8 
LAND & WATER 
August 31, 1916 
circled isolated Plain of Transylvania, at the point 
marked (5) on Map IV. 
This natural formation is the gorge of the river called 
by the Germans the Alt and by the Roumanians the Olta. 
This stream runs right through the mountain mass, 
cutting it like a knife from north to south in the famous 
gorge called that of the " Red Tower." It is generally, 
though improperly, called a "pass," conveying b\' that 
name the idea of a saddle over the hills. The road and 
the railway both use this gorge, running southward from 
the old Roman town of Cibinium, which commands its 
northern gate, and which is called in modern Roumanian 
Sibiiu. The official German name is Hermanstadt. 
The Great Transylvanian Salient 
Now let us consider what this extended line probably 
means for the future operations of the war. 
The ftrst thing that the eye seizes even upon such a 
general sketch map as Map I, is the curiously profound 
salient formed by the frontier ; the bulge between Pass 1 
and Pass 7. 
The frontier can hardly be called an artificial one 
geographically, because though it does not everywhere 
follow the watershed of the Carpathians it normally does 
so. 
Politically, it is artificial because the Roumanian 
race extends (>nth the exceptions to be noticed in a 
moment) far beyond to the west ; and it is the national 
desire of the Roumanians to possess a united country, 
which has been one of their chief motives of sympathy 
with the Allies during the course of the war 'and of their 
present intervention. 
We in the West have, as a rule, no conception of the 
very great territory occupied by Roumanian-speaking 
folk compared with the purely political boimdaries of 
the Roumania we know upon the map. 
I add here a sketch showing the magnitude of this 
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200 
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extension. The line of crosses upon this Sketch V. is thqt 
of the political boundary established between the Hun- 
garian kingdom and the Roumanian ; compare witii 
that politically artificial line the actual extent of the 
Roumanian language westward. It only just misses 
(irosswardein. It includes Arad. It runs up the Danube 
far west of the Iron Gates and it even crosses the Danube 
into the hilly and wooded area south of that point. The 
reader may note upon the same sketch tiie anomalies I 
am about to allude to of pojiulation within this area for, 
compact as it is and vastly exceeding the purely political 
boundaries to which Roumania has hitherto been subject, 
it is not homogeneous. And there lie actuall\' towards 
the eastern edge of it and towards the present frontier 
the chief exceptions. In the dense part of the woods a 
considerable area of Magyar speaking people, and round 
their edges the colonies of German-speaking people 
settled here long ago. 
We should then be in error if we thought of this political 
point as a simple one. In the first place, there is a 
religious problem. The Roumanian population, subject 
to Hungary upon the western side of the hills in Transyl- 
vania is, for the most part, in communion with Rorne, 
though using an Oriental rite. 
The religious problem, however, is not here an acute 
one, as it is in other parts of the eastern field of war. 
More important is the presence of German colonies 
scattered throughout the.se countrysides. They were 
planted as a deliberate policy by the Empire in the Middle 
Ages, forming urban centres in the small enclosed plains 
which lie between the tortuous foothills of the Car- 
pathians. The official German name of " Siebenbiirgen " 
denotes this character, standing for the seven towns 
" Hermanstadt " (Sibiiu) ; " Kronstadt " (Brasso), and 
the rest, which the German colonists did not indeed found 
but were granted to rule. 
Their numbers are not .considerable. They form, 
perhaps, in the whole of Transyhania, less than ten per 
cent, of the po{)ulation, the Roumanian race accounting 
for much the largest part and tlie next most numerous 
being the JIagyar and their kinsfolk the Szckely. 
The country is not only thus complicated racially but 
geographically as well. Any attack upon it from the 
east must be conducted through a perfect ma?e of falling 
foothills covered with immense forests. 
The first interest of the campaign would seem to be 
whether the Roumanian effort will be made against this 
salient and with the political object of its mere occupation 
of it and if so in what form. 
I will discuss this and then turn to the second problem 
of the Danube and Dobrudja frontier against Bulgaria ; 
which is not yet an actual problem because, at the mo- 
ment of writing (Tuesday evening) Roumania and 
Bulgaria are not at war. 
There are two motives which compel the Roumanian 
army to attack Transylvania as a special local object 
and attempt an occupation of its great salient. 
The first and strongest of these motives is political. 
After all, Roumania has come into the war as we have 
seen in order to affirm her national unity and to acquire 
that vast territory to the west to which she is morally 
entitled and from which nothing but ,the conventions of 
diplomatists have excluded her. 
The whole national effort miftt as apolitical thing tend 
to the recapture of Transylvania. On this account it is 
probable that the new army which has joined the Allies 
will make a great effort to" enter Transylvania directly. 
It is not wholly a military advantage, because the 
Austro-Hungarians, if they abandon the salient, 
shorten their line suddenly and greatly. But even 
as a purely military ' problem there are arguments 
in favour ofsuch a course. The salient which the exist- 
ing frontier presents is exceedingly tempting. The 
northern and southern edges of its' neck are hardly 100 
miles apart, and^the use of the new great numbers in the 
field to frighten the dwindling Austro-Hungarian forces 
out of such a salient is a task which the map apparently 
imposes upon the Roumanian commanders. 
To strike in from the south while at the same time 
threatening from the north, and thus to compel the 
Austro-Hungarians to abandon the salient is a plan which, 
if Roumania were only considering herself in his cam- 
paign, would become politically almost imperative. Im- 
agine Alsace Lorraine thrust as a great salient in the midst 
of France and ask yourself what the French com- 
manders would be tempted to do at the beginning of a 
Franco-German war ? 
The last alternative is an. attack upon Bulgaria : The 
Roumanians to stand upoij the defensive along the 
Carpathian line and to turn their strength southward. 
Let me repeat that the discussion of this plan of cam- 
paign is for the moment purely academic. Roumania is 
not, or was not, by the last telegrams upon Tuesday 
•evening when this is written, at war with Bulgaria. 
An attack upon the Bulgarian belt which now alone pre- 
vents the whole of the Allied front, from the Baltic 
to the Aigean, from forming a united line would 
have results plain to all. The Allied armies at 
Salonika are more than sufficient to contain all the 
Bulgarian armies : to hold, to occupy and probablv 
to defeat them. The north is open. And between runs 
