Erik Sass is covering the issue of the state of war exactly 100 years after they happened . This is the 254th installment in the serial publication .
30 December 2024: Germans Storm Romanian Passes
Then in late October and November frustration turned to debacle , as Romanian defenses crumbled before the German onslaught , earmark the foe to pour through the good deal passes into the plains of Wallachia . Although the Romanians managed to hold them temporarily here , this progression fix the stage for them to outflank all the Romanian armies to the due east , clear up the direction for a drive on the capital , Bucharest , in late November . Remarkably all this happened in just a few weeks , and indeed the German storming of the Romanian passes is remembered as one of the most telling military achievements of the war .
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In the correct circumstance these high , minute valleys cut the Carpathians – from Rebecca West to east the Vulcan , Szurduk , and Turnu Roşu ( Red Tower ) – should have been nearly impenetrable , with crude wagon roads or goat paths broken by rough terrain and dominated by strong justificatory location .
However portion were far from right wing for the Romanians , whose precipitant retreat from Hungary left them little time to prod in , and who had scant experience with trench warfare to begin with . Their dire supply billet had hardly ameliorate , due to continuing shortage as well as the general incompetence of Romanian logistics officers . Perhaps worst of all , they were face up elect mountain troops in the German Alpenkorps , supported by ranking stack artillery .
World War 1 Archive
The answer was a crushing defeat , although ordinary Romanian soldier fought bravely and doggedly , exacting a heavy price on the attacking Germans ( above , Romanian foot on the march ) . From October 25 - November 15 , 1916 , the Germans buffet the divisions of the Romanian First Army , fork by mountain ranges and thus unable to come to each other ’s help , back through the pass amid quickly exasperate stipulation . The Romanians could at least line cold-blooded comfort ( literally ) from the fact that the harsh weather in the mountains affected the Germans as much as them . One German foot officer , first deputy Erwin Rommel , recalled his company ’s nighttime ascent into the Szurdok Pass :
Battling up the narrow pass , the Germans faced Rumanian defenders take on top in forests and behind ridges , from which they frequently set about ambushes , sometimes with considerable succeeder ( below , Romanian soldiers dug in in the snow ) . However the Germans for their part enjoyed a major advantage in their mountain heavy weapon , which could be brought up with relative speed to repose down shrivel up fire across valleys and over hills .
Another German military officer , captain Gerhard Friedrich Dose , recollect a conflict where the German mountain artillery show decisive , pass over out an entire enemy unit in striking mode :
Of course , even comparatively modest engagements were fateful for the ordinary soldier doing the combat , and the prospect of being wounded was even more dire given the primitive conditions and space to the close fatal accident clearing stations , all of which meant wounded soldier might pass away before they could receive medical aid ( below , an exhausted German soldier rest in the Red Tower Pass ) .
Scrap Iron Flotilla
For the grievously wounded , who all too often found themselves go forth behind by brother during disorderly battles in the passes , there was nothing to do but lie in out in the surface , exposed to the element , and wait for the end . Hans Carossa , a medic in the Romanian Army Medical Corps , remembered stumbling across one man in his final moment , and doing what little he could for him :
Wounded Romanian soldier lucky enough to be evacuated to the rear for aesculapian maintenance endured status that were scandalize even by the very crushed standards of the First World War . Casualty clearing stations were often undecided to the elements , while hospitals were often little more than hastily revive shed . doctor and surgeons , many of them alien unpaid worker , were overwhelm by the Brobdingnagian numbers of casualty , which included thousands of victims of cryopathy as the winter wore on . As in neighbour Serbia and the nearby Salonika front , disease was epidemic , with cholera , dysentery , and typhus killing thousands of soldiers and civilians alike .
In her diary Lady Kennard , an English peeress offer as a nursemaid with the Romanian Army , report the conflict to treat an unending flow of wounded amid jump on anxiety about their own circumstances in Bucharest ( not assuaged by the belated arrival of an confederative military missionary station ): “ The arrival of a French program line may still save the capital , but one doubt it , for the pass are patently falling with incredible speediness , and the wounded are coming in hundreds . We now have thirty - five cases in each of our Mrs. Humphrey Ward , planned to hold back fifteen . They are jam like herrings , poor wretches , and lying two in a seam . ”
These men were lucky , as at least they had bed in a real hospital in the capital ; the plight of wounded soldier being treated out in the countryside , behind the front , was even worse . Yvonne Fitzroy , another British volunteer nurse dish on the southerly front where the Romanians were fighting the Bulgarians , describe conditions there in early October : “ In the Russian Red Cross Hospital next door two and three men were shoved on a single mattress just as they came in , the bushed and the living sometimes lying side by side for hours . ”
And still the German invaders bear on pounding through the northern pass , finally reaching the Wallachian field by mid - November . Rommel call in his company ’s ancestry from the vale into more open country , where the fighting extend amid scattered peasant farmhouses and pocket-sized village , include a vehement , confusing meeting on November 12 , 1916 :
The betting odds looked unfavorable for Rommel ’s unit , to say the least , and the Germans were forced into a irregular retreat by fierce Romanian counterplay , as often materialize during this period :
However Rommel ’s famous levelheadedness , combined with German training and firepower , helped halt the Romanian tide , provide yet another case of the major power of car guns against even vastly superior numbers in the First World War :
Elsewhere , however , the Germans found themselves bogged down in heavy fight near the southern mouths of the passes , made even more low by heavy wintertime storms . Dose recalled conditions in the eastern Predeal Pass in mid - November :
On the other side , in mid - November Kennard commemorate worsening conditions in Bucharest , as K of wounded pile up outside the train station :
Even more alarming , as the Germans approached from the west Kennard was informed that she should be ready to evacuate the capital at any time : “ It sound impossible , but I was secernate to - day that we shall probably have to take up and result in forty - eight hour ’ meter , to pass the wintertime in – well , we do n’t have it away where , but in the snow , anyway ! ” later on she recorded a social encounter which did little to quench her fearfulness : “ A Rumanian general came to teatime and said : ‘ We shall leave by night . ’ I said : ‘ Where to ? ’ He answered : ‘ God have it off ! ’ – which was supporting ! ”
Imperial War Museum via Humanities and Social Sciences Online
Meanwhile to the south Mackensen ’s movement into Dobruja at the head of the Danube Army air waves of refugees fly into the inside . In late October Fitzroy memorialize the definitive scenes – now all too familiar from previous mass retreat in Belgium , northern France , Poland and Serbia – of peasant families footslog along with all their belonging :
French Retake Fort Douaumont
Verdun wassupposedto be the place of decision , where Germany would “ bleed France livid ” and end the war . alternatively it was simply a charnel house house , where the initial Germanonslaughtdevolved into a flaming battle of mutualattrition , the attacker suffering almost as many casualties as the defenders .
At the beginning of September 1916 the new German chief of the general stave Paul von Hindenburg visited Verdun with his collaborator Erich Ludendorff ; appall at what they regard , they directly called off the offensive . But the tide was alreadyturning , as the French step by step pushed the Germans back a few meters at a time , paying a heavy price to release their ruin land . The most demeaning setback for the Germans so far came on October 24 , 1916 , when the French eventually recaptured Fort Douaumont – the strategic key to the field and the aim of several earlierfailedcounter - attacks .
The French were aided by the delivery of two massive new howitzers , the 400 - millimeter St. Chamond railway guns , so call because they were mounted on custom designed flatbed pull by steam engines – the only practical way to move the 140 - ton behemoths . Although this apparently limited their deployment , with a range of ten miles the monstrous artillery pieces could easily sink 1,400 - pound mellow volatile shells on German positions outside Verdun from specially built rail spur well to the south .
World War Photos
The Gallic offence also benefited from a huge accrual of other types of gun drawn from all over the Western Front , plus a stockpile of 15,000 slews of case . The Gallic flock in the three frontline division had trained for weeks , rehearsing their assault on a full - size of it reproduction of the posture . Last but not least the Gallic commanding officer in charge of the heel counter - attack , the artillery officeholder General Robert Nivelle , had new tactics – and a antic up his sleeve .
Verdun - Meuse . Fr
The counter - attack began on October in distinctive fashion on October 19 , with a punishing bombing by the “ regular ” Gallic ordnance , which as before seemed to make small belief on Fort Douaumont , but powderise the German trenches block off the feeler to the fort ( above , the garrison before the war ; below , on October 10 , 1916 ) . As injured party mount many German unit sanely withdraw to the protection of the fort itself , while the well - blot out German artillery held its fire , wait for the French infantry attack before revealing its own posture .
On October 22 , the Gallic artillery suddenly stopped firing and a vast cheerfulness go up from the French lines , indicating that the Gallic infantry attack was close at hand , and the German artillery finally unleashed its own bombardment against the French trenches , purportedly now full of assault troops – but no one was there . In a canny objet d’art of conjuration , Nivelle had tricked the Germans into giving away the positions of their own artillery , allowing the Gallic guns to aim them before the French infantry went over the top ( below , French infantry in a trench near Fort Douaumont ) .
ITV
After another Clarence Shepard Day Jr. of barrage fire , during which the French care to wipe out about half the German gun spot around Fort Douamount , the Germans were still in firm possession of the fort itself – but now the hammering do down . On October 23 at 12:30 p.m. a monumental blowup shook the center of the fort , as the first of the 400 - mm shell plunged with remarkable preciseness into the bowels of the structure , kill 50 patients and aesculapian faculty in the infirmary . Ten second later bring another thrill impact , followed by another , and another , as the two railway line guns open fire in tandem bicycle . The garrison had finally been breached .
With fires combust inside the fort , the German air force officer had little pick but to order his world to take away on the evening of October 23 , leaving it undefended – or rather , almost open . In a typical mixture - up result from well-nigh nonexistent communication on the battlefield , that evening a German captain in flush of a signaling unit turn back to the fort to find it abandoned . With the fires mostly wipe out , show admirable initiative he hurriedly scratch together whatever troop he could find to hold the fort .
Thus only a handful of badly - fit defenders were hold back the fortress when the French attacked on the morning of October 24 , 1916 , meaning that Fort Douaumont , one of the unassailable fortification in Europe , was hardly defended at all both when it descend to the Germans in February 1916 , and then again when the French liberate it just eight month later . In fact , ironically the French faced much stiffer opposition from German defenders in trenches and bunker outside the fort – but once again Nivelle ’s tactics delivered a startling success .
Nivelle ’s second design was the double crawling barrage , in which French heavy weapon laid down a wall of fire just in front of the advancing infantry , harbour them from German counterpunch - attacks , obliterating recently dug German trench and fortifications , and forcing German defenders to take shelter in deep dugout while the French advanced . The manoeuvre was particularly effectual because it was actually compose of two onslaught advancing in sequence : the first by heavy artillery unit to take out major strongholds , followed by the second by field ordnance , to keep German scout troop pin down .
As the double creeping bombardment abrade the fog - cover battlefield , three French divisions surged forward with a speed that took the demoralized and overwrought German defenders by surprise . take K of prisoners , the French bypassed the few remaining German strongholds , leaving these to the five reserve divisions following close on their heels , while they raced ahead to the abandoned garrison loom out of the cloud . One French officer recalled the dramatic scene :
Meuse Tourism
Fort Douaumont , the strategical key to the entire Verdun battlefield , was once again in Gallic hand – or rather , what was left of it . Another French officer described the beaten-up fortress , whose upper levels had been largely destruct , but whose scummy levels were still mostly entire , a testimonial to superb French pre - war engineering ( above , the cap of the fortress today ):
International Institute of Social History
The liberation of Fort Douaumont was herald across France as the great French triumph ( or as some faultfinder may have watch over , the only victory ) since theMiracle on the Marne . In addition to decisively demonstrating the bankruptcy of the German offensive at Verdun , the triumph had special personal meaning for some of the troops who submit part . Masserigne Soumare , aSenegalesesoldier in the French Army who need part in the battle , remembered that in a time of endemical racial discrimination their succeeder helped convert the attitudes of average Gallic mass towards black Africans , and no one was prouder than the colonial troop ’ whitened officers ( above , Senegalese troops with a banner recognizing their servicing at Douaumont , a rare accolade ):
See theprevious installmentorall incoming .
