WAS RUMANIA FORCED?

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 28, 1 February 1917, Page 6

WAS RUMANIA FORCED?

Now 'that the Rumanian situation has been analysed in the-light thrown by the Austrian Red Book, the contention is being put forward that the Entente blundered worse in Rumania in 1916 than in Servia the year before, because the Entente had power to time Rumania's intervention, whereas the enemy attack on ■Servia could not have been controlled, although it certainly should have been foreseen and prepared against. The view of the situation that is now finding increasing acceptance, is a most interesting one, and is briefly as follows: As long ago as the autumn of 1915 Germany had decided that Rumania must ultimately be an enemy, and wished to force Rumaniainto the warat once. Aus-tro-Kungarian timidity checked the Berlin plan, not once, but soveral times. By the middle of 1916 General Brusiloff had made great progress in Bukowina and Eastern Galicia, and with his advance came a corresponding revival of Rumanian eagerness to intervene. At. this stage the main military question was whether the Russians in Bessarabia and Bukowina, and General Saa-rail's Entente army at Salonika, would be able to give Rumania such direct help (Russian) and indirect help (Sarrail's) as to enable the enemy concentratioi) 'against Rumania to be resisted. Those Entente authorities who answered the question in the affirmative appear to have made a whole series of blunders. Firstly, they hugely under-estimated the strength oi the

Secondly, they over-estimated the volume and speed of the assistance derivable by Rumania from Russia. Thirdly, they failed to see that tha Constantinian menace (only now dealt with.), military unpreparedness, and sickness would take the sting out of Sarrail's blow, carrying him into Monastir instead of into Uskub or Nish. In short, as Mr. Lloyd George virtually admitted, the miscalculation was complete.

Under-estimation of the enemy's power to concentrate against Rumania was probably due to the impression made by Germany's failure at Verdun and on the Somme, and by Austria's failure against \[taly and against Brusiloff. But to assume from these reverses that the enemy no longer possessed powerful reserve armies was very faulty logic and entirely unmilitary. The idea is now gaining ground that some of the weakness oi\ the Somme and in the Italian sphere was due to Ludendorffs far-sighted strategy in withdrawing forces for eventual use against Rumania; and that those weaknesses, if correctly interpreted, would have been a, sign not of the enemy's inability to crush Rumania, but o£ his intention to do so. As to the second blunder—Russia's failure to send sufficient prompt assistance—there are certain Petrograd political factors still wrapped in darkness, but there is a very definite impression that Brusiloff's JuneJuly offensive cost so much that Russia was no longer sufficiently munitioned and otherwise prepared to put forth the maximum effort that would have been required to save Rumania in AugusJSeptember. .Concerning the Greek aspects ~of blunder No. 3 enough has already been written. As to military unpreparedness, Dr. Dillon declares that "General Sarrail never disposed of materials and combatants enough to discharge the important task allotted to him, and they were denied him because it was held that the task he was to undertake was either impossible or else only feasible by absorbing men and materials -vyhich could and should be used to better purpose elsewhere." The required measures "were deliberately eschewed on grounds which, if worth anything at all, ought to have pulverised the case for maintaining an Allied army: at Salonika. To my own knowledge, as late as June, 1916, Sarrail was "denied the absolutely indispensable means of converting his men into an army. I repeat, in June this year, some weeks before Rumania's decision to intervene." And even then "only a kalf-liearted assent" was given to certain of his demands, which included effective dealing with Constantine.

"Rumania," says Dr,< Dillon, "assured that San-ail would deal out sledgehammer blows to the Bulgars, began her offensive in Transylvania." But the Salonika offensive was only one of the directions in which the Entente is declared to have failed in its obligations to Rumanife. According to Dr. Dillon, the Rumanian Premier (M.. Bratianu) i wished to still further postpone intervention, but was pressed by Russia against his .better judgment, and, in order to reinsure the Rumanian position as much as possible, "stipulated that the (Entente) Allies should provide his country with an adequate defence against Bulgaria, and supply Rumania- with munitions, artillery, and all other war materials; that Hie Russian troops should push further in the Carpathians; that not only San-ail's army at Salonika, but also the Entente forces at all the fronts, should begin or intensify their offensive contemporaneously. He . . asked for a special Allied (read Russian) army to protect Rumania against the Bulgars." History has shown that the things which Dr. ..Dillon says were stipulated were either not done or were quite inadequately done. According to Count Czernin (Austrian Ambassador at Bucharest till the Rumanian declaration of war) the step forcing the Rumanian Premier's tend, long premeditated by Germany, was finally taken by Russia. In November, ,1915, M. Bratianu was asked by Count Czernin to say what reply he would return to a demand on Russia's part to allow her troops to pass through Rumanian territory, and he answered unhesitatingly that he would refuse it. Count Czemin declares that on 24th July, 1916, M. Bratianu wa3 still impressed firmly—and, as we now know, rightly—with the opinion that Rumania should postpone her intervention, but on 24th August Russia presented an ultimatum 'to Rumania/, promising her Transylvania, the Banat, Bukowina, and ■apparently the Danube Delta if she entered the war, and in the alternative declared her intention to march into Rumania with 100,000 men. -"The Count comments : "There can be no doubt that) Bratianu would have preferred to wait a little longer. What I foresaw, that the Entente would probably force the decision, has come to pass." The moral of the story as told by these chroniclers is that unready Russia, whose real interest proved afterwards to lie in the direction- of delay, forced the pace, and Petrograd did just what Berlin had prayed for.