Page - 668 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

668 The Writing on the Wall The number of troops mustered since the summer as the Imperial and Royal 1st Army under the command of General Arz von Straußenburg, who originally came from Transylvania, and which reinforced the screening forces and the Gendarmerie in par- ticular, ran to 34,000 men. To this extent, the Romanian calculations appeared to be correct. The Bulgarians were to be kept at bay until a Russian auxiliary corps arrived, and of the Germans, against whom the Romanians had no intention of declaring war, it was assumed that they would be bound to their fronts and that in the west in particular they would not be able to intervene. However, the campaign unfolded very differently. The most favourable opportunity for entry into the war, which would have been at the climax of the Brusilov Offensive, had now passed. Germany remained undeterred by Romania’s attempt to avoid a state of war, and declared war against Romania itself. Turkey followed suit, as did Bulgaria on 1 September. When on 27 August, Romania began the advance towards Transylvania, it was conducted slowly and with little resolution, quite differently to what had been envisaged in the contract with the Entente, where an advance ‘with the utmost energy’ had been agreed. However, the Allies also failed to keep to their side of the agreement, since instead of a ‘decisive offensive of the Salonika Army’, only weak advances were made.1521 In the meantime, everything that could be spared had been withdrawn from the German and Austro-Hungarian fronts, and already on 19 September, the Ger- man 9th Army under the command of Erich von Falkenhayn, who had only just been dismissed as the Chief of the German General Staff, began with the counteroffensive and reconquering of Transylvania. In the Dobruja region, Army Group Mackensen attacked using predominantly Bulgarian troops. The Romanians, who had little expe- rience of war, developed only a low fighting capability : the air force was not used, the Danube Flotilla did not intervene, and the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgar- ian troops compensated for their inferiority in numbers by better leadership and a far greater fighting capability. The Romanians repeatedly succeeded in entrenching their positions in the Transylvanian passes, and in defending their positions on the passes at Vulcan (Wolkendorf), Surduc (Szurduk) and Câmpulung (Langenau). They also tried to make relief attacks here and there, but in particular, the attempt at crossing the Dan- ube to the south ended in the bombardment of the Imperial and Royal Danube Flotilla. As a precautionary measure, Conrad had directed it to the lower Danube and also sup- plied it with bridge material in order to create a river crossing. On 23 November, Ger- man, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish troops from Army Group Mackensen began to cross the Danube at Svishtov and pushed forwards towards Bucharest. The capital city was taken on 6 December. Following the Romanian debacle, the Russians and the French General Henri Berthelot who had been sent to Romania as a military advisor could suggest no other course of action than to surrender Wallachia and save at least a remnant of the army. 105,000 men came for reorganisation in the Iași area.