September 14, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
is a particularly formidable obstacle in these its lower 
reaches, and that this obstacle is turned at one point and 
at one point only— the great railway bridge of Cernavoda. 
All the way from the railway bridge at Belgrade, passing 
the Iron Gates, all along the 250 miles and more that 
separate Bulgaria from Roumania, there is no bridge of 
any kind across the Danube, let alone any railway 
bridge, until one comes to that great avenue of communi- 
cations which is called the bridge of Cernavoda. 
The lower Danube is an obstacle formidable for four 
reasons. First, its depth, secondly its width, thirdly its 
rapidity, and fourthly, the fact that, save at rare 
intervals, it is flanked, especially upon the northern bank, 
by great belts of marsh. 
Had bridges been established across it at various places 
in the past we should have seen the beginning of the cam- 
paign on the Bulgarian side directed at once to the seizing 
of a bridge-head if it were possible, just as we have seen 
the Roumanians seizing the passes across the Carpathians. 
But there are no such bridges, as I have said, between the 
great bridge of Belgrade and the great bridge of Cerna- 
voda. 
Now let us appreciate what this means under modern 
conditions. 
A river like the Rhine or the Vistula, broad and often 
rapid, often deep, but with firm banks for the most part, 
depends for the crossing of it upon a certain volume of 
fire coupled with the power to feint here and there and 
so to disperse the resources of an inferior enemy. But 
such feinting, such crushing of the opposite bank with 
superior weight of metal, and such secure establishment 
of a temporary bridge of pontoons or boats depend upon 
the possession of very considerable forces, the possession 
of reasonably good lateral communications up and down 
the stream, and, above all, the presence of good going on 
each of the opposing banks. The great belts of marsh 
are fatal to sucli a scheme. The few gaps between them 
would be watched and specially guarded. The absence 
of a lateral road and railway adds to the difficulty. 
Even where a pontoon bridge can be thrown there is no 
possibility of building with any rapidity across such 
a stream as the Lower Danube a railway bridge, even a 
temporary one ; and it is upon railway communication 
that any great modern force necessarily depends. Where 
railway communication has already existed, and where [a 
retiring enemy has had power and time to do no more 
than to blow up the girders, these can be replaced in a 
comparatively short space of time. It took the Austro- 
Germans but a few weeks to restore full communication 
over the ruined bridge of Belgrade, for instance, and the 
permanent railway crossing of the Polish rivers after the 
Austro-German advance of last year was restored even 
more rapidly. But where there are no approaches upon f he 
two sides, no piers standing in the stream or embankments 
leading up to it the task — in the case of a deep river — 
is one of months or years. 
It is all this which lends supreme importance to the 
bridge of Cernavoda to which special attention was called 
in these columns last week. Through their possession of 
the bridge of Cernavoda the Roumanians were able, 
the moment their concentration was fully effected, to turn 
the obstacle of the Danube. 
But meanwhile the Bulgarians already had a great 
mobilised army fully in being, and ready to act in con- 
siderable masses in any direction and at any moment. 
They used it for marching against the bridge of Cernavoda. 
Strategically that is what the Bulgarian advance to- 
wards the Dobrudja means, and strategically that is all 
it means. Their strategical success or failure must be 
judged by their ability or inability to reach and to hold, 
or to cause the destruction of, this mighty structure, 
which turns the obstacle of the Danube in favour of the 
Allies. 
As may be seen from the accompanying map, the way 
the Bulgarian army is following (I call it the Bulgarian 
army because, although it has certain German units, 
probably of artillery, present with it, more Austrians 
and,a few Turkish, I do not belie\'e them to be of the 
strength vaguely rumoured [in our press) is the bank of 
the Danube. They have taken Turtukai, they have gone 
on another 35 to 40 miles and have taken Silistra, and the 
only true strategical object before them, Cernavoda, is 
but another 40 to 50 miles away. 
While we are thus insisting upon the strategical . object 
of the Bulgarians, it is worth nothing that they further 
have (as have also the Allies, unfortunately, in this war) a 
most important political object confusing and traversing 
purely military plans. 
The belt of country the Bulgarian army has just tra- 
versed upon its northern side is that territory annexed 
from Bulgaria by the Roumanians upon the exhaustion 
of the former after the Balkan War and in the Treaty of 
three years ago. There is therefore a certain political 
or moral consequence following upon the reoccupation of 
such territory, and the Bulgarians are not slow to em- 
phasise this in their bulletins. But strategically a mere 
advance as far as Silistra means very little. True, the 
Dobrudja, with its open land, lies to the north of the 
belt in question beyond Silistra, the northern part of 
which the Bulgarians are occupying is heavy and wooded 
country, capable of rather easier defence perhaps than 
the open prairies of the Dobrudja proper, but not so 
much more capable as to make a separate occupation 
of it worth while. No, there can be no doubt upon the 
projslem ; there is an attempt upon the part of the 
Bulgarians to reach the bridge of Cernavoda and an 
attempt upon the part of the Russians and Roumanians 
probably by going round their enemy in flank from the 
south, to checkmate the Bulgarian effort. By their 
success or failure against the bridge of Cernavoda the 
Bulgarians will be tested. 
The reader may here be interested to follow a rather 
more detailed description of that great engineering work 
which is to prove, negatively or positively, of such great 
importance in this war. I say "negatively or positively" 
because if the enemy fails to reach it and either to occupy 
it or cause its destruction, the Cernavoda bridge, though 
we shall not see its name appearing in the communiques, 
will still have a determining effect upon the campaign 
upon this front. While if it is reached and occupied or 
destroyed we shall, unfortunately, hear only too much 
of it in the future. 
■''{y.- l^aCaltes afUWaw en- 
'•*'•'■■ TceBterOnxaid 
Cena. 
U Voda- 
2Ailes 
The bridge of Cernavoda is not one structure, it is 
three great bridges with viaducts and embankments 
between, uniting the dry northern bank of the Danube 
with the dry southerji bank : the two standing apart 
in this region by a distance of about nine miles. The 
mention of such a distance will at once show the scale 
upon which the thing has been done. 
The international line which leads to the Port of 
Constanza upon the Black Sea reaches Fetestii upon a 
bluff, which in places reaches the height of 150 feet and 
overlooks a branch of the Danube called the Borceia 
branch. Across this branch, the actual waterway of 
which is not wider than the Thames at Westminster, is 
thrown the first bridge. The line proceeds in a perfectly 
straight trajectory somewhat south of east across the vast 
district of marsh, only here and there interspersed with 
slightly harder islands, as it were, which carry growths 
of willows. It just misses the big shallow lagoon called 
Branzisalai to the south, and the lake Rotun to the 
north, and then crosses by a second long bridge, a third, 
but very shallow mere interrupting its course. 
All the way across this marsh it is carried now upon 
firm* embankment, now upon arcad^es, till the second 
bridge is reached. There is a mile or so of somewhat 
firmer soil after the mere has been crossed by the second 
bridge, grown with willow, and then the marshes begin 
again and the hne slowly rises as it crosses them to 
approach the main branch of the 1 Danube. 
