When Romania joined the Allies in the war eight weeks ago, Germany halted all offensive
actions on all fronts until they had dealt with Romania.
The might of the four Central Powers had descended on Romania under German leadership, and things
looked grim, but you know what?
This week, Romania stops the Germans.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week saw the beginning and end of the 8th Battle of the Isonzo River, with high
Italian casualties for little gain.
The Romanians were being pushed back in both Transylvania and Dobrogea, and repeated British
and French attacks at the Somme failed to gain ground, though British Commander in Chief
Sir Douglas Haig vowed to continue the offensive all winter if necessary.
Here’s what came next.
More attacks at the Somme came next, for starters.
The French actually did well there this week.
On the 14th, a brilliant French attack west of Belloy-en-santerre captured the first German
line, and on the 18th they carried the whole front between la maisonette chateau and Blaches.
As for the British, they attacked on the 18th, and it was- like their attacks on the 7th
and 12th, a complete failure.
The artillery bombardment had missed the German defenses and their artillery and machine guns
were still intact and active, and, according to the official British War History, these
were the conditions at the Somme: “By the middle of October, conditions behind the battlefront
were so bad as to make mere existence a severe trial of body and spirit.
Little could be seen from the air through the rain and mist... it was often impossible
to locate with accuracy the new German trenches and shell-hole positions... it is no matter
of surprise that the British artillery sometimes fired short or placed its barrages too far
ahead.
Bursts of high explosive were smothered in the ooze; many guns... were too worn for accurate
fire... the ground was so deep in mud that to move an 18-pounder, ten or twelve horses
were often needed... the infantry, sometimes wet to the skin and almost exhausted by zero
hour, were often condemned to struggle painfully forward through the mud under heavy fire against
objectives vaguely defined and difficult of recognition.”
It seemed that operations on at least this part of the front would have to be suspended,
but Haig did not come to that conclusion.
He did scale back his fantasy expectations that we talked about a couple weeks ago, but
that still misses the point.
Under these weather conditions taking anything was unrealistic.
You’d think General Sir Henry Rawlinson might point this out to Haig, but he did the
opposite, saying that an attack scheduled for next week needed to be a success because
it was undesirable for the army to remain for the winter in the low ground they now
occupied.
Two things- maybe, just maybe, the failures of the 4th Army on the 7th, 12th, and 18th
of October suggest that they lacked the power to improve their position, and also maybe
the time to think about their position was a month ago when the army had plowed ahead
from the ridge to the low ground.
But another army was plowing ahead THIS week, in the Balkans.
On the 18th, the Serbs took Brod, and they were generally having a good week.
Under General Mischitch they broke through the Bulgarian lines a few kilometers, taking
Velyselo and Baldentsi.
Now, at the beginning of this two day battle, the Bulgarians had the advantage.
They held the high ground behind the Cerna River and could roll boulders down on the
Serbs.
But when the Serbs rushed the heights they had big squares of white calico cloth on their
backs and their leaders had red and white flags to show the farthest position reached,
so the Serbian artillery avoided shelling them and when they’d rush up one crest,
the artillery would simply pound the next one ahead until eventually all of the crests
were covered with little fluttering red and white flags.
There was also fighting in the mountains further to the north.
German General Erich von Falkenhayn had been making headway against the Romanians in the
mountain passes, but he was having some real trouble this week.
On the 15th and 16th there was desperate fighting in the Oituz and Vulkan Passes, particularly
near the railroad terminus at Campulung.
On the 17th, Falkenhayn managed to squeeze through the Gyimes Pass and reach Agash, ten
km within Romanian territory.
On the 18th however, the Romanians won the day at both the Gyimes Pass and Agash, and
Falkenhayn and the Germany army had been stopped.
The Story of the Great War says, “there seems to be no doubt that had the Romanians
been able to devote all their forces and resources to the defense of the Hungarian frontier,
they would probably have been able to hold back Falkenhayn’s forces.
But Mackensen had forced them to split their strength.”
And so the out-equipped and out-gunned Romanians held the Germans back in the mountains for
the moment, but further south on the 19th, General August von Mackensen began a new offensive
in Dobrogea.
Yet another offensive was about to get going over in France.
The French were preparing for the counterstroke at Verdun that was to try to re-take Fort
Douaumont.
They wouldn’t attack until they had local superiority- three divisions in the front,
three to follow, and two in reserve.
General Philippe Petain brought in guns from the whole front- 650 in all, including two
400mm Schneider-Creusot railway guns.
Ammunition arrived all through September and early October.
15,000 tons of shells.
General Robert Nivelle’s task was to organize the creeping barrage.
The infantry would move forward 100 meters in four minutes, which was 70 behind the field
guns and 150 behind the heavy guns.
Now, success depended upon precise communication between infantry and artillery, so Nivelle
laid telephone wire in trenches six feet deep that was virtually immune to shellfire.
It was an enormous task.
The infantry preparations were no less gargantuan.
At Stainville, a replica of the battlefield- including a full scale Fort Douaumont- was
laid out and units rehearsed until they knew it blindfolded.
They also brought in the engineer who had organized fresh water supplies when the Panama
Canal was being dug, and he set up a system of transportable canvas pipes to bring water
to the fort once taken.
They were not going to repeat the failure at Fort Vaux, which was lost for lack of water.
There was a mood of great optimism.
The German camp was the opposite.
They knew they were about to be attacked.
They knew that High Command was waiting for a good psychological moment to leave the forward
positions at Verdun.
The men were exhausted, some having been there since February without relief.
A steady bombardment for weeks had prevented the front line troops from improving their
trenches or barbed wire.
The rains, freezes, thaws, and more rains had caused some German trenches to collapse
and frost bitten feet.
Desertions had reached a new high.
And one thing that the Germans had not realized about Fort Douaumont, the months long pounding
it had taken had eroded- inch by inch- the protective layer of dirt covering it.
It had been in some places nearly 6 meters deep, now it was dangerously exposed.
On October 19th, the preliminary bombardment blasted off as French observation planes swarmed
through the skies.
And in Greece, the French and their allies were maneuvering as well.
They demanded and got the Piraeus-Larissa railroad.
It seems an Athens division had been moving along the line, with a regiment entrenching
themselves before the King’s palace at Tatoi, and there was a fear that King Constantine
would retire with his army and dig in in Thessaly until he could join the Bulgarians and Germans.
The surrender of the railroad made this event impossible.
It also provoked riots and demonstrations against the Allies, and the police remained
passive and in some cased joined the protests.
French Admiral du Fournier, who had already seized the Greek fleet, demanded that command
of the Greek police force now be passed to him.
This happened.
Then the Royalist press went crazy about that, but the French established censorship and
that was that.
Did I mention that Greece was still neutral?
That doesn’t sound like how you treat neutral.
Either way, that was the week.
French success and British failure at the Somme as the weather deteriorates, The Serbs
advancing in one set of mountains and the Germans stopped in another, and the French
making plans for glory at Verdun.
It’s pretty impressive that the Romanians managed to stop Falkenhayn, even if it turns
out to only be temporary.
They were short on wheeled vehicles and machine guns, and many of their soldiers had only
single shot black powder rifles, but stop them they did.
But Romania was fighting on two fronts against four nations, and though they could count
on a bit of Russian help, none of the other allies could send troops and Romania could
not possibly hold out forever alone.
And tens of thousands of young Romanian men would die, but that’s nothing new, just
the same old ho-hum day to day of modern war.