beptember 7, 
eeneral retirement only. The total number of enemy 
prisoners taken by the Roumanians up to last Sunday 
was no more than 1,800. This means that the fighting 
had until then been against enemy rearguards only 
whilst the mass of the enemy retired northward and 
westward, or concentrated new forces which were being 
brought up. , X, X J J 
Had the enemy determined to stand upon the extended 
line of the frontier, it is clear that he would have offered 
the greatest resistance upon the crests, as he is in fact, 
actually doing against the Roumanians in the Northern 
Carpathians. jv .• ^ 
Such a resistance upon the crest, were his effectives 
numerous enough to permit it. was obviously suggested 
by the trace of the railways which the Hungarian Govern- 
ment had constructed here. If the reader wiU look at 
the map he will see that all the way from Deda and 
Toplicza AAA right round to Brazzo (Kronstadt) and 
Hermannstadt, there is continuous railway communication 
close entwined with a continuous road, and that hence- 
there is everywhere an excellent lateral communication to 
support an army defending the frontier crest. The road 
and rail are designed with that object. It is clear, there- 
fore that the enemy command has found its present 
effectives insufficient for the defence of the long extended 
curved line of the frontier crest, and has determined to 
fall back upon a shorter hne immediately. 
Now what is this shorter line ? That is the puzzle 
of the moment. If there were an obvious one like the 
parallel rivers of Galicia or the line of the Meuse m 
Northern France, one would not have to seek ; but there 
is here ncrthing of the sort. The tangle of hi Is and woods 
enclosing occasional more open spaces, and fruitful plains 
each with its town, goes on march after march from the 
extreme eastern point of the Transylvanian salient in 
loncitude ^6. \o cast till you come down upon the iiun- 
earian plain itself at Grosswardein, Arad and Temesvar, 
no less than 5 degrees of longitude to the west. 
I suggest -and it is no more than a suggestion -that 
the sole tenable line, cutting across the Transylvanian 
salient and shortening the mileage to be held by the now 
danecrouslv teduced Austro-Hungarian effectives, and 
affording' lateral communication sufficient to the supply 
of an army— is the line formed by the road and railway 
which follow the Maros river and so come to Deda— 
then a line cutting across the hills to the Bukovina 
frontier and the Borgo pass (where very considerable 
forces of the enemy have long been stationed against the 
Russians), would complete the chain. Ihe full line 
would be that of the upper Maros river, of a portion ot 
its tributary the Sztrigy and of two small streams beyond, 
the valleys of which carry one to the Temes and the main 
Orsova or Danube road and railway. Sucl) a line might 
be called without too much generalisation " the line of 
the Maros BBB," and I suggest that on this 
as his lateral communication the enemy intends to 
"^^ The' posts that he will fight to hold will be perhaps 
far to the east of such a line, or some of them, will be ; 
but the Maros valley, road and railway will necessarily 
be his continuous road and railway lateral communication 
which will support him. It will shorten his line by 
something like 150 miles. It will mean the sacrifice of 
East Transylvania as the price of what he hopes to be the 
secure power of holding permanently further west He 
cannot coincidentally use the Maros as an obstacle for 
the road and railway perpetually cross and recross that 
stream. Moreover, the Maros is not a serious obstacle 
save in its lower course. 
We can do no more than guess at the forces which 
Germany and Austria will scrape up to stand m front of 
the Maros lines, if they retire so far. Shorter though 
it is by far than the frontier hues, they will not and 
cannot hold it with less than ten divisions. How they 
will get that force together without dangerously weaken- 
ing some vital sector east or west in the 2,500 miles ot 
front is their affair. 
The Bulgarian Operations 
In what may be called the "Salonika" campaign, 
the Bulgarian offensive, undertaken upon a scale alto- 
gether too large for the forces at its disposal, has come 
to a halt. ec • i- 
At the moment of writing the counter-offensive action 
of the allied armies has not begun. We might do worse 
