LAND & WATER 
September 28, 1916 
The Strategy of the Balkans 
By Hilaire Belloc 
WHAT has happened in the Dobrudja ? 
Meagre as the evidence is wc can by analys- 
ing it closely and remembering the local 
conditions governing Mackensen's advance, 
ascertain the general nature of what has happened. 
In order to follow this we must make oursches 
familiar with the boundaries of this theatre of the war. 
For the purpose of strategical analysis we may regard 
the Danube for the moment as impassable above Cerna 
Voda — by which I do not mean that it cannot be passed, 
but that the present movements do not contemplate its 
being passed. 
This broad stream with its great belt of marshes, there- 
fore, stands upon the west of our area, as might the 
sea or the boundaries of a neutral country. 
Strategical action in the Dobrudja is confined to the 
area between the Danube and the Black Sea. 
The first thing to notice about this area is its shape. 
This shape may be compared roughly to a broad waisted 
hour glass or dumb-bell. The southern base of it 
roughly corresponds with the new frontier drawn up 
in ^^13 between Koumania and Bulgaria. The northern 
extremity is the delta of the Danube ; and the narrowest 
part between these two corresponds exactly to the de- 
pression used by the railway from the Cerna Voda Bridge 
to the Port of Constanza. The dimensions of this roughly 
quadrilateral area are an average of 125 miles in length ; 
a southern base of 100 and a northern boundary of 70 
miles in breadth (nearly a third of the latter being impass- 
able marshy coimtry, half land, half sea, upon the mouths 
of the Danube), while at the narrowest it is as the crow 
flies only 30 miles across. 
This shape has the following strategical consequences : 
Any one desiring (as did Mackensen) to seize the railway 
and the bridge thus standing at the narrowest point, 
finds himself advancing up a territory which gradually 
contracts as he goes forward. He is going, as it were, 
into a funnel. But it is a funnel of such great size that 
there is no danger even of a very large force getting con- 
gested. Upon the contrary, the difficulty is to maintain 
oneself in strength over the broader part. The further 
one goes north the more certain one is of holding one's 
line against a counter-attack, of being able to link up all 
the elements of one's force, and of securing oneself 
from being turned upon either ilank. Conversely, a 
force defending the vital railway and bridge has a shorter 
and shorter line to hold as it approaches that 
railway. The line taken up (the prepared line upon which 
our Allies were ready to fall back as a principal line of 
resistance but which the enemy has failed to reach) 
was from 10 to 12 miles in front of the railway' and was 
not more than 40 miles long, ^\'ith every advance south 
of tliis a force standing merely upon the defensive would 
DC weakened for there would necessarily be an extension 
)f the hne. 
The next thing we have to note is the nature of com- 
munications. 
There are four types of communications for either party 
in this district, the road, the railway, the river and the 
sea. 
The road is not so important in the Dobrudja as in 
most other theatres of the present war because, from the 
nature of the soil (the moment open country is reached) 
the numerous tracks across the hard turf are utilisable at 
this season and during most of the year by any heavy 
vehicle. A well made hard road is not so essential as it 
is in deeper and softer soil, nor are there watercourses 
the bridges over which canalise traffic to particular 
points and make a single road a necessity at such 
points. On the other hand an unexpectedly heavy fall 
of rain at the end of the recent operations has been 
seriously felt. 
The railway communication is of a singularly sym- 
metrical t\'pc for both parties. Both parties have an 
admirable lateral communication behind their lines : 
Our Allies the railway from the Cerna Voda bridge to 
Constanza ; our enemies the line from Rustchuk to Varna. 
Each party can also use as far as its advance goes the single 
line recently constructed and perpendicular to both of 
these, the line from Medgidia through Cobadinul to 
Dobritch and so to a junction with the Rustchuk-Varna 
line at Belevo near Varna. 
It is pure conjecture, but one would imagine the river 
communication to be debarred from both combatants. 
It may be precariously used at night, but it certainly 
cannot be generally used, for a field gun or two working 
from either bank at selected points would put an end to 
its utility. On the other hand we must remember that 
in so far as it can be used the advantage in this particular 
district lies with the enemy. The marshes are mainly 
upon the northern bank, and the dry shore mainly upon 
the southern. Therefore artiMery from the southern bank 
dominates the stream frequently and from the northern 
bank rarely. It may be that the Bulgarian ad\ancing 
force under Mackensen has^dependcd upon the Danube as 
a line of communication. We have no information as 
yet as to whether either belligerent commands the 
waterway by means of armed ships. 
Lastly there is the sea. What the conditions are of 
maratime transport for the purposes of this campaign we 
do not know-. But we do know from our experience else- 
where that the full supply of a large force over any con- 
siderable distance of sea is a problem not to be solved 
without a very large advantage in tonnage and, for that 
matter, rapidity in steaming. It is not upon the sea 
that the force of our Allies can principally depend for 
supply, still less is it upon the sea that our enemies can 
depend, for to them nothing arrives of value by sea. 
All their munitionment is from the international railway 
which unites Belgrade and Sofia with Constanza. 
