September 21, 1916 
LAND & ^VA1ER 
number and their munitionnient, had to meet the blow 
of the rapidly increased Bulgarian force under (merman 
command which was advancing against it. 
We know what followed. The mam part of the 
forces on the extreme south of Dobrudja agamst the 
Bulgarian frontier were shut up ni lurtukai, cut ott 
from the north and pressed back upon the river. How 
this happened, how such superior mobility was developed 
by the enemy we have not heard a word. But ^^t least 
tile equivalent of a Roumanian division disappeared and 
the forces of our Allies fell back northward. Sihstra 
was abandoned and the ne.xt shock was taken upon a line 
about twenty miles down the Danube from that ])omt. 
The battle, which appears to have lasted about two 
days terminated in the retreat of the Roumanians and 
the Russians upon the evening of last Thursday the 
I4fll- ■ , Tl 1 • 
We shall do well to appreciate what the Bulgarian 
plan was, or rather that of the (lerman commanders and 
how the Russo-Roumanian counter-stroke failed to upset 
There was no general attack in line. The mass of the 
Bulgarian army in dense grouping attacked exactly as 
Mackensen attacked before on a much larger scale in 
Calicia a year ago. It had for its artery of communica- 
tion the road marked upon the accompanying Map II , with 
the lettei-s A-A. There is no evidence of its having used 
the single line railway recently completed up the centre 
of the Uobrudja to Medjidia— presumably because the 
Roumanians and Russians as they retired had made it- 
unsuitable for a rapid advance on the part of the enemy. 
When this " phalanx " (to use the rather theatrical 
term invented last year) struck the Roumanian army it 
was upon a comparatively narrow front at about the 
positions B-B upon Map II, and the battle was marked 
by the villages of Karuorman and Parachioi. That which 
might have checked Mackensen's operation was the 
presence far down on the sea coast to the south and 
up as far as Dobritch of some force, apparently mainly 
Russian, based upon the sea and of a size of which we 
have heard nothing. It proved insufficient to deflect 
the Bulgarian army in the 'north from its purpose. 
The blow was delivered along the sector B-B and resulted 
in the retirement of the whole Roumanian-Russian force 
to prepared lines farther back. 
This success was described in Germany with the usual 
excessive rhetoric to which the German temperament 
lends itself. One ought not perhaps to exaggerate this ; 
telegraphic translation is not always accurate and it is 
possible that the German rendering of the telegram 
from the Dobrudja (which was given in our papei-s as 
" the destruction of our Ally's army ") was less violent 
in its original phrasing. The word may rather have been 
" undoing " ; but at any rate, the description was ex- 
cessive and the Emperor's further wild telegram was 
simply ridiculous. The use of the word " decisive " 
for an operation of that kind would be monstrous even in 
a sensational halfpenny paper. Proceeding from the 
responsible head of a Government it is farcical. 
The real decision, so far as the word cran be applied 
to operations in this field, will come further north upon 
the prepared hnc to which our Allies havse retired 
THE SALONIKA OFFEIMSIVE 
Meanwhile, the offensive based upon S8.1onika is already 
beginning to produce considerable resa'ts. The plan is 
clear, and has already for some days been appreciated 
by the enemy. 
Politically Monastir represents th»3 chief object of 
Bulgarian ambition. It is to occiyjy this town and 
to establish themselves hrmly in this district more 
than for any other purpose that the Bulgarian 
Government decided to betray the cause of Europe. 
Were the Bulgarians to lose M<)na.stir, the politi- 
cal effect upon their own people and upon all the Balkan 
regions, would be very considerable. Strategically, a 
successful action here would also have, considerable 
results. Monastir is a road centre from which advance 
is possible towards the north. It is true fthat the moun- 
tain masses, the ruggedness and .complexity of whicli 
affect all military action in this region, run to the north of 
Monastir, and that this town and its Pla' n orographically 
belong rather to Greece than to the ."Balkans. But a 
serious defeat in Monastir Plain, where there is room for 
considerable armies to act, would leave Ihe defence of the 
mountain issues to the north much more difficult, for it 
would leave the enemy badly weakened. There is no 
other district upon the Salonika fro-at where large forces 
can deploy with ease. 
Xhe advance upon Monastir has, passed through the 
following phases. 
At first when the Bulgarians ] planned their abortive 
offensive which failed from lack of numbers to cover 
so broad a front, the Serbian contingents, or rather 
outposts which had been placed here upon the extreme 
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