LAND & WATER 
October 2b, 1916 
Mackensen's Success 
By Hilaire Belloc 
MACKENSEN'S successful attack in the 
Dobrudja, the fighting in the passes, the 
stabiHsation of the Russian front, all mean 
the same thing. Munitions. 
Those who think it means something else and call it 
" men," or " the enemy's unexpected reser\e of man- 
power " are mistaken. It is the penury of men upon 
the enemy's side which is the striking feature. Right 
away from Riga to the Danube his advantage is the 
advantage of munitionment and of heavy guns. 
If we can keep that well in mind we shall imderstand 
both what has passed and what is to come. We shall 
know what the necessities of the moment are, and what 
the chances of the next season are. 
Before returning to this capital point in more detail, 
let us note what has happened first in the passes and then 
in the Dobrudja. 
Falkenhayn is attacking in the passes with numbers 
insufficient for his task. That is perfectly clear. He 
has at least to hold and, if possible, to traverse nine main 
issues and about half a dozen minor ones upon a mountain 
front of 350 miles. 
He has now been occupied with this task for the better 
part of three weeks, and if he has hitherto carried it 
forward so little it is because he cannot be gi\cn the 
number of men he really requires. But he supplements 
this with an immense superiority in munitionment and 
in the number and calibre of his guns. 
No pass has yet been carried. You read of fighting 
taking place in two passes a little further down towards 
the plain than was the case in the communiques of last 
week, but the advance is insignificant in comparison with 
the time expended, and our Allies are even able to advance 
on their own account upon other sectors. 
In a previous article the importance of the Oituz Pass 
was pointed out. It was the threat to the Oituz which 
made the Roumanians withdraw the head of their cohmin 
in the neighbouring pass of ("lyimes. The Predeal 
Pass, which is the direct road for an advance on Bucharest 
has been successfully held and the Roumanian positions 
have even slightly re-advanced. But the neighbouring 
pass, which the Germans call the Torzburg, has seen in 
the course of the week a slight withdrawal. A matter, of 
rather less than three miles ; and in the Vulcan Pass there 
has been an even smaller movement. 
. . A pass is not taken — it does not become a military 
asset — until the whole of the defile is in one's hands and 
room to deploy from after debouching at the end of the 
defile on to the plain. So difficult is this operation that 
it was a sort of classical rule in the old days to let one's 
enemy attempt to debouch under difficulties and to defeat 
him as he did so. But under modern conditions that 
rule no longer holds. Two things have modified it. The 
great range of the modern gun and the great importance 
of observation, (iive a commander all the road throtigh 
the defile and possession of the foothills commanding the 
plain upon the far side and he will, if he has superior 
artillery, be able to debouch under cover of this at his 
ease. 
It is almost as true to-day as ever it was that the 
question of whether you are actually on the crest or on 
your own side of the crest of an easy pass was unim- 
portant. I say " almost as true." It is not quite as 
true, because observation comes in to some extent and 
the facility of moving heavy artillery by road. Still it 
is not the essential question, as much of the Press seems 
to consider it, whether the defence stands upon the one 
or the other side of the actual summit. The important 
thing is whether it can hold the defile at .any point, or 
whether it shall be compelled to lose the whole of the 
defile and thus permit the enemy to debouch upon the 
plain. That is how we must look at the isolated points 
of fighting all along this Carpathian frontier. And, so 
far, no defile has passed as a whole into the hands of the 
enemi', while in most he is securely held. 
There have been constant suggestions that the enemy's 
main effort was to forte the extren^e northern end of the 
frontier in order to cut the main Czernowitz-Bucharest 
railway in the valley of the Sereth, and thus separate the 
Roumanians from the Russians. It is obvious that a 
stroke of this kind, if it were successful, would have the 
effect of isolating the Roumanian army, but it is difficult 
to believe that the main effort— that is, the greatest 
massing of men and guns — would be allowed here, for 
the simple reason that communications are more difficult 
and the railway further off than is the case sixty or 
seventy miles to the south. If the enemy's main object 
be not to threaten Bucharest, but to cut the Sereth rail- 
way, the Oituz still remains his obvious passage for that 
effort. 
I shall still believe, unless direct evidence can be 
afforded to the contrary, that the weight of I'"a!kenhayn's 
effort is distributed between the Oituz and the passes in 
front of Kronstadt which directly threaten Bucharest. 
In the Dobrudja 
Mackensen's success in the Dobrudja has also clearly 
been an aifair of munitionment. He accumulated a 
great head of shell, submitted the entrenched line of 
our A.llies to an intensive bombardment, which they 
could not meet on equal terms, and broke through. 
This entrenched line ran from Rasova through Coba- 
dinul to Tuzla. It was a line drav\n before the war and 
greatly strengthened since the war. It was the line 
following the crest from the Danube to the sea, just at a 
sufficient distance from the Czernavoda-Constanza rail- 
way to keep that line of communication safe. The 
average distance of the front trenches from the railway 
was about t 8,000 yards. 
Behind this crest of the Rasova-Tuzla line there was 
no position on which an army could stand from the river 
to the sea. It will be remembered that I pointed out in 
a previous article how the ridge which is followed by 
Trajan's wall, running as it does immediately above the 
railway, was impossible for the modern defence thereof. 
It is all a matter of range. A position taken within a 
short distance of the railway and only just covering it 
would have been of no use at all imder modern conditions. 
Mackensen failed to shift tlie line on the right and centre, 
that is towards the Danube, and in the middle of the 40 
miles — the sector principally held by the Roumanians. 
Where he broke t'lrough was the left or Black Sea end, 
precisely over the same ground which witnessed his defeat 
some weeks ago. 
Tuzla itself, Torprasair, Cobadinul were carried, and 
the left wing of the Allies did the only thing possible 
imder the circumstances, it pivoted round its right, as 
along the arrows in Sketch IV.. falling back towards the 
north-east to cover the bridgehead of Czernavoda. 
This retreat uncovered Constanza and Mackensen entered 
that town and port k'.st Sunday. 
There has been no great loss of material or of men. 
The occupation of Constanza may have given certain 
stores of oil and com to the enemy, but only local accumu- 
lations, which cannot affect his general economic situation. 
Nor can these be important for the place was evacuated 
in good order. So long as the bridgehead of Czernavoda 
is held the Danube is still turned, and the gate is open for 
ultimate co-operation between our Allies upon the north 
and the army based upon Salonika, but if the bridgehead 
of Czernavoda cannot be held, if Mackensen's superiority 
in munitionment (for that is what it is) breaks down the 
defence of that bridgehead, as it broke down the en- 
