LAND & WATER 
August 31, IQlG 
The Intervention of Roumania 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE intervention of Roumania is a matter of 
such great moment that one is almost tempted 
to abandon for its general consideration the 
merely military analysis which is the proper 
subject of these pages. 
All military action reposes upon some civilian policy. 
It is necessarily directed to the achievement of political 
ends. It ultimately is dependent upon the judgment not 
only of soldiers but of statesmen. And the intervention 
of Roumania means upon this political side that the 
approaching defeat of the Central Powers is now every- 
where accepted. 
To appreciate the magnitude of such a revolution, to 
see in scale what it means, one- must appreciate how those 
countries stand which have for their immediate neigh- 
bours upon either hand the Central Empires and Russia : 
not only the countries which have a place upon the modern 
map but the races, the true politics of Eastern Europe. - 
To the Roumanians as to the Poles, the Ruthenians 
and the various Southern Slavs also— to the Magyars 
even with their great quasi-independent power — 
the whole world seems to be in balance between Russia 
eastward and the two reigning houses of Central Europe, 
the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollcrns on their west. 
The effect of pro.ximity upon judgment — geographical 
proximity and that mental or moral proximity which 
comes of familiarity through commerce or a common 
language or what not — is inevitably an effect of distortion. 
Thus, we in the West are full of Belgium and the submarine 
outrages, and stand surprised at the way in which the 
Polish question, saj', or the division of i"aces in Galicia, or 
the boundaries of Roumanian language in the Bukovina, 
are discussed elsewhere as prime matters in the war. 
But we ourselves -also see out of scale our own Western 
matters which occupy our minds. To Eastern Europe 
the fortunes of the great war throughout iqi3 and the early 
fiart of this year seemed little more than a duel between 
the Russian Empire and the Central Powers. From 
this we may conclude what the effect was upon Eastern 
European opinion of the Austro-German advance through 
Poland which terminated last October ! 
The decision of Roumania and the action her govern- 
ment took last Sunday night in declaring war upon the 
Hapsburgs meant that the iinal issue of that duel was 
now no longer in doubt even in Eastern Europe. It 
is a moral revolution of the utmost significance, and that 
aspect of it, I say, overshadows all the rest. 
But we are concerned in this paper chiefly with the 
military side, and it is to this that I would now propose 
to turn in some detail. 
We must first of all consider numbers — the basis of 
every calculation. 
Roumania is to-day conscript .with a complete system 
of conscription upon the model of all the other Balkan 
States and of France. The Balkan States and the French 
Republic alone in Europe had reached a complete system 
of this kind. All other conscript nations were content 
to enrol but a portion of their adult efficient male popula- 
tion upon its coming of age, and to exempt a considerable 
proportion under a system which left this exempted part 
to receive cither a partial training or none, and to post- 
pone its full training till after the outbreak of war. 
With a population of about seven and a-half million 
this system meant that Roumania could at her fullest 
strength, and without any abnormal forms of recruit- 
ment (such as the calUng of inefficicnts or immature 
classes) ultimately develop a strength in the field of three 
quarters of a million men. But her normal mihtary 
organisation did not envisage any such strain. She has as 
a fact enrolled at this moment, equipped, established in 
their formations and depots something over 600,000 rnen : 
How much over we shall not precisely know until official 
statistics are available after the war—for the last details 
of these matters are always kept as secret as possible. 
Roughly speaking, the disposition of this considerable 
force is as follows : 
To each of five regions into which Roumania is 
militarily divided, one active army corps of two divisions 
is attached. On mobilisation these are brought up to 
strength, and behind each is immediately formed a twin 
reserve corps of two divisions. 
Some twenty divisions, therefore,- organised in ten corps, 
five active and five reserve, form the army that will take 
the field. This accounts for a trifle over 400,000 men, a 
Roumanian division being a little more numerous in its 
personnel than are our Western formations — but the 
excess is negligible when we are only stating round 
figures.* 
When we say " take the field " we do not mean that 
these twenty divisions will be occupied at once ; a large 
proportion, perhaps over a third, will at first stand as a 
strategic reserve. But twenty divisions is the figure we 
^ must keep in mind for the organised striking force of 
the nation. 
There remain, under the present state of the formations, 
about another 50 per cent, — the equivalent of another 
ten divisions — trained and in depots to be used as 
drafts, for filling up wastage as it occurs in the fighting 
units and keeping them up to full strength. In 
other words there is provision behind the armies 
to replace as wastage goes on one man for every 
two engaged : The attrition of the armies by war must 
have eliminated half their original effectives before the 
Roumanian organisation as at present established feels 
a strain or has to fall back (in order to maintain its effec- 
tives) upon abnormal recruitment ; that is, iipoji the 
• immature classes and the first groups of inefficients. 
We shall do well at this point to note the value of this 
quality at the present moment. It is true that Roumania 
is bringing in but twenty divisions upon lines which, 
counting east and west and south alike, are certainly 
occupying twenty times as many — or more. The mere 
numerical addition seems small. We shall see in a 
moment that it is a very considerable and even momen- 
tous addition to the particular field where it will b; used : 
and this point of quality has, therefore, great weight. 
The Central Empires are, as we know, long past the 
stage in which abnormal recruitment has become neces- 
sary. The immature classes were called out by Austria 
first ; next by Germany. Austria-Hungary began to 
"comb, out" the inefficients more than a year ago, 
the (ierman empire eleven months ago ; men who had 
originally failed to pass the doctor were .palled in Austria 
and Hungary as early as May and June, 1915,' in Germany 
by September and October. The first groups of ineffi- 
cients were at these dates already encroached upon by 
the Central Powers, To the first two immature classes 
igi6 and 1017 already summoned in the summer of 1915 
Austria-Hungary was compelled to add some months ago 
the class IQ18, and the German Empire began last June 
to follow suit ; the first German- recruits of 1918 being 
summoned in Saxony during the course of that month. 
The fresh Roumanian forces not only enter with mature 
classes only but with a very large reserve of drafts be- 
hind the field armies, which reserve is also composed of 
mature classes alone and of efficients. 
There is another point about the quality of a fresh 
army which must not be neglected at this stage. Its 
proportion of officers and non-commissioned officers, 
that is the trained and professional leaders, the framework 
or cadre of an army, is, in the case of Roumania, entire. 
The strain which modern war has put upon this frame- 
work among all the original belligerents we know by 
experience to be enormous. The replacing of pro- 
fessional officers by new commissions, the holders of 
which have necessarily received only an imperfect and 
• It is, at the most, an excess of some 5 per cent. 
