he wrote, had not been “sparing [of] their sweat and blood [to do] the hard work for His Majesty in the Dobrogea. It was painful and undeserving to hear them being accused of retreating as if it were some running sport!” (Zaionchkovsky Report, “Dobrogea, August – October 1916”).

69. RGVIA, Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 108, “Danube Army Order of 7 November”; Operation Order No. 3, 9 November 1916; Danube Army Order No. 9, 13 November 1916.

70. One regiment of the 217th Division remained in the Dobrogea (see von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 295–296).

71. An experienced commander, he came from leading one of the Bulgarian divisions in the German 11th Army at Salonika.

72. USAHEC, Rudolf Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania, 1916–1917,” in Der Deutsche Land Krieg, vol. 5, part 2, of Der Grosse Krieg, 1914–1918, ed. Max Schwarte and Wilhelm Dommes, trans. Major Paul Harms, Army War College (Leipzig: Barth, 1923), 13.

73. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 296. It was common practice in the German and Austrian forces to name regiments after sovereigns or members of reigning families, and if the honoree attended military reviews or other exercises, he or she would customarily wear the dress uniform of that regiment. Less frequent was bestowing the name of a hugely successful commander on a unit.

6. STALEMATE IN THE MOUNTAINS

1. Rudolf Kiszling, “Der Krieg gegen Rumänien 1916,” Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift (1966): 469.

2. The reasoning is in BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 12 October 1916, 30. Hans Meier-Welcker says the OHL reversed itself after sending its railway expert to Transylvania, who agreed with von Falkenhayn (Seeckt [Frankfurt: Bernard und Graefe, 1967], 101–102).

3. Erich von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1916/17 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921), 2:17.

4. Kiszling, “Der Krieg gegen Rumänien 1916,” 469.

5. Paul Ritter von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayr. Infanterie Division: Der Durchbruch durch das Vulkan-Gebirge Ende Oktober 1916 (Munich: [self-published], 1923), 6. Von Kneussl was the division commander.

6. BAMA, PH 5/II 288, Falkenhayn to OHL, 9AOK Ia 433 op, 12. October, ref OHL Ia 4bg op.

7. ÖStA, AOK OOK, Ru Gp 552, German OHL No. 469 secret, ref. AOK No. 32118, von Hindenburg to Conrad, 12 October 1916.

8. ÖStA, AK1/k5, HFEK, Op. 2127, 13 October 1916. The blame for the archduke’s headquarters being kept in the dark probably rests with von Falkenhayn, who often bypassed the Austrians and sent plans and information directly to the German High Command on matters that he thought were “German.”

9. Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946 (hereafter RRM), Anexe 3, part 1, No. 21, 9AOK to Heeresfront Erzherzog Karl, Ref. AOK 32118/I, 13 October 1916, 20.

10. ÖStA, AOK OOK, Conrad to von Hindenburg, AOK no. 32118 op., 13 October 1916. A copy is in RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 22, 13 October 1916, 20–21.

11. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 23, von Hindenburg to Conrad, No. 469 op., 14 October 1916, 21.

12. ÖStA, AOK, OOK RuGp 552, AOK 32534, Archduke Karl to Austrian AOK, report of front visit on the 15th of October to 1st and 9th Armies, 16 October 1916; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 15 October 1916, 34–35. See also Hans von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917 (Leipzig: V. Hase und Koehler, 1938), 480–482; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 100–101.

13. Grigorescu’s slogan is quoted in Glenn E. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 117. See also BAMA, PH 6/IV Kavallerie Korps Schmettow, Situation Reports of 17 and 18 October 1916; Rudolf Kiszling, “Die Rückeroberung der Höhen Runcul mare am 24. und 25. Oktober 1916,” Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Mitteilungen 1926, no. 1: 29–42.

14. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:14–16; BAMA, PH 2/284, 9AOK KTB, entries for 14–16 October 1916, 32–38; Nachlass Morgen, 227/6, 3. The report of the 8th Mounta in Brigade is in ÖStA, MS//WK Ru/S, “Öffnung des Törzburger Passes,” 14–20. See also Rudolf Kiszling, “Angriff und Verteidigung im Gebirge: Die Eröffnung des Törzburger Passes durch die 8. Gebirgsbrigade,” Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Miteilungen, nos. 9–10 (1927): 548–554. An excellent account of the stiff resistance offered by the Romanians, involving hand-to-hand combat and cold steel, is in BKA, 12th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Bd. IV, Akt 8, “Report of the Participation of the 12th Bavarian Infantry Division at Campulung during the Romanian Campaign,” 20 January 1917; Akt 5, II/28th Infantry Regiment, “Combat Action on Height 1358, 21–23 October 1916.” Initially organized for coastal guard duties in Belgium, the 12th Bavarian Division consisted of older men and officers no longer fit for front-line duty. The emergency situation in Romania dictated its employment in that theater. See Konrad Krafft von Dellmensingen, Das Bayernbuch vom Weltkriege 1914–1918 (Stuttgart: C. Belser, 1930), 95. For the Romanian perspective on this action, see Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), vol. 1, chapter 3; Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 132.

15. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entry for 18 October 1916, 49.

16. The mountain brigades had an effective strength of about 5,000 infantrymen each (ÖStA, 73ITD/k3726, 73 ITD, Op. 128/8, 28 October 1916). Various orders for the Mountain Brigades can be seen in RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 351, Alpine Corps 309, 13 October, for 2/10 Mountain Brigades, 302–303, No. 352, Alpine Corps No. 1035, 11 October 1916, “Preparations for Upcoming Operations for 2/10 Mountain Brigades,” 304–306; No. 353, Alpine Corps No. 1038, 14 October 1916, “Instructions for Future Operations, for 2/10 Mountain Brigades,” 306–308.

17. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entries for 16–19 October 1916, 48–49. For a firsthand account, see “v.A,” “Die Kämpfe am Roten Turmpaß vom 5. Oktober bis 12. November 1916,” in Wilhelm-Carl Maxon, ed., Die “Leiber” im Weltkrieg: Erinnergungen aus den Kämpfen der Bayer; Infanterie – Leib-Regiments seit Anfang des Krieges bis Sommer 1918; Geschrieben von Angehörigen des Regiments (Munich: Verlag der Archiv-Kommission des Bayer. Infanterie-Leib-Regiements, 1918), 133.

18. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entry for 20 October 1916. The 10th Brigade’s report for 20 October is in ibid., Bund 35, Akt 1.

19. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:28–30; Kriegsberichte aus dem Großen Hauptquartier (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915–1918), vol. 24, Heft 2, 12–13. Martin Breitenacher provides a gripping firsthand account of the ascent into the mountains, which he said was harder than the crossing of the Cibini Alps to the Red Tower Pass (Das Alpenkorps, 1914–1918 [Berlin: Vorhut Verlag O. Schlegel, 1939], 108–110). See also R. v. Pr., “Zwei Stellungstage auf dem Moscovul,” in Maxon, Die “Leiber” im Weltkrieg, 168–70.

20. BAMA, PH 2/II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 19 October 1916, 41–44.

21. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entries for 23–28 October 1916, 56–60. See also Bund 35, Akt 1, Alpenkorps IA update, 23 October 1916; No. 489/Ia on 24 October 1916; entry for 28 October 1916. The Germans claimed that at Zanoaga they captured fifteen officers, including two battalion commanders; 400 soldiers; and three machine guns. Operations orders for taking the mountain fortifications are in ÖStA, 73ITD/k3726, No. Ia 470, 23 October 1916; Ia 489, 24 October 1916. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, entries for 2–7 November, 67–71.

22. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 611, 23 Infanterie Division to 1st Army, No. 123, 4, 29 October 1916.

23. Quoted in BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, entry for 7 November 1916, 71 See also ibid., special report on the death of Prince Heinrich, 1350/Ia, 13 November 1916; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:38. See also G. v. P., “Der Heldentod des Prinzen Heinrich von Bayern,” in Maxon, Die “Leiber” im Weltkrieg, 141–45. The Germans expected senior leaders to be near the front. Three days before Prince Hein-rich’s death, Romanian artillery killed Major Veit, the commander of Reserve Infantry Regiment 18 (see BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, entry for 4 November 1916).

24. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:28–30; Breitenacher, Das Alpenkorps, 124–125; Kriegsberichte aus dem Großen Hauptquartier, vol. 24, Heft 2, 13–15.

25. ÖStA, 73ITD/k3726, Alpenkorps Opord Ia 427, 22 October 1916; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, Korpsbefehl, 421/Ia, 22 October 1916. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:28–30.

26. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entry for 22 October 1916 and Order 419/ Ia, 21 October 1916, 54; RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 567, 469, Group Krafft, 22 October, Operation order for 73rd Infantry Division and Group Krafft, 468.

27. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, Korpsbefehl, 723/Ia, 7 November 1916; entries for 8, 9, 11 November 1916, 72–74.

28. Ibid., 823/Ia, 13 November 1916; entries for 13, 14, 16 November 1916, 77–80.

29. Quoted in Charles, comte de Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 347. See also Rosetti, Marturisiri, 133–134; Viktor Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918 (Paris: Payot, 1932), 26–28. Pétin, then a colonel, was the chief of staff of Berthelot’s mission. Berthelot’s accounts do not mention the offer; he describes a strained luncheon at Peris, during which Bratianu railed against Sarrail’s inactivity and Iliescu looked uncomfortable. See Henri-Mathias Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania: Mémoires et correspondence 1916–1919, ed. Glenn Torrey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 7–8, and his La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe: édition critique des rapports du général Berthelot, chef de la Mission militaire française en Roumanie, 1916–1918, ed. Jean-Noël Grandhomme, Michel Roucaud, and Thierry Sarmant (Paris: Harmattan, 2000), 82.

30. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 133; Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, xiv–xv.

31. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 132.

32. The appointment of General Otto Liman von Sanders as the head of a German military training mission in Turkey in 1913 led to a diplomatic confrontation between Russia and Germany. See Ulrich Trumpener, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914–1918 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968); Frank G. Weber, Eagles on the Crescent: Germany, Austria and the Diplomacy of the Turkish Alliance, 1914–1918 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970).

33. A division was a token, but the difficulty of sending one from Russia underscored the seriousness of the tsarist government. Without any direct overland connection, the division had to travel from Archangel to Greece via the North Cape, the Atlantic, the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean Sea.

34. Alan W. Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), 93–95. In August 1916 France had suggested to Russia that in the postwar settlements, the treaties with Romania could be honored as the “situation permitted” (Sherman David Spector, Rumania at the Paris Peace Conference: A Study of the Diplomacy of loan I. C. Bratianu [New York: Bookman, 1962], 34–37).

35. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 133.

36. E. L. Spears, Liaison, 1914: A Narrative of the Great Retreat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1931), 30.

37. Quoted in Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate, 347.

38. Quoted in Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 4.

39. Quoted in ibid., 5. See also Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918, 21–23; Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate, 350.

40. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 10; Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918, 32. Berthelot claimed he convinced King Ferdinand on the 20th to divide the 14th Division (with twenty-four battalions) into two divisions, the nucleus of a reserve force (La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 84).

41. Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 82–83, 88–89; Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918, 30.

42. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 11. Averescu’s diary merely says the two agreed on the necessity of reorganizing the forces and building a reserve. See Alexandru Averescu, Notite Zilnice din Razbou, 1916–1918 (Bucharest: Cultura Nationala, 1935), 54.

43. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 96–98.

44. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 12–13.

45. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, entries for 7–14 October 1916, 1–14.

46. The division’s casualties at Verdun were 113 officers and 7,000 soldiers. See Hanns Möller-Witten, Geschichte der Ritter des Ordens “Pour le Mérite” im Weltkrieg (Berlin: Bernard u. Graefe, 1935): 1:593–595.

47. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 9. Von Kneussl’s order of battle included the 11th Bavarian Division, the German 6th Cavalry Division and 301st Division (Busse), the Austrian 144th Mountain Brigade with the German 4th and 5th Bicycle Battalions, and a variety of artillery units (BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 4, “Order of Battle for the Period 11 October 1916 to 10 January 1917”).

48. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 7. Von Falkenhayn’s plan can be seen in BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, 9AOK, 476 Op., 13 October 1916. A summary of von Kneussl’s response is in ibid., 15–17, 14 October 1916, and his original report to the 9th Army is in ibid., Akt. 4, “Concept of the Operation,” 666/Ia, 15 October 1916.

49. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 8.

50. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3 (summary); Akt 4, Order No. 1, 681/Ia, 15 October 1916; Order No. 2, 686/Ia, 18 October 1916.

51. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 10–12. See BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, Akt. 4, 687/Ia to 9th Army, 25–26. The 301st Division operations order is in ibid., Akt 2, 301st Infanterie Division, 417/Ia, 10 [sic] October 1916. See also BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 19 October 1916, 41.

52. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, 20 October 1916, 25–28. The 9th Army order moving the 13th Infantry Regiment is in ibid., Akt 2, 9AOK, Ia/ 601, 20 October 1916. See also von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 4, 13.

53. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 71, Karl to Conrad, AOK, 32544 Op., 19 October 1916, 60–61.

54. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:22–25.

55. In fact, the 6th Cavalry Division received only forty teams of oxen and one winch. See von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 15–16; BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, 21 October 1916; BAMA, PH 5/ II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 21 October 1916, 46. The division’s report of the action is in BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, 20, Akt 3, 6th Cavalry Division Ia No. 37, 3 November 1916. A time table is in ibid., Ia 89, 13 November 1916.

56. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 19 October 1916, 41.

57. Gerhard Friedrich Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17,” http://www.deutsche-kriegsgeschichte.de/ir187–1.html.

58. RRM, Anexe 3, No. 71, Archduke Karl to Conrad, AOK, 32544 Op., 19 October 1916, 60–61.

59. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:432.

60. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 343, General Headquarters to 1st Army, 19 October 1916, 296; No. 339, 1st Army No. 547 to 11th Division, 293–294. Anastasiu’s Jiu detachment apparently had nine infantry battalions, three 75mm batteries, and one 105mm howitzer battery (ibid., No. 471, Op. Order 5 of 1st Army, 24 October 1916, 398–399).

61. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, entries for 20 October 1916, 28–20, and 22 October 1916. The 9th Army had also ordered Szivo’s group to conduct as much activity as possible (BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 22 October 1916, 57).

62. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt. 4, Order No. 4, 695/Ia, 20 October 1916. Busse’s operations order is in RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 427, Group Busse, 301 Infanterie Division No. 468, 21 October 1916, 373–374.

63. The Romanians reported their first contact at 0630 hours. See RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 428, West Sector, to 11th Division, No 262, 23 October 1916, 373–374; No. 429, 11th Division to 1st Army, No. 364, 23 October 1916, 375.

64. Ibid., No. 434, 11th Division, No. 371, to 1st Army, 23 October 1916, 377; No. 435, 1st Army, No. 661, to General Headquarters, 1445 hours, 23 October 1916, 378; No. 437, 1st Army Report 6, 2035 hours, 23 October 1916, 380–381. Kiritescu says Culcer wanted to abandon Oltenia and move to the Olt River line (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:434–435).

65. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 142. The relief order and Dragalina’s assumption of command are in RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 465, General Headquarters No. 2262, 24 October 1916; No. 466, 1st Army Order of the Day No. 35, 24 October 1916, 396–397, respectively.

66. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 479, phone conversation between Colonel Rascanu at General Headquarters, 1630 hours, and Lt. Col. Gavanescu, Chief of Staff, 1st Army, 26 October 1916, 404. The assumption of command order is ibid., No. 493, Headquarters 1st Army, No. 3754, 26 October 1916, to General Headquarters, 415. See also Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 97, and General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 12. Petala started the war as the commander of the 34th Infantry Brigade, successfully leading the retreat back across the pontoon bridge during the Flamanda crossing. From there he went to the 9th Division and then to the I Corps.

67. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Akt. 2, the 9th Army, Ia/726 October 1916; von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 33.

68. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Akt. 2, reconnaissance request, 25 October 1916. Szivo had been ordered to attack to draw off Romanian units facing von Kneussl, but he failed to move until the 28th, and some of the Romanian units at Orosva were transferred to the Jiu Valley, where they helped to stop von Kneussl (von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:27–28).

69. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 478; 1st Army to 1 Corps, No. 707, 25 October 1916, 403; No. 505, 1st Division, No. 25A, 27 October 1916, 0100 hours, 420–421.

70. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 20–29; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:24–25; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania (1916–1917),” translated in the office of the U.S. Military Attaché, Berlin, February 1923, 3.

71. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 31. Subsequent investigations revealed that the 6th Cavalry Division had transported thirty-seven baggage wagons over the mountains on the 25th and more than fifty on the 26th. One regiment accounted for thirty-eight wagons. For the 6th Cavalry Division’s report of the action, see BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Akt 2, 6th Cavalry Division Ia No. 37, 3 November 1916, 20.

72. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 507; No. 47, Detachment Lt. Col. Dejoianu’s Operation Order, 1200 AM, 27 October 1916, 422–423; No. 511, “Report Concerning the Battle from 27th of October 1916, Detachment Lt. Col. Dejoianu to 1st Army, 29 October 1916,” 425. Dejoianu claimed to have captured more than 400 officers and soldiers and ten to twelve machine guns. See also No. 532, “Account of Operations of the 21st Mixed Brigade from 26 to 29 October,” 438–441; No. 517, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 740, 27 October 1916, 427. The reports of all the sub-units of Group Jiu are in ibid., 429–442. For the monetary prize and decoration, see ibid., No. 516, 1st Army for Jiu Group, No. 738, 27 October 1916, 427.

73. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, 20, Akt 2, 6th Cavalry Division Ia No. 37, 3 November 1916, 2.

74. Ibid., 3.

75. Ibid., VI, Akt 3, entries for 29–30 October, 116–129; LB-W M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, ObLt. Zluhan and Vizefwl. Petzoldt, “Das Württ. Gebirg. Battalion in Rumanien, II,” 1–3. See also Helmut Schittenhelm, Rasboi: Eine Soldatengeschichte aus dem Feldzug gegen Rumänien (Stuttgart: Karl Thienmanns Verlag, 1937), 48–50.

76. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:26–28; von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 34–39; BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Akt 2, 9th Army, evening report, 742/Ia, 27 October 1916; 301st Division to 11th Division, 28 October 1916. The 9th Army gloomily assessed the situation on 27 October: “Troops are exhausted. In the event of an enemy attack, it is questionable if we can hold our position. But we will try” (BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 55). See also Schittenhelm, Razboi, 51.

77. Von Kneussl, Aus der Kriegsgeschichte der 11. Bayer. Infanterie Division, 72. The 11th Bavarian Division lost 25 officers and 1,452 soldiers; the Austrian 144th Brigade, 24 officers and 1,640 men; and the German 6th Cavalry Division, 4 officers and 65 soldiers. Over half of these were reported missing. The Bavarians lost more officers and soldiers on the 27th than any other day of the campaign: 8 officers and 540 soldiers. See BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 4, 7 October 1916 to 9 January 1917, Appendix 1.

78. RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 539, 1st Army to King Ferdinand, Operational Report No. 7, n.d. [between 27 and 30 October], 447.

79. Von Falkenhayn was correct. In a report sent to France on 30 October, Berthelot identified the region opposite Averescu’s 2nd Army as the threatened one (La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 87–88).

80. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:30–31, 34–35.

81. Ibid., 2:31–32.

82. Ibid., 2:32–33. See also ÖStA, AK1/k6, 1 AOK, Op. 2435, 27 October. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Rou-mania,” 2.

83. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania.” Extracts of orders for both Schmettow and von Kneussl are on 2–3.

84. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:34–35.

85. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 488–491; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 101–102; Ernst Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 (Berlin: O. Schlegel [c. 1938]), 91–94.

86. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 29 October 1916, 69.

87. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 744, 9AOK Ia 773 Op., 29 October 1916, 150–151; BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 4, LIV Army Corps, 140/Ia, 1 November 1916.

88. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 4, LIV Army Corps, 140/Ia, 30–31 October, 60–62.

89. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 4. See also Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:34–37; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 1 November 1916, 63; Kriegsberichte aus dem Großen Hauptquartier. Kriegsberichte aus dem Großen Hauptquartier, 25:5–11. Kühne’s forces got a lucky break – the weather during the first week of November was cold but clear, facilitating the staging for the offensive (Schittenhelm, Razboi, 50).

90. LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 2, Gebirgsbattalion KTB, 22–31 October 1916; 70, ObLt. Zluhan and Vizefwl. Petzoldt, “Das Württ. Gebirgsbattalion in Rumänien,” Section I, 3–13. For another account, see Erwin Rommel, Infantry Attacks, trans. G. E. Kiddie (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990), 82–85.

91. Walter Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch (Oldenburg, Germany: Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1918), 87–91.

92. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 4, LIV Army Corps, 160/Ia, 9 November 1916.

93. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 768, XLIV No. 100, 10 November 1916, 153–154; Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch, 87–91.

94. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:37.

95. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 30 October 1916, 60. See also Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1938), 11:256–257.

96. Von Falkenhayn claimed that had the Bavarian 8th Reserve and 10th Infantry Divisions not been taken from him, he could have taken Bucharest two weeks sooner (von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 482–483).

97. Ibid., 419–425; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 91–97.

98. Von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 484, 487 (see also 419–440, 448).

99. Quoted in Hans von Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, General der Infanterie: Eine biographische Studie (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1926), 247; Zwehl also reproduces von Seeckt’s offending document (246–247). As early as 2 November, the 9th Army had indicated to the OHL and Army Front that it would not meet the 5 November start date. See BAMA, PH 5/ II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 1 November 1916, 64; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 103; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:40–41.

100. Quoted in Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn, 158. See also von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 488–490. Von Falkenhayn does not mention the incident in his book.

101. ÖSta, OOK, Ru Gruppe/552, AOK 33637, telegram from Archduke Karl to Conrad, reporting on his visit to LIV Army Corps, 6 November 1916.

102. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 760, 1st Army to King Ferdinand, Report 160, 6 November 1916, 146–147.

103. Petala had recommended Anastasiu’s promotion to brigadier general and appointment as commander of the 11th Division (see RRM, Anexe 3, part 1, No. 539, 1st Army Report No. 7, n.d., 446–447). Anastasiu took command on the 28th. His promotion followed a month later, but he was temporarily replaced by another officer whom general headquarters favored.

104. See Rosetti, Marturisiri, 147–148; Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 97.

105. Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918, 37–38.

106. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 17–18. Averescu returrned the favor. Major Radu Rosetti said that when Iliescu was absent from the headquarters, Averescu would call him twice per day to complain about Berthelot, Pétin, and the French in general (Marturisiri, 145). For the German reports of the diversionary attacks, see BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, 9AOK situation report, 2130 hours, 11 November 1916.

107. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 147.

108. Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 84, 87–88; Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918, 33–34.

109. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen 2:41. The order is in RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 767, 9AOK, No. 935, 10 November 1916, 152–153.

110. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen. 2:41–42; Schittenhelm, Razboi, 59–60.

111. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Bund 3, Akten 4 and 7, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division, 825/Ia, 9 November 1916.

112. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 4, LIV Army Corps, 160/Ia, 9 November 1916; LIV Army Corps 201/Ia, 10 November 1916.

113. Schittenhelm, Razboi, 50; Kabisch, Der Rumänienkrieg 1916, 91–94.

7. MOLDAVIA

1. The Bavarian General Count Felix von Bothmer commanded the South Army from 1915 to 1918. For a brief biography of him, see Rudolf von Kramer, “Generaloberst Felix Graf v. Bothmer: Zu seinem 25. Todestag,” in Deutscher Soldaten Kalender 1962 (Munich: Schild Verlag, 1962), 122–128.

2. Hans von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917 (Leipzig: V. Hase und Koehler, 1938), 473–474; Hans Meier-Welcker, Seeckt (Frankfurt: Bernard und Graefe, 1967), 99–100.

3. ÖStA, AOK 12/k3, Army Group Archduke Karl, Op. 1573, 16 September 1916 and folders through the end of the month. The Austrian XI Army Corps was eventually pushed out of Vatra Dornei (see ibid., VIAK/k709, 7AOK, Op. 2630/7, 21 September; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 99–100).

4. Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918 (New York: Harper, 1919), 2:331–333.

5. ÖStA, AK1/k5, 7AOK, Op. 2182/7, enemy assessment, 10 October 1916.

6. Ibid., 9AOK to 1AOK, Ia 331 8 October 1916; 1AOK to 9AOK, Op. 1894, 8 October 1916.

7. Ibid., AOK, Op. 31804, 8 October 1916.

8. Ibid., AOK to 1AOK, Op. 29979, 3 October 1916.

9. Ibid., 1AOK, Op. 1922/I and II, 9 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 1923, 10 October 1916.

10. Ibid., 1AOK, Op. 1925, 10 October 1916; 1AOK KTB, 11 October 1916; VIAK/ k710, 1AOK, Op. 1822, 6 October 1916; XXIAK k/2946, Gruppe Haber, Op. 1012/20, 12 October 1916; VIAK KTB, 10 and 11 October 1916; Haber Op. 1011/21, 11 October 1916; XXIAK k/2946, 1AOK, Op. 2090/10 and 2090/40, 16 October 1916. The XXI Corps took over Group Haber on 15 October (see XXIAK, Op. 53, 14 October 1916).

11. Ibid., AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 1925, 10 October 1916.

12. Ibid., HFEK to 1AOK, 2419 Op., 24 October 1916; XXIAK, Op. 53, 14 October 1916. The XXI Corps Commander, von Lütgendorff, claimed the two units had a combined strength of only 7,000 rifles. See his account in AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 30 October 1933, 5.

13. Ibid., AK1/k5, 1AOK, Op. 2265, “Combat Strength,” 21 October 1916.

14. Ibid., VIAK/k710, 1AOK, Op. 2022, 13 October 1916, in VIAK KTB, 15 October 1916; VLAK/k714, VIAK KTB, 15 October 1916, VIAK, Op. 1015/23, 15 October 1916; Op. 1016/15 16 October 1916; XXI AK, Op. 191, 17 October 1916.

15. The size of the task force is not known, but each battalion probably numbered at least 700 men (see Max Ritter von Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerlän-der Infanterie-Regiements Nr. 73 (Vienna: Verlag Amon Franz Göth, 1939), 382; Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:399–400.

16. ÖStA, AK1/k5, 1AOK to AOK, Op. 2261, 23 October 1916; von Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerländer Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 73, 382–387. For the corps commander’s analysis, see ÖStA, AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, von Lütgendorff, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 7–8, 18–19.

17. Quoted in von Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerländer Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 73, 387.

18. For the location of the 61st Division and its major subordinate units, see ÖStA, VIAK/k709, “Order of Battle,” n.d. [mid-September 1916].

19. [Konrad Grallert von Cebrow], “Der Überfall von Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916. Von einem ehemaligen k. u. k. Generalen,” Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Mitteilung, nos. 5–6 (1924): 310–311; Octav Boian, “Zum Überfall bei Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916: Eine Darstellung von rumänische Seite,” Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Mitteilung, nos. 9–10 (1924): 421. Boian was in command of the 14th Brigade of the 7th Division, the force opposite the 61st Division. See also Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:400–402.

20. [Grallert von Cebrow], “Der Überfall von Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916,” 311–312.

21. Ibid., 312.

22. Ibid., 312–313.

23. Boian, “Zum Überfall bei Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916,” 421–422.

24. Ibid., 424.

25. Ibid., 425.

26. ÖStA, VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, Op. 1021/25, 21 October 1916; 61 ITD, Op. 296/24, 21 October 1916. Kiritescu says that the Romanians took nearly 700 prisoners (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:402).

27. ÖStA., VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 18 October 1916; VIAK1018/19 and VIAK 1018/26; VIAK, Op. 1019/11, 19 October 1916; VIAK KTB, 20 October 1916; VIAK/k714, VIAK Op. 1019/26, 19 October 1916; [Grallert von Cebrow], “Der Überfall von Agasu am 17. Oktober 1916,” 317.

28. ÖStA, AK1/k5, Army Front Archduke Karl, Op. 2302, 19 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2198, 20 October 1916; VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 20 October 1916, VIAK, Op. 1020/32 and VIAK KTB, 20 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2198, 20 October 1916. See also AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, von Lütgendorff, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 18.

29. ÖStA, VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 18 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2154, 18 October 1916.

30. Ibid., VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 20 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2233, 20 October 1916. For Grallert’s reply, see the same folder, 61 ITD, Op. 296/24, 20 October 1916.

31. Ibid., VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 27 October 1916.

32. Ibid., VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, Op. 1027/25, 27 October 1916.

33. Ibid., AK1/k6, 1AOK, Op. 2581, to HFEK, 1 November 1916; VLAK/k710, VIAK KTB, XXI AK, Op. 191, 17 October 1916; KK Schmettow, Op. 17/5 and 16/3, both 17 October 1916; KK Schmettow, Ia 17/1, 18 October 1916; VIAK KTB, Op. 1029/37, 29 October 1916. For the Romanian perspective, see Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:402–403.

34. ÖStA, AOK OOK Ru Gp 552, VIAK, Op. 1030/26, to 1AOK, 30 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2410/17, 1 November 1916. As a brigade commander, Dani had received the Maria Theresa Military Order for bravery, Austria’s highest decoration, and one far less frequently awarded than the Prussian Pour le Mérite medal.

35. Ibid., VIAK/k710, 1AOK, Op. 3061, 15 November 1916.

36. Ibid., VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 29 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2458, 29 October 1916.

37. Ibid., VIAK/k710, VIAK KTB, 29 October 1916; 1AOK, Op. 2457 2010, 29 October 1916; BKA, 8th Bayer. Reserve Infanterie Division KTB, Bund 1, Akt 1, Gruppen Kommando Stein, Ia/4, 30 October 1916.

38. BKA, 8th Bayer. Reserve Infanterie Division KTB, Bund 26, Akt 2. 8th ID, Ia/928, 4 November 1916, 33–37.

39. After the war, the Austrian Republic tried von Lütgendorff for war crimes committed at the beginning of the war in Serbia, where his troops executed eighty civilians. The judge found him guilty not of murdering the Serbians, but of ordering the execution of three soldiers from his division. He received a six-month jail sentence but no loss of rank or pension (see Anton Holzer, “Mit allen Mittlen,” Die Presse [Vienna], 19 September 2008).

40. ÖStA, VIAK/k711, XXIAK Op. 1090, 2 November 1916, in VIAK KTB, 2 November 1916. A map in this folder (1AOK KTB, “Situation Map,” 6 November 1916) places the Russian 68th Infantry Division at the Tulghes Pass and the Russian 25th Infantry Division at the Bekas Pass. These units belonged to the Russian XXXVI Army Corps.

41. Ibid., VIAK/k711, VIAK KTB, 2 November 1916.

42. Arthur Freiherr Arz von Straussenburg, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges 1914–1918 (Graz, Austria: Akad. Druck- u. Verlagsanst., 1969), 118–120; ÖStA, AK1/ k6, 1AOK to HFEK, Op. 2708, 5 November 1916; HFEK to 1AOK, Op. 2654, 5 November 1916. Both Arz and Archduke Karl visited the XXI Corps on 29 October and, after a briefing, promised to send Brudermann’s cavalry corps (see ibid., AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, von Lütgendorff, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 24). Von Lütgendorff had a higher opinion of his actions than his superiors did, illustrated by the full title of his unpublished postwar memoir: “The Liberation of the Giurghiu Region from the Russian Invasion by the Austro-Hungarian XXI Army Corps in the Fall of 1916 or the Battles of the Austro-Hungarian XXI [Army] Corps in Siebenbürgen in the Fall of 1916 to Include the Victorious Breakthrough at the Tulghes [Pass].” He felt that the Army Front headquarters had not given credence to his warning that the Russians were massing for a breakthrough.

43. ÖStA, VIAK/k711, VIAK KTB, 1 November 1916, 1AOK to VI Corps, Op. 2554/1, 1 November 1916; VIAK to 1AOK, 1101/4, 1 November 1916. VIAK KTB, 6 November 1916, has a copy of Arz’s response. Von Fabini had told his subordinates that they did not necessarily have to retake every inch of ground lost to the enemy (see VIAK KTB, 5 November 1916).

44. Ibid., AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, von Lütgendorff, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 26; Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 515.

45. August von Cramon, Unser Österreich-Ungarischer Bundesgenosse im Weltkriege (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 88–93.

46. He was in Vienna before the war in Romania broke out, from 25 to 28 August, then again from late September until 13 October on sick leave, returning on the day his Army Front took control of the 1st and 9th Armies (see Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 100–101; Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 437, 465–467, 478). His staff called him “Karl the Unpredictable” on account of his predilection for surprising decisions (see Edmund Glaise von Hor-stenau, K. und k. Generalstabsoffizier und Historiker, vol. 1 of Ein General im Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau, ed. Peter Broucek [Vienna: Hermann Böhlau, 1980], 398).

47. Arz, Zur Geschichte des Grossen Krieges 1914–1918, 118–119; Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 475.

48. Quoted in Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 493.

49. Von Falkenhayn was not as concerned. The 9th Army’s diary entry for 10 November, the evening of the breakout in the Szurduk Pass, reflected satisfaction with the security of the army’s flank as a result of reinforcing the 1st Army with the two Bavarian divisions (BAMA, PH 5/ II 284, 9AOK KTB, 73–74).

50. BAMA PH 5/ II 542, HGAK, 2796 Op., 11 November 1916; BKA, 8th Bayer. Reserve Infanterie Division KTB, Bund 1, Akt 10, entry for 15 November 1916.

51. Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 515.

52. Karl Litzmann, Lebenserinnerungen (Berlin: Verlag R. Eisenschmidt, 1927–28), 2:134–135.

53. Recalled from retirement in 1914, Litzmann led the Guards Division at Brezinzy in Russia. When surrounded there, he refused to acknowledge defeat and attacked, sword in hand, charging through the lines and saving the corps. For that action he earned the first Pour le Mérite medal of the war awarded to a division commander, promotion to lieutenant general, and the nickname “Lion of Brezinzy.”

54. Litzmann, Lebenserinnerungen, 2:137–138. Litzmann took over XXI Corps on 24 November (ÖStA, 12AOK/6, 1AOK, Op. 3337 to HFEJ, 24 November 1916).

55. As of 26 November, the 1st Army had 34,649 infantrymen in nine divisions, a little more than the equivalent of three full-strength divisions (ÖStA, AK1/k8, 1AOK, Op. 3560, 1 December 1916). The Russians had a half-million men in Moldavia at the end of October (see Charles, comte de Sainte-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 351.

56. ÖStA, VIAK/k710, VIAK 1028/20, 28 October 1916, endorsement of 1AOK, Op. 2365, 26 October 1916. See also VIAK KTB, 1AOK, Op. 2404 of 27 October, 29 October 1916; kuk War Ministry, Abt 10, 182800, 8 October 1916. The AOK recognized that sending men of different nationalities posed additional problems for commanders, but pleaded with them to realize that there were limits to what it could do (AK1/k8, AOK to Litzmann, Op. 35.227, 12 December 1916).

57. Ibid., AK1/k8, AOK, Op. 43.937, 9 December 1916.

58. Ibid., VIAK/k711, VIAK 15 November 1916; 1AOK, Op. 3047, 15 November 1916; VIAK, 20 November 1916; VIAK 15 November 1916; 39 HITD to VIAK, Op. 322/12, 22 November 1916; VIAK KTB, 16 November 1916; Op. 1115/13 to 39 LITD, 16 November 1916; NFA, AK1/k7, AOK, Op. 34.275 and 1AOK, Op. 3481, both 23 November 1916.

59. Ibid., VIAK/k711, VIAK, 14 November 1916; 1AOK, Op. 3018, 14 November 1916.

60. Ibid., AOK OOK Ru 1916/14, von Lütgendorff, “Die Errettung der Gyergyo vor der russischen Invasion durch das k.u.k. XXXI. Korps im Herbste 1916,” 12–17.

61. Ibid., VIAK/k711, VIAK 15 November 1916, VIAK Op. 1115/23, “Construction of Winter Positions,” 15 November 1916; Op. 3089, from 1AOK, 16 November 1916; VIAK, 1AOK, Op. 3113, 17 November 1916. For a map of the positions in the Bekas Pass, see NFA, AK1/k7, 72d ITD AO, Op. 83/1225, November 1916.

62. Ibid., VIAK/k713, staff visit reports, VIAK Captain v. Mery, 26–29 December 1916; Captain Bisza, at Lobercz-Uzvolgy (Uz Valley), 3–7 January 1917.

63. Gerhard Friedrich Dose, “Das Infanterie-Regiment 187 im Rumänienfeldzug 1916/17,” http://www.deutsche-kriegsgeschichte.de/ir187–1.html.

64. ÖStA, VIAK/k711, AOK, Op. 33138, 22 November 1916. For a biographical sketch of Archduke Joseph, see Anton Graf Bossi-Fedrigotti, “Feldmarschall Erzherzog Joseph zu seinem 100. Geburtstag,” in Deutsches Soldatenjahrbuch 1972 (Munich: Schild Verlag, 1972), 128–130.

65. Quoted in Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 516–517; Meier-Welcker, Seeckt, 109.

66. ÖStA, AK1/k8, HFEJ to 1AOK, Op. 3370, 6 December 1916. The response is not in the file.

67. Ibid., AK1/k8, HFEJ, Op. 3318, 4 December 1916.

68. Ibid., AK1/k8, HFEJ, Op. 3484, 11 December 1916; 1AOK, Op. 3999, 14 December 1916; 1AOK, Op. 3992, to HFEJ, 14 December 1916; 1AOK to VIAK, Op. 3996, 14 December 1916.

69. Von Hoen, Geschichte des ehemaligen Egerländer Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 73, 388.

70. ÖStA, VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, 7, 18, and 19 December 1916.

71. Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 475. For von Gerok’s group, see ÖStA, VIAK/k712, VIAK, 2 December 1916, Gerok Group, Op. 95 Ia, 2 December 1916.

72. ÖStA, AK1/k8, 61st Division to VIAK, Op. 343/12, 11 December 1916.

73. By 10 December, the division had received 32 more officers and 2,280 soldiers to fill its losses (ibid., 1AOK 3805, 10 December 1916). An influx of replacements in early December for most units left the 1st Army with 6,000 more infantrymen (AK1/k8, 1AOK 3742, 6 December 1916).

74. Ibid., AK1/k8, “Offener Befehl,” and Schmidt to Arz, 8 December 1916.

75. Ibid., VIAK/k712, VIAK, Op. 1210/19, 10 December 1916. The 19th Brigade was disbanded in January (NFA, VIAK/k732, 1AOK, Op. 228, 12 January 1917).

76. Ibid., AK1/k8, Op. 343/12, to VIAK, 11 December 1916. The War Department disbanded the division at the end of December (Glenn Jewison and Jörg C. Steiner, “Austro-Hungarian Army – Troops and Unit Histories,” in Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848–1918, http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/index.htm).

77. ÖStA, VIAK/k712, 39th Division to Commanding General, VIAK, Op. 353/15, secret, 18 December 1916.

78. Ibid., VIAK/k712, VIAK 14 December 1916; VIAK, Op. 1214/22, to 1AOK and HFEJ, 14 December 1916. The plan was updated on 20 December after several delays (VIAK 20 December 1916, VIAK, Op. 1220/30; VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, VIAK, Op. 120/32, 20 December 1916). This file has a map of the projected operation (VIAK, Op. 1227/18. 27 December 1916). See also Meier-Welker, Seeckt, 110.

79. ÖStA, VIAK/k712, VIAK 12 December 1916; VIAK, Op. 1211/143, 11 December 1916.

80. Ibid., VIAK/k714, VIAK KTB, 23 December; 39 LITD, Op. 358/9, 23 December, and Op. 359/9, 24 December 1916; VIAK, Op. 1226/20, 26 December 1916.

81. Von Falkenhayn described this offensive as an “adventure” (quoted in von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben 1866–1917, 528–529).

82. ÖStA, VIAK/k732, VIAK 1 January 1917; Group Stein Sitrep, Ia. Op. 363, 1 January 1917; Op. 390, 2 January 1917.

83. Ibid., VIAK/k732, AOK, Op. 226/2 to VI Corps, 11 January 1917.

84. ÖStA, VIAK/k732, 1AOK, Op. 205, 10 January 1917; Litzmann, Lebenserinnerungen, 2:146, 149–150.

8. THE DRIVE ACROSS WALACHIA

1. Erich von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 1916/17 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1921), 2:41–44; Viktor Pétin, Le drame Roumain 1916–1918 (Paris: Payot, 1932), 41–42.

2. Ministerul Apararii Natjionale, Serviciul “istoric,” Marele Stat Major, Romania in razboiul mondial 1916–1919 (Bucharest: Imprimeria Nationala, 1934–1946 [hereafter RRM], Anexe 3, part 2, LIV Corps staging order, No. 160, 9 November 1916), 153–154. The operation order is in BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 4, LIV Army Corps, 201/Ia, 10 November 1916. A good description of the geography of the pass can be found in Bernhard Bellin, Sturmtruppe Picht: Ein Erinnerungsblatt aus dem Kriege gegen die Rumänen im Jahre 1916 (Berlin: Verlag Tradition Wilhem Kolk, 1929), 3.

3. Quoted in Helmut Schittenhelm, Rasboi: Eine Soldatengeschichte aus dem Feldzug gegen Rumänien (Stuttgart: Karl Thienmanns Verlag, 1937), 59. See also Erwin Rommel, Infantry Attacks, trans. G. E. Kiddie (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1990), 86.

4. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:41–42; Kriegsberichte aus dem Großen Hauptquartier (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915–1918), 25:5–11.

5. Bellin, Sturmtruppe Picht, 3–4.

6. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 769, 1st Division for 1st Army, No. 4390, 10 November 1916, 1500 hours, 154–155; No. 770, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4410, 10 November 1916, 2000 hours, 155. For the internal quarrels, see chapter 6.

7. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 41–42.

8. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2: No. 776, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 949, 11 November 1916, 159; No. 779, 1st Army No. 951, 11 November 1916, 161.

9. Ibid., No. 778, 1st Division, Op. Order 76B, 11 November 1916, 160–161; Documents 781, 782, 1st Division to Colonels Jippa and Obogeanu, Nos. 77 and 77A, 12 November 1916, 162; No. 786, situation report, 1st Division, No. 77, 104–106.

10. Ibid., No. 788, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4579, 12 November 1916, 164; No. 792, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 5374, 12 November 1916, 169–170; No. 795, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 967, 12 November 1916, 172.

11. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 41–42. See also BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 3–4, entry for 11 November 1916.

12. BAMA, PH 5/II 284 9AOK KTB, entry for 11 November 1916, 74; von Falkenhayn, Siege in Rumänen, 41–42. The Romanians were forced to abandon Calinesti in the Red Tower Pass. During their retreat, they blew up the railroad tunnel south of that village (RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 698, “13th Division Report of Actions on 10–12 November,” 89–92).

13. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania (1916–1917),” translated in the office of the U.S. Military Attaché, Berlin, February 1923, 5.

14. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 799, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4648, 11 November 1916, 174–175. The Romanian situation reports are printed as documents No. 801, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4653, 11 November 1916, 1500 hours, 176; No. 803, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4661, 11 November 1916, 1600 hours, 178; No. 805, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 4665, 11 November 1916, 179–180; No. 810, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 992, 11 November 1916, 2030 hours, 182.

15. Ibid., No. 802, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 980, 11 November 1916, 177; No. 807, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 987, 11 November 1916, 180.

16. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:43–44.

17. LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70. “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 10–11. See also Schittenhelm, Rasboi, 60; Rommel, Infantry Attacks, 86–87.

18. Henri-Mathias Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe: édition critique des rapports du général Berthelot, chef de la Mission militaire française en Roumanie, 1916–1918 (Paris: Harmattan, 2000), 84, 87–88.

19. Radu R. Rosetti, Marturisiri (1914–1919) (Bucharest: Modelism, 1997), 133–134, 147.

20. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 5–46.

21. Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 3rd ed., reprint (Bucharest: Editur Stiintifica si Enciclopedica, 1989), 1:468.

22. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 45–46. The Austrians were well informed about the Russian delays, probably from deserters (RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 100, “AOK Intelligence Bulletin No. 15,” 15 November 1916, 83).

23. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 149.

24. Henri-Mathias Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania: Mémoires et correspondence 1916–1919, ed. Glenn Torrey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 18; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 149–150; Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 31, 30–42; RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 807, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 987, 14 November 1916, 180.

25. BAMA, PH 5/II 284 9AOK KTB, entry for 12 November 1916, 75–77; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 5.

26. Ironically, this regiment was to have come over the mountains where the Württembergers did, but in drafting orders for the operation, both von Kneussl and von Busse felt the unit was not up to deploying in the mountains, and it was replaced by the Württemberg Battalion (BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, entry for 3 November 1916, 155–157).

27. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 13 November 1916, -78. See also von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:44. The Württemberg Battalion suffered heavy casualties: 31 killed, 119 wounded, and 4 missing (Schittenhelm, Razboi, 60–63; Rommel, Infantry Attacks, 88–95; see also LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 13–18).

28. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 6. On the 115th Division, see Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1938), 11:265. The text of the order to von Schmettow is in von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:45.

29. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 14 November 1916, 79–80.

30. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 810, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 992, 14 November 1916, 182; No. 707, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 998, 14 November 1916, 99–100; No. 837, 1st Division to 1st Amy, No. 84, 15 November 1916, 1730 hours, 201.

31. Ibid., No. 811, 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 79, “Situation Report,” 14 November 1916, 1000 hours, 183; No. 814, 1st Division for 1st Army, No. 79A, 14 November 1916, 1700 hours, 184.

32. Ibid., No. 825, 22nd Infantry Brigade to 43 Infantry Regiment, No. 335, 14 November 1916, 192–193. The 1st Division Operation Order is No. 831, No. 80A, 15 November 1916, 197; No. 846, Jiu Force Commander (General Cocorascu) to 17th Division and Group Jiu, No. 81C, 16 November 1916, 206.

33. Ibid., No. 815, 1st Division to Group Jiu, No. 79, 14 November 1916, 185; No. 820; General Headquarters for 1st Army, No. 2849, 14 November 1916, 188–189. This last item has the order of battle for the 17th Division. For arrival times, see No. 821, General Headquarters to 1st Army, [no number] 14 November 1916, 189–190. Kiritescu says Vasilescu was “completely ignorant” about the strength of his opponents (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:461).

34. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, Nos. 823, 824, 9AOK to LIV Army Corps, Ia 1001 Op., 14 November 1916, 191; and 9AOK for Cavalry Corps Schmettow, Ia 1002 Op., 14 November 1916, 192.

35. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 13. Kühne issued orders for the Cavalry Corps to take Targu Jiu on the 15th (BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 3–4, entry for 14 November 1916).

36. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:47. See also RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 848, 9AOK Ia 1029, 12 noon, 16 November 1916, 208; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 10.

37. The roads to the south were not really roads, according to one division (BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 3–4, entry for 20 November 1916, 236–239).

38. Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:268; Hans von Seeckt, Aus meinem Leben, 1866–1917 (Leipzig: V. Hase und Koehler, 1938), 499–501.

39. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 11; BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 16 November 1916, 200–207.

40. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 868, 1st Army to General Headquarters, “Account of Events, 9 AM 17 November 1916 to 9 AM 18 November 1916,” 220–222; No. 873, 1st Division, Report 82, 17 November 1916, 224–226. For the account of the 22nd Brigade in this battle, see No. 870, 222–223. For the account of the 17th Division, see No. 876, “Situation of the 17th Division on the Day of 17 November 1916,” 1:50 PM, 227–228; No. 881, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 1034, “Report,” 17 November 1916, 231–232; Berthelot, La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 95–97. Kiritescu presents an excellent summary in Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:462–464. In his diary, Averescu sarcastically noted that Berthelot had said for the last several days that things were excellent in Oltenia (Alexandru Averescu, Notite Zilnice din Razboi 1916–1918 [Bucharest: Cultura Nationale, 1935], 92).

41. For the German perspective of the battle, see Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:268–269; Walter Vogel, “Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch,” in Der grosse Krieg in Einzeldarstellungen. Im Auftrage des Generalstabes des Heeres, no. 33 (Oldenburg, Germany: Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1918), 92–95; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 12. The latter account states Schmettow had an armored car detachment, but there is no indication how many cars it had (7). See also BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 17 November 1916, 83–85; LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 4. Von Falkenhayn credited the bulk of this victory to Schmidt von Knobelsdorf’s 41st Division, whose breakthrough allowed the cavalry to turn the enemy flank and head south (Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:48–49). See BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 3–4, for the LIV Corps Operation Order, 90/Ia 16 November 1916; the 11th Division Order, 829/Ia, 17 November 1916; and for the battle, the entry for 17 November 1916, 207–220.

42. The Danube Detachment consisted of the 44th Infantry Brigade (six battalions) at Bailesti under the command of Colonel Vaitoianu, responsible for guarding a 150-mile stretch of the river, from Turnu Severin to Corabia (RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 982, Danube Detachment to 1st Army, No. 299, 11 October 1916, 313).

43. Quoted in Rosetti, Marturisiri, 151.

44. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 53.

45. Von Seeckt had just made the same observation (BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 19 November 1916, 87).

46. Rosetti, Marturisiri, 150; RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 834, 1st Army No. 1039, 17 November 1916, 2115 hours, 234. Actually, Vasilescu had authorized a retreat two days earlier and the general headquarters had agreed (No. 833, 1st Army to General Headquarters, 1007, 15 November 1916, 199; Document 834, General Headquarters, No. 2869, 15 November 1916, 199). See also Glenn E. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 134–135.

47. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 899, 1st Army to 1st Division, No. 6058, 18 November 1916, 244–245; No. 905, 1st Division to 1st Army, report, 19 November 1916, 248–249. Kiritescu says the 17th Division had fewer than 2,000 infantrymen (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:466).

48. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 885, 1st Division to 17th Division and Group Jiu, No. 82G, 17 November 1916, 234–235; No. 918, 1st Division for Group Jiu and 17th Division, No. 84B, 18 November 1916, 262; No. 919, 1st Army to 1st Cavalry Division, No. 1205, 18 November 1916, 263; No. 921, 1st Army to Group Jiu, No. 1201, 19 November 1916, 264.

49. Ibid., No. 939, 1st Army to King Ferdinand, Report No. 25, 20 November 1916. 276.

50. Ibid., No. 920, 9th Army to LIV Corps and Cavalry Corps Schmettow, No. 1076, 19 November 1916, 263.

51. BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, Akt 3–4, LIV Army Corps, 195/ Ia 17 November 1916.

52. Albert Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rumänien: Ein Gedenkwerk für rümanische Kriegsteilnehmer (Munich: A. Reich, 1917), 52. See also LB-W, M130 LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 2–3; Hans Carossa, A Roumanian Diary, trans. Agnes N. Scott (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1930), 33. Military authorities vainly tried to halt such excesses (BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Akt. 2, 9AOK Ic/294, 17 October 1916; Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 34, Akt 3, 9AOK Befehl, 19 November 1916; Alpenkorps Ia/987, 25 November 1916; BKA, 8th Bayer. Reserve Infanterie Division, KTB, Bund 26, Akt 2, 2 November 1916).

53. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 13–15. Von Falkenhayn had tried to get the entire 2nd Cycle Brigade assigned to the Cavalry Corps, but the OHL turned him down and sent the bulk of the brigade to the beleaguered Austrian Detachment at Orsova. See von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:36–37; his orders assigning the brigade to Szivo with directions to use it to cut the railroad from Turnu Severin to Filiasi are in RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 978, 9AOK Ia, 870 Op., 4 November 1916.

54. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 20 November 1916, 88; RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, Document 857, Group Cerna to 1st Division, No. 23, 16 November 1916, 212; No. 861, 1st Division to Group Jiu, No. 81G, 16 November 1916, 215; No. 863, 1st Division to Group Cerna, No. 81E, 16 November 1916, 216–217; No. 865, Telegram 1st Division to 1st Army, No. 81, 17 November 1916, 217–218; No. 873, 1st Division, “Report 82, Account of 17 November,” 224–226.

55. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 14–15; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 18–19 November, 86–87.

56. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 16–17.

57. Reich, Durch Siebenbürgen und Rumänien, 52–55.

58. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 16–17; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 21 November 1916, 90; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:56–59.

59. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 1113, General Headquarters to Danube Defense Group, No. 2936, 18 November 1916, 426. Document No. 1114 is a reiteration of this order.

60. Ibid., No. 930, 1st Army to 1st Cavalry Division, No. 877, 20 November 1916, 270; No. 929, 1st Cavalry Division, Operation Order 488, 21 November 1916, 269–270; No. 932, 1st Cavalry Division, Operation Order 489, for 20–21 November 1916, 271; No. 942, 1st Cavalry Division Operation Order 491, 21 November 1916, 278; No. 950, 1st Cavalry Division Operation Order No. 493, 8 November 1916, 285–286; No. 952, Gruppe Jiu to 1st Army, No. 4792, 22 November 1916, 287; No. 953, Gruppe Jiu Operation Order, No. 86, for 22 November 1916, 287–288.

61. Ibid., No. 959, 1st Division, Telegram 37, Situation Report, 22 November 1916, 293–294; No. 962, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 1207, 23 November 1916, 295; No. 965, 1st Army Report No. 27 to King Ferdinand, n.d. [24 November 1916], 298–299.

62. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 18; RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 906, “General Headquarters, Assessment of the Situation,” 18 November 1916, 250–251.

63. Charles, comte de Sainte-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate (Paris: Flammarion, 1957), 351.

64. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 19–20, and La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 95–97, 99; Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 5–60; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 152.

65. He became prime minister and virtual dictator in World War II.

66. Quoted in Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 62. See also Rosetti, Marturisiri, 152. With Prezan now in charge of the 1st Army, Vasilescu was relieved.

67. BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 23 November 1916, 94. See also BKA, 11 Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 24 November 1916; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:471–472.

68. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 17; RRM, Anexe 2, part 2, No. 964, “Report on Events of 24 November,” No. 89, 24 November 1916, 297–298. The title of the document is confusing; it actually provides details about the events that occurred on the 23rd.

69. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 961, Gruppe Jiu [Anastasiu] to 2nd Cavalry Brigade, No. 88B, 23 November 1916, 295.

70. Ibid., Nos. 962 and 963, 1st Army to General Headquarters, No. 1207, 23 November 1916, 295–296; No. 1212, 1st Army to General Headquarters, 23 November 1916, 296; No. 964, 1st Division, No. 89, report of 24 November, 297–298; No. 965, “Report of 1st Army to King Ferdinand,” No. 27, n.d. [24 November 1916], 298–299; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 17; BAMA, PH 5/II 284, 9AOK KTB, 23 November 1916, 94. According to Kiritescu, the cavalry division commander whose troops were responsible for losing the bridge committed suicide (Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:473).

71. Erich Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, August 1914–November 1918 (New York: Harper, 1919), 1:341–350.

72. Oskar Regele, Kampf um die Donau: Betrachtung der Flussübergänge bei Flamanda und Sistow (Potsdam: L. Voggenreiter, 1940), 103–104, 114. Regele participated in the operation as an engineer (Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:480–481).

73. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:480–482.

74. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 1118, Danube Defense Group to General Staff, “Situation Report,” No. 1387, 22 November 1916, 429–430; Regele, Kampf um die Donau, 103–104, 114.

75. There were no fewer than eight generals named von der Goltz in the war. This one is probably Karl Leopold Count von der Goltz (1864–1944).

76. To relieve pressure on Romania, Sarrail had launched an offensive in Macedonia, commencing in October and ending with the capture of Monastir in mid-November. See Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story, 1:346–347; Jan Karl Tennenbaum, General Maurice Sarrail 1856–1929: The French Army and Left-Wing Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1974), 114–133, for an account sympathetic to the general; Alan W. Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965), chapter 5, for a more critical version.

77. On the second day of the crossing, 24 November, the “Infantry Division Goltz” was disbanded and the general took command of the “Cavalry Division Goltz,” consisting of his own 33rd Brigade and associated Bulgarian and Turkish cavalry squadrons (Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:281–293).

78. August von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1938), 296–299.

79. ÖStA, MS1/WK Ru, 1916/1–9; Kriegsgeschichtliche Forschungsanstalt des Heeres, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, 11:281.

80. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 296–299.

81. For eyewitness accounts, see ÖStA, MS1/WK Ru, 1916/1–9 kuk Pioniergruppenkommando Mjk [spelled Mijk in one report], No. 338, 23 November 1916; kuk Pionier Ko. 6/2, No 176 Res., 25 November 1916; kuk 2/5 Pionier Ko. postaction reports for 22–23 November [this was Regele’s unit, and he is mentioned in the report]; Oskar Regele, “Aus des Kriegestagebuch einer Österreich-ungarischen Pionier-Feld-Kompanie,” in Im Felde Unbesiegt. Erlebnisse im Weltkrieg erzählt von Mitkämpfern, ed. Gustav von Dickhuth-Harrach (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1922), 2:159–177; Hugo Pflügel, “Das Bayerische Reserve-Jäger Battalion Nr. 1 in Rumänien Herbst 1916,” in Im Felde Unbesiegt. Erlebnisse im Weltkrieg erzählt von Mitkämpfern, ed. von Dickhuth-Harrach, 2:169–172 and 178–182; Olaf Richard Wulff, Die österreichisch-ungarische Donauflotille im Weltkriege, 1914–18; Dem Werke “Österreich-Ungarns Seekrieg, 1914–18” (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1934), 103. The Romanian commander did try to order an aerial bombardment of the bridge, but nothing came of his request (RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 1122, Danube Defense Group to Aviation Corps, No. 1401, 23 November 1916, 1100 hours, 433).

82. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 299–300.

83. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 23 November 1916, 95.

84. The report of the battalion constructing the bridge is with Mjk’s report in ÖStA, MS1/WK Ru, 1916/1–9, kuk Pioniergruppenkommando Mjk, No. 338, 23 November 1916, kuk Brückenbattalion 1, Res 305. The unit constructed a second Danube bridge at Rutschuk between 30 November and 4 December.

85. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 300–301. Von Falkenhayn dates the change to 30 November (Siege in Rumänen, 76). He recognized that the campaign had to be conducted by one leader, and as a field marshal, von Mackensen stood two grades higher than he did.

86. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 1123, General Headquarters to Danube Defense Group, No. 3113, 24 November 1916, 433. See also Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:484.

87. RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 939, 1st Army to the King, Report 25, 20 November 1916, 276; BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, “Order of Battle,” 15 November 1916.

88. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 35, Akt 1, Korpsbefehl 723 Ia., 7 November 1916.

89. Ibid., Alpenkorps Ia 823, “Observations on the Conduct of Fighting in the Romanian Campaign,” 13 November 1916.

90. Ibid., Bund 34, Akt 3, Logistics Report, 13 November 1916.

91. Ibid., Bund 3, Akt 5, “Alpine Corps Situation Report,” 13 November 1916; 9th Army, Ia/1102, 20 November 1916, evening. See also ibid., Akt 1, “Intelligence Officer Report,” 15 November 1916. As German optimism rose, that of the Romanians fell (Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 18–20).

92. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, 25 November 1916. The Corps Operation Order in in Akt 1, 985/Ia, 25 November 1916.

93. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 27 November 1916, 101–103.

94. That decision discouraged Berthelot, who told Joffre that the Romanian headquarters was permitting personalities to play a role in the formation of the reserve force (La Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 93). See also Rosetti, Marturisiri, 150.

95. BKA, 12th Bayer. Infanterie Division, KTB, IV, Akt 8, 2–3. Akt 6 has “Directions for the Leader of Section von Reitzenstein,” 5 November 1916; the division and corps operations orders, Ia 1866, 7 November 1916, and IRK Ia/1512, 8 November 1916. See also ibid., entry for 20 November 1916; Kurt von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1920), 111–112. On the Romanian plan, see Rosetti, Marturisiri, 150.

96. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entries for 28–29 November 1916, 103–106; von Morgen, Meiner Truppen Heldenkämpfe, 111–113. Concern at the High Command over the possibility of sabotage to the vast oil fields surfaced for the first time, at least in writing, on the 28th, and von Morgen sent a Jäger battalion in the direction of the oil fields.

97. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 18.

98. Ibid., 17; BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, 23–24 November 1916, 93–96.

99. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, 24–25 November, 95–96; von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:64–65.

100. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entries for 26 November 1916, 250–255; LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 7. The Bavarians got a company across the river, but the Romanian artillery destroyed their pontoon bridge, stopping the operation.

101. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, 25 November 1916, 97–99.

102. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 18–20.

103. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 21; Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 75.

104. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:488–489.

105. Ibid.; Basil Gourko, War and Revolution in Russia, 1914–1917 (New York: MacMillan, 1919), 242–243; Berthelot, Memoires, 19, and Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 98; RRM, Anexe 3, part 2, No. 102, 1405/7th, 20 November 1916, 87–89; No. 105, General Headquarters II Section, 27 October 1916, 91. See also ibid., No. 101, “Concerning the Difficulties Encountered by the Transportation Service on the Railroads …,” 84–86.

106. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 21. See also Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 84–85; Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate, 349.

107. Quoted in Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 22. See also Saint-Aulaire, Confession d’un vieux diplomate, 351.

108. Fritz Heréus, “Die Schlacht am Arges (27. November bis 2. Dezember 1916): Eine strategische Studie,” Militärwissenschaftliche und Technische Mitteilungen, Nos. 10–11 (1934): 818–819.

109. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 22; Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 69–79.

110. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 70–71. Prezan had relieved Vasilescu, replacing him with Stratilescu, but the records are unclear about the exact date.

111. Quoted in Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 70–71. On the divisions, see Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 141.

112. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania; Heréus, “Die Schlacht am Arges,” 821–822.

113. RGVIA, Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 108, Danube Army (Sakharov) No. 2158 to Stavka, n.d. [27 or 28 November].

114. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 23–24. Noting Beliaev’s promise of three additional army corps, Berthelot wrote in his journal, “can that be true?” – which can be interpreted as an expression either of despair or of exuberance.

115. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division, KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 29 November 1916, 256–257; 841/Ia, 28 November 1916.

116. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 27 November 1916, 101–102.

117. USAHEC, Rudolf Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania, 1916–1917,” in Der Deutsche Land Krieg, vol. 5, part 2, of Der Grosse Krieg, 1914–1918, ed. Max Schwarte and Wilhelm Dommes, trans. Major Paul Harms, Army War College (Leipzig: Barth, 1923), 18.

118. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 302. For a firsthand account of the fighting at Prunaru, see Pflügel, “Das Bayerische Reserve-Jäger Battalion Nr. 1 in Rumänien Herbst 1916,” 2:182–185.

119. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 29 November 1916, 105; von Falkenhayn, Siege in Rumänen, 74. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3, 4, LIV 842/Ia, 29 November 1916. Russian Chief of Staff Basil Gourko shared von Falkenhayn’s opinion that transportation would prevent his forces from coming to the defense of Bucharest (War and Revolution in Russia, 239–240).

120. Skinny Emma (schlanke Emma) only in comparison to the behemoth German 420mm mortar, Big Bertha (dicke Bertha).

121. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 302–304.

122. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 30 November 1916, 107. Von Schmettow’s scouts reported enemy divisions in front of them on the 30th and a day later identified the 2/5th Romanian Division (USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 22). The 2/5 left the Pitesti region on the 29th, forcing Prezan to delay his attack on the Danube Army by one day (Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 90–92).

123. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 1 December 1916, 110. BKA, Alpenkorps KTB, Bund 3, Akt 5, entry for 1 December 1916, 95–96. A translated copy of the complete order is in Bund 34, Akt. 4, 1st Romanian Army, No. 1298, 30 November 1916.

124. USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 14.

125. Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 24–25. Torrey indcates the Romanians were almost completely in the dark about the size of von Mackensen’s forces (The Romanian Battlefront in World War I, 141).

126. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:76–79; BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 1 December 1916, 110–111.

127. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 1 December 1916, 264–268. Operation maps of von Kneussl’s 11th Bavarian Division on 30 November-4 December are in VI, Akt IV. The proposed railway did not exist on the ground, but it was on everyone’s maps and was used as a boundary just like an existing road.

128. Von Falkenhayn, Der Feldzug der 9. Armee gegen die Rumänien und Russen, 2:84. Von Falkenhayn claimed that if the 109th Division had remained with the Bavarians, none of the Romanians would have later been able to retreat back to Bucharest.

129. Heréus, “Die Schlacht am Arges,” 869–873; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:495–496.

130. Heréus, “Die Schlacht am Arges,” 869–873; Heréus describes the march of the two Romanian divisions across the front of the 9th and Danube Armies as a tour de force.

131. Pflügel, “Das Bayerische Reserve-Jäger Battalion Nr. 1 in Rumänien Herbst 1916,” 2:182–184.

132. Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:505. See also Berthelot, General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 28; Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 101. The German accounts do not mention the loss of so many artillery pieces, which would have constituted the entire division’s artillery. See also Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch, 111–114; Pflügel, “Das Bayerische Reserve-Jäger Battalion Nr. 1 in Rumänien Herbst 1916,” 2:187–189.

133. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, Bund VI, entry for 2 December 1916, 269–277.

134. LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, “kleine-grosse Walachei,” 6, 8. On the 22nd the LIV Corps had attached a battery from Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment 21 to the Württemberg battalion.

135. Von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 306–307; BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 2 December 1916, 269–277. Von Falkenhayn’s account mentions only that orders were issued at 3:30 AM, implying they were to be executed later that next day, not immediately. In fact, the entry for 2 December 1916 in the 9th Army KTB said, in almost gloating words, “the situation is so favorable that one can only regard the decision of the Romanians to defend their capital with pleasure. They’ll be beaten and retreat just that much faster” (BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB).

136. RGVIA, Fond 2003, Inventory 1, Archival Number 108, Danube Army No. 2096, 29 November 1916; Order No. 18 to the Danube Army, 28 November 1916; Danube Army No. 2253, Danube Army (Sakharov) to Stavka, 29 November 1916.

137. Ibid., Danube Army No. 20, to Quartermaster General at Stavka, 3 December 1916.

138. Pétin, Le drame Roumain, 124–125; Rosetti, Marturisiri, 157.

139. Socec, whose bravery to this point had never been questioned, was court-martialed and sentenced to death. The monarch commuted the sentence to life at hard labor, but on appeal Socec was exonerated by a second military court. The battle account comes from Berthelot (General Henri Berthelot and Romania, 117–121); Pétin’s is slightly different in detail but not essentials (Le drame Roumain, 131–132). Heréus says four German planes bombed Socec’s headquarters on the 2nd. Most of the staff was killed, and the commander suffered a nervous breakdown, “which had a disastrous effect on his subsequent leadership” (“Die Schlacht am Arges,” 874). See also Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:506.

140. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division KTB, VI, 3–4, entries for 2–3 December 1916, 269–294; USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 27; von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 307; Kabisch, Rumänien, pp. 142–144; Vogel, Die Befreiung Siebenbürgens und die Schlachten bei Targu Jiul und am Argesch, 115–116; Pflügel, “Das Bayerische Reserve-Jäger Battalion Nr. 1 in Rumänien Herbst 1916,” 2:190–193; Berthelot, Roumanie dans la Grande Guerre et l’effondrement de l’Armée russe, 117–122; Kiritescu, Istoria razboiului pentru intregirea Romaniei 1916–1919, 1:509–511.

141. BKA, 11th Bayer. Infanterie Division, KTB, VI, 3–4, entry for 4 December 1916, 290–294; Division Order 845/Ia, 4 December 1916; LB-W, M130 Württemberg Mountain Battalion Records, 70, “kleinegrosse Walachei,” 9.

142. Frantz reported that the 9th Army took only 19,000 prisoners (USAHEC, Frantz, “The Campaign against Rumania,” 20). He does confirm 5,000 prisoners for the Danube Army. General Ernst Kabisch says the 9th Army captured 60,000 men (Der Rumänienkrieg 1916 [Berlin: O. Schlegel (c. 1938)], 144–146). The vast discrepancy cannot be explained unless Kabisch’s numbers include the number of captives taken by the 9th Army since crossing the mountains.

143. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 3 December 1916, 114–117.

144. Ibid., entry for 3 December 1916, 114–115.

145. Quoted in USAHEC, Corps Ia [Operations Officer], “The Schmettow Cavalry Corps in Roumania,” 24.

146. Ibid., 28.

147. BAMA, PH 5 II/284, 9AOK KTB, entry for 4–5 December 1916, 117–120; von Mackensen, Briefe und Aufzeichnungen des Generalfeldmarschalls aus Krieg und Frieden, 307–308.