October 5, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
detached hard patches strung out between the mass of the 
meres and the Danube, a rough country causeway runs 
uniting the villages of Tomicil and Floranda, while 
a fairly good and quite short bit of road joins Tomicil 
with the railway above Giurgevo. Beyond Ploranda 
the track has to turn back northwards towards the 
main Roumanian Plain as it comes against the im- 
passable obstacle of the Greaca mere. It is probable 
that the German Commander regarded this rough road as 
quite insufficient for any considerable Roumanian con- 
centration. It was indeed a hazardous experiment, but 
we must remember that the magazines of Bucharest with 
their thorough railway communications were only an 
hour's railroad journey off, and that the road part of the 
march down towards and along the Danube, though 
the causeway was bad and primitive, was not more 
than 7 to 10 miles going. 
Further, the actual approach to the river is masked by 
a long b;lt oj marshy woodland which stands bitween the 
road and the river bank itself, and this cover it was, I 
think, that made possible the concentration of the 
Roumanians as they gathered for their bold attempt. 
They crossed by the aid of the islands in front of 
Riahovo, there entrenched themselves and secured a 
bridgehead. 
The importance of such a stroke, if it could be main- 
tained, will be obvious to everyone, and I have emphasised 
it on Map I. It turns Mackensen's line across the 
Dobrudja ; it destroys the \'aluc of that line ; if sufficient 
forces can be brought up it even threatens the 
existence of his army. 
There are, therefore, in the immediate future two great 
incomplete factors in the situation to be watched as 
they develop. (a) Will the Roumanians be able to 
maintain the bridgehead thus audaciously acquired ? If 
they can do that they can bring increasing numbers 
against Mackensen's rear and threaten him with envelop- 
ment, (b) Will Mackensen choose to risk the contain- 
ment of this bridgehead and to stand where he is, closing 
the Dobrudja field, or will he, fearing such a risk fall 
back at once ? 
If he takes the latter course he can certainly save his 
force, for lie has a very wide space through which to retire. 
But, on the other hand, the line he will have to hold 
gets rapidly longer as he falls southward. If he takes 
the former course he does so under the conviction that 
either the Roumanians will not be able to hold their 
bridgehead, but will lose it and be forced back again 
across the river, or will at least be contained within 
narrow limits upon the southern bank and unable to force 
a progress further through the entrenched lines that will 
be hurriedly thrown up against them. 
It is a problem of which we shall see the solution in a 
very few days. There is a good road from Rustchuk 
to Turtukai, j^ermitting of rapid concentration against 
the Roumanian invasion, and in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood there is the main railway uniting Rustchuk 
to Varna on which that concentration would depend. 
But if the Roumanians can cut the road and reach the 
railway before they are checked — the double operation 
is not much more than one day's march — the whole 
equilibrium of the Bulgarian strategical scheme is upset 
Thiepval and Combles 
THE news of Combles and of Thiepval arrived 
in London just after last week's article was 
completed and sent to the printers. The pace of 
news is so rapid just now and- developments 
on very distant fronts are succeeding each other in such 
number that the occupation of these two points by the 
Allied Armies is already ancient history. The most that 
can be profitably said about this success has already been 
said in the Press. There is, however, one aspect of the 
affair which requires particular emphasis, and that is what 
appears to have been the nature of the fall of Thiepval. 
Combles, being the larger place and obviously threatened 
by a recent encirclement, standing well in the middle 
of the map and the only agglomeration of importance 
between Peronne and Bapaume, received perhaps an 
undue amount of attention. 
An exceedingly vivid and trustworthy account which 
appeared in the Manchester Guardian of Thursday last 
from an eye-witness described Morval up on the hill as 
something the occupation of which was more important 
to the Allies and the difficulty of taking which was far 
greater than the difficulty of taking Combles. But 
Thiepval has quite another significance. 
The spur upon which that village stands was the end 
of a long line of original positions from Gommecourt 
southwards against which the first great blow of the early 
days of July had failed to make any deep impression. 
Thiepval was, therefore, an unbroken remnant, and the 
most advanced unbroken remnant, of the full system of 
defence organised here in the course of twenty-four months 
by the enemy. From Thiepval southwards right away 
to the neighbourhood of Chaulnes the Allies broke in 
one stroke after another the whole front of the main 
(Jerman positions. Their advance at eadi new effort 
was easier than the last. They increased the depth of the 
increasingly marked concave into which they were forcing 
the enemy's trace ; they were compelling him with each 
new step of the great action to. less and less consolidated 
because more and more hurriedly constructed works. 
But Thiepval was the shoulder of the old standing wall, 
as it were, and marked a limit to progress upon its side, 
that is, the north-western side of the great new re- 
entrant which is being thrust into the German lines, and 
which we hope to extend until breaking point shall be 
readied. 
Now if Thiepval had fallen after an isolated and pro- 
longed struggle ; if the whole effort of one great field day 
had been turned against that point and it had succumbed 
by some unexpected new intensity of fire followed by 
some novel concentration of masses against it, that would 
have been a great feat, but it would not have had the 
significance which attaches to what seems to have 
occurred. 
Thiepval was attacked as part only of the general 
action, the chief weight of which appears to have been 
six miles away to the east and that it succumbed 
would seem, so far as we can judge from the 
accounts sent home by the correspondents, to be due to 
the fact that the enemy moved troops from it in support of 
the threatened positions further cast. The telegrams of 
the correspondents upon which this judgment is based are 
more concerned with the picture of the action than with 
its tactics, but more than one of them tells us distinctly 
that troops were moved from this extreme right of the 
enemy's line to his centre in the course of the struggle. This 
means that, perhaps for the first time since the great offen- 
sive began, the enemy found himself just at the breaking 
point for men. Either some unit had suffered more than 
he expected, or some reinforcement had met with un- 
expected delay, but at any rate he had apparently just 
not the strength required to fulfil his own plan. If this 
be the case — and it is what many accounts suggest and 
no account has contradicted — there was present last 
week upon the Somme front a new element favourable 
to the Allies and unfavourable to the enemy, which had 
not hitherto appeared there. And that new element may 
be compared to a crack opening in material which has 
hitherto only shown evidence of severe strain. It is 
one thing to overwhelm a trench system with your 
superiority in siege artillery controlled by your superiority 
in air work and then to seize the belt with infantry 
poured directly upon it. It is another thing altogether 
to find the enemy moving laterally, strengthening one 
spot at the expense of anotlier so that he loses that other. 
And if this is what happened at the taking of Thiepval 
it has happened, I think, for the first time since the great 
offensive opened in July. Su,ch an accident does not 
mean, of. course, that the enemy could not bring rein- 
forcement if he chose ; he has already had to pass through 
the fire of the Somme something like a million men ; but 
he can still precariously weaken other vital points if he 
thinks the standing number of effectives opposed on the 
Somme to the Allies at any one time heeds increase. But 
what it does mean is that he has been calculating a little 
too fine and he would not have calculated a little too 
fine had he not found his hands full with the pressure that 
