advanced forces reached the neighbourhood of the town of Hom Almas. The advance was greatest in the centre; the two wings made much less progress, and the left wing never advanced more than four or five miles beyond Hermannstadt and Petroseny.

About September 20 the Austro-Hungarian forces ceased to retreat, and the Rumanians found that their further advance was meeting with serious opposition. In the three weeks which had elapsed, von Hindenburg had been quickly withdrawing troops from other fronts, especially from the West, and German troops were sent to Transylvania in great force. The new Chief of the General Staff was deliberately prepared to take risks in the West in order that he might have sufficient troops available in the East to regain the initiative and repeat his triumphs of 1915.

The Austro-German line in Hungary now passed approximately straight across the base of the Transylvanian "promontory," from Dorna Watra to Hermannstadt; and on this shortened line von Hindenburg concentrated a great army of at least 400,000 men, well supplied with guns, and General von Falkenhayn was placed in command. The appearance of the enemy in this strength surprised General Crainiceano, and he evacuated Hermannstadt, and on his left was quickly forced to withdraw his men into the protection of the Vulkan Pass.

In the meantime, von Mackensen's troops advancing from Silistria had reached a point only fifteen miles south of the important port of Constanza. The Rumanian army in the Dobrudja had been reinforced by Russian troops, and had taken up a defensive line running parallel with the eastern segment of the Bukarest-Constanza railway, and situated about 12 miles south of that railway. Von Mackensen's forces were at this time entirely confined to the right bank of the Danube, but they had now penetrated about 80 miles into the Dobrudja.

At the end of September von Falkenhayn fought a battle south of Hermannstadt, and by means of an encircling movement from the west Bavarian troops seized the northern exit of the Roter Turm Pass, in the rear of the Rumanian force. The greater part of the Rumanian force engaged in this battle escaped capture by fleeing to the east, and the Germans took only 3,000 prisoners, but owing to the impassable nature of the transverse roads the defeated force was compelled to abandon virtually the whole of its baggage, and about 700 railway trucks and 10 locomotives were abandoned north of the pass, thus falling into the hands of the advancing Germans. The Rumanian force beat a disorderly retreat eastwards until it reached the Torzburg Pass, which was still securely held by the central Rumanian army.

From this point onwards the Rumanian troops were steadily overpowered. They were, for some unexplained reason, insufficiently supplied with heavy guns, and another factor in the

defeats doubtless was the lack of enthusiasm for the war among many of the rank and file, who failed to comprehend the somewhat esoteric politico-ethnological reasons which had caused their Government to intervene in the conflict (see Rumania). But the chief cause of the Rumanian defeats was the inferior quality of Rumanian generalship, which was revealed the more painfully, in that the Rumanian leaders found themselves. matched against the very flower of the German General Staff, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Mackensen, Falkenhayn.

On October 4 and 5 the most advanced troops of the Rumanian Army were defeated near Szekely-Udvarhely, and a general and rapid retreat began. On October 5, 6, and 7 Falkenhayn won a victory near Kronstadt (Brasso), and on the 8th. that town was retaken. The Germans captured over 30 guns in this engagement. The Rumanians who had been engaged near Kronstadt fell back upon the three passes leading into Rumania from this district of Hungary-the Torzburg, Predeal, and Buza passes. So rapid was the Rumanian retreat, that by the middle of October the invaders of Transylvania had fallen back to the general line of the Carpathians and were defending their own frontier, and General Averesco, deceived by the lull on Mackensen's front, came hurrying back to the Hungarian frontier. In the middle of October Falkenhayn's troops pierced a way through the Torzburg Pass, and began making their way down the Rumanian slope, though as yet they had not reached the rail-head at Kimpolung, 16 miles within the Rumanian frontier. The Germans also pressed through the Gyimes Pass, much further to the north-east, but in this region they were subsequently repulsed.

The attention of the Rumanian Government and the Rumanian generals having now been diverted to the Carpathians, Mackensen struck another sudden blow on October 19. The Rumanian line running from Rasova on the Danube to Tuzla on the Black Sea was smashed, the trunk railway was seized, and on October 22 the Bulgaro-German troops entered Constanza in triumph. Within a few days the entire stretch. of the railway from Tchernavoda to Constanza was in possession of the enemy, and this gave them the eastern end of the famous Carol Bridge across the Danube, at Tchernavoda. The Rumanians in their retirement did not seriously damage the bridge, possibly thinking that so long as they held the western end of that valuable structure, its existence would be of little use to the Germans. Constanza normally contains great stocks of grain and oil, but before evacuating the town the Rumanians destroyed the greater part of these supplies, and in this victory in the Dobrudja the Germans only claimed to have captured 12 guns and about 7,000 men.

On October 25 the Vulkan Pass was stormed by von Falkenhayn's men. During the first half of November there was fierce fighting in all the Carpathian passes, the Austro

German forces making slow but steady progress. In October the Rumanians had made a diversion across the Danube into Bulgaria, but nothing came of this move, and the initiative remained with the enemy. The passes appear to have been inadequately fortified, and in none of the valleys were the Rumanians able to stay the progress of the Germans for more than a few days. The Vulkan, the Roter Turm, the Torzburg, the Predeal-all were lost. Yet for a couple of weeks longer the Rumanian Army retreated fighting, and made the enemy pay dearly for the ground he was gaining. In the middle of November, however, about November 14 to 16, a battle was fought below the Vulkan Pass, near the rail-head at Tirgu Jiu, which was decisive of the whole Rumanian campaign. Falkenhayn had now brought his heavy guns through the passes, and faced by superior artillery, and incessantly outmanoeuvred, the unfortunate Rumanian soldiers defending Tirgu Jiu broke in panic. The right wing of Falkenhayn's army swept on into the fertile plain of Wallachia. In the second half of November the developments were extremely rapid, and the movements of Falkenhayn's and Mackensen's armies were co-ordinated in that perfect manner which characterised the great German advance on Warsaw in the previous year. On November 21 the large town of Craiova, the junction of the railways coming from Orsova and Tirgu Jiu, was occupied by the Germans.

When the Rumanian army at Tirgu Jiu was routed, the army much further west at Orsova did not retire, but continued to hold its ground. The loss of Craiova consequently severed the railway communications of this force, and its retreat was rendered almost impossible.

The right wing of Falkenhayn's force was now situated not more than 30 miles from the left bank of the Danube. This great sweeping movement was accomplished by the troops who had come through the Vulkan Pass; south of the Roter Turm and Torzburg passes the Rumanians were still yielding ground very slowly. On November 24 Mackensen threw his troops across the Danube at several points. It was expected that the Rumanians in retiring eastward from Craiova would attempt to hold the line of the river Aluta, which flows southwards across Rumania from the Roter Turm Pass to the Danube, but Falkenhayn reached this river on the 24th and forced a passage without difficulty. On the 27th, Mackensen captured the town of Giurgevo, on the left bank of the Danube, due south of Bukarest, and two days earlier his scouts had already established contact with those of Falkenhayn, so that before the end of November the German armies formed a complete line across Rumania. The town of Pitesti was taken on November 29, and on the same day the invaders reached the rail-head at Kimpolung, below the Torzburg Pass.

Bukarest was now enclosed within a wide ring of fire, which was complete on all sides save the east. A desperate offensive

by the Russians in the north of Rumania and in Bukovina, made in order to create a diversion, failed to break the German defences, and was beaten off by the local contingents. On the line of the river Argesu the Rumanians made a last desperate attempt to save their capital, but their resistance was broken by the Austro-German guns, and on December 2 and 3 the invaders crossed the river in force. This sealed the fate of Bukarest, and after the defeat on the Argesu the retreat became a rout. The invaders captured over 20,000 prisoners and more than a 100 guns; and on December 6 the Austro-German forces occupied Bukarest. The important town of Ploesti also fell on December 6, and on the following day the Orsova army, consisting of one division, was compelled to capitulate.

The subsequent operations during the last three weeks of the year were less dramatic in character. The Rumanians retreated rapidly eastwards of Bukarest, and did not attempt to make a stand until they reached the line of the River Sereth. Von Mackensen's men cleared the whole of the Dobrudja of the Russians and the Rumanians, and thus secured the entire course of the Danube as a defensive line in the event of any great Russian move on the route to Constantinople, of which, however, there was no immediate likelihood. At the end of the year the Rumanians were defending the line of the Sereth, and were still on the right bank of that river.

THE WAR OF ATTRITION.

At the time of writing it is unfortunately not practicable to give full and reliable facts relating to the process of attrition up to the end of December. During the year several of the belligerent Governments ceased to publish the totals of the casualties of their respective armies, and even prohibited the publication of semi-official compilations of such totals. Thus the French casualties were not made known in England after the beginning of the year, and the estimates of the AustroHungarian totals ceased to be reliable. Similarly, it became increasingly difficult to compute the Russian losses, and it is possible that the exact totals were not even known to the Russian Government itself. The British Government also ceased to give out the totals of British casualties.

In these circumstances, it is not possible to do much more than note certain broad considerations bearing upon this highly important question. It is certain that during 1916 the wastage of the Entente was proportionately, and possibly even actually, smaller than that of the Central Alliance. The process of attrition which was favourable to the larger coalition in 1914 and 1915, was more favourable in 1916. In the Eastern theatre the Russian losses were very much less severe than those sustained in 1915, whilst on the other hand the Austro

[DEC. 1916. Hungarian losses in June and July were extremely heavy. In the western theatre the casualties of the opposing sides were probably approximately equal-which, be it remembered, means that they were very unequal in proportion to the total numbers of the respective armies. The German casualties in the unsuccessful assault upon Verdun were very heavy, but these were counterbalanced by the very serious losses incurred by the Franco-British forces in the precisely comparable offensive on the Somme. The absence of official British statistics, though no doubt necessary, led to exaggerated statements on this matter being made in certain quarters; and it was sometimes forgotten that although the battle of the Somme continued for four months, the rate of losses incurred in the first month, July, was not subsequently maintained. It was not the case that the British had half a million casualties on the Somme. The aggregate wastage of the white manhood of the British Empire up to the end of 1916 was certainly not much more than onethird that of the manhood of Germany-the latter country having a population only slightly greater.

The German Government continued to publish full details of the German casualties in a characteristically methodical manner. The totals of the losses reported up to the end of the year, that is, approximately those incurred up to the end of November, are shown below. As in Chapter I., half the 'missing" have been classed as dead and half as prisoners, and trifling injuries have been ignored :

It will be noticed that in the ten months, February to November, the Germans suffered over 1,200,000 casualties, about 350,000 soldiers being killed.