September 14, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
dry gate, everywhere beyond the Argesul river, the marsh 
runs, and immediately to the east of Oltenita it begins 
again. 
Turtukai is a little place, the size of a small Enghsh 
market town, of some 8,000 inhabitants, and its whole 
strategical value depends upon this crossing. It has a 
further considerable tactical value from the fact that there 
is here a high bluff or steep bank coming down to the 
sooec. 
J 
Danube on the south from a height of about 300 feet, 
upon the slope of which the little place is built, and thus 
the positions now in the hands of the Bulgarians dominate 
the further Roumanian shore. 
So far as one can gather from the very disjointed and 
incomplete accounts which have reached us, the Rou- 
manians, in the process of mobilisation and long before 
their concentration was complete, had thrown out upon 
this side of the I>annDe a garrison of a whole division to 
hold Turtukai, to which division were certainly added 
certain extra units. When the Bulgarians tell us that 
they captured six: regiments they are ijot telUng the truth. 
But it is probable enough that they captured men frovi 
six regiments, and I see no reason to doubt, at any rate, 
the lesser of their two estimates, of 15.000 prisoners. 
It is clear that the place was snrprised and cut off 
from the east, and surrounded, and it is to be presumed 
that whatever was within it, save perhaps a quite un- 
important fraction which may have escaped, under fire, 
across the river, was either killed, wounded or taken 
unwounded. 
From Turtukai, which appears to have been com- 
pletely occupied by the moniing of last Thursday, the 7tli, 
the Bulgarian forces, with their Austrian contingents 
and a certain number of German officers, perhaps a 
fraction of German infantry, and certainly a big detach- 
ment of German heavy arvillery, proceeded rapidly down 
the bank of the stream, though there is (or was) here no 
true road, and occupied the next place of importance 
upon its banks, SiHstra, tt\o long marches away. 
SiHstra has been for ceaturies a place of great mihtary 
importance, and that because before the days of railways 
and of long range artillery, its bold projection right into 
the course of the stream, and its consequent command of 
navigation there made it a sort of second Belgrade, and 
a " half back " (if I may use the term) to the Iron Gates 
hundreds of miles above. A .secure possession of Sihstra 
blocked the navigation of the Danube in favour of its 
possessor. 
Silistra to-day has not that importance. The northern 
bank immediately in front of it is marshy. TTiere is, indeed, 
a single line leading to the town of Calarasii. five miies away 
and four miles beyond the north bank. There is a road 
leading down from Calarasii to a hard or " portul" of small 
extent upon the north bank. The possession of Sihstra 
has not then the importance attaching to the possession 
of Turtukai. In the ifurther progress of ihe enemy down 
from Sihstra towards Cernavoda, the way in which 
he will deal with the menace approaching him upon the 
south as the Russian forces grow, as the Black Sea 
coast is occupied, and his ability to approach the great 
bridge, are what should occupy our attention in the 
near future. 
Silistra appears to have been held by a single division 
or important fractions of one, and this force, so far as one 
can gather, did not suffer the fate of its twin force up 
Barakt^^ 
To IDrainaL 
5\Neohori 
I 1 :s ^ S 
1 I ii I ..J . J 
to 
'Miles. 
VI 
