Page - 667 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Victory over Romania 667 come, Austria-Hungary would be militarily unchallenged and closer to victory than the Allies. The symptoms of crisis among the Allies, which were also becoming evident during the late autumn of 1916, appeared to point to the fact that the Central Powers had withstood the worst. From the dispatches from Petrograd and Rome that were intercepted, it was clear at the beginning of December 1916 that the crisis among the Entente powers was worsening. The Italian ambassador in Petrograd stated that Russia was no longer capable of conducting a larger-scale campaign on one section of the German-Austrian front. The poor supplies of ammunition and the domestic situation would prevent such a move. The desire for peace, he said, had spread from the lower levels of the Russian population through to the middle and upper classes. Italy for its part assumed that a joint attack on the Central Powers was imminent, and General Cadorna regretted the fact that the declaration of war against the German Empire had clearly been a premature act.1519 Russia’s waning strength and, finally, the defeat of Romania by the Central Powers caused the Allies to fear the worst. The Victory over Romania It would be incorrect to waive aside Romania as an issue that was not of grave concern to the Central Powers. In Austria-Hungary, the most gloomy prognoses could be heard, which went so far as to claim that the entry by Romania into the war would bring the death blow to the Danube Monarchy. For Germany, too, the declaration of war by Ro- mania came as a shock. And the military facts in Romania were certainly impressive.1520 After mobilisation, it had 23 infantry and two cavalry divisions, as well as numerous independent brigades. The Romanians’ military and political goal was clear : Transylva- nia and part of Bukovina were to be wrested from Austria-Hungary and the Dobruja region from Bulgaria. The Russians offered sufficient support from the rear and offered to supply 300 tons of war materials daily. Also, Romania had been able to exploit its neutrality during the previous years, as well as the attempts to woo it by the Central Powers and the Entente in that its army also had modern weapons, including aero- planes and Danube monitors of French origin. At the first attempt, the Chief of the Romanian General Staff, General Vasile Zottu, succeeded in directing 370,000 men towards Transylvania. After several days, it was hoped that an advance could be made across the line that was only meagrely fortified by the Austro-Hungarians along the Mureș and Târnava Rivers towards Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg). This was designed to enable the southern wing of the Russian Army to break through into Hungary. Zottu already wanted to see his troops standing in Debrecen in the east of Hungary on the 39th day of mobilisation. No resistance of any significance was anticipated from the Imperial and Royal forces.