12 
LAiND & WATER 
December 14, 1916 
Lessons in Strategy and Politics 
By Colonel Feyler 
BY no means the least instrurtivc of the many 
varied and interesting studies in strategy brought 
fnrward bv the European War will be tlie chapter 
dealing with the intervention of Roumania, for 
all tlie problems of applying the fundamental jirinciplcs 
<j{ the art of war will have their mention there. Some 
surprise may have been caused by the turn taken by 
e\ents. At the point in time when the intervention took 
place there was general expectation of Austro-Hungarys 
great and complete exhaustion and it was taken for 
granted that Bulgaria, placc^ between two fires, would 
shortly collapse. 
On two separate occasions the Russo-Roumanian army 
in the Dobrudja was obhgcd to retreat and Marshal 
Mackensen's victorious army was effectively covering 
liulgaria on the' north, On the Hungarian side 
victory at the outset smiled upon the Roumanians. 
'J hey had advanced on the whole vast front of more than 
370 miles bordering Transylvania. But the enemy had 
nothing but a covering force in that region. When heavy 
concentrations of troops were brought upon the scene 
they found before them a Roumanian army (whose effective 
force was j>erhaps inadequate for a general offensive upon 
so large a front) that was not yet broken in to war, but 
v\as somewhat weakened by the battles it had fought 
on broken ground favourable to the enemy's defence, 
so that it had to fall back upon its own national territory, 
r.cnral l\ilkonhayn's army protected the soil of Hungary. 
'I'hus Roumania's object in intervening was nowhere 
attained. She was brought back to the point whence 
she set out and was worse off by the Dobrudja and her 
losses in men and material. 
Necessity for Subordination 
This unsatisfactory result was not, it is true, without 
some compensations. The enemy also had suffered 
losses, whicli meant a reduction in the general effectives 
of the Central Empires. H the extent of the fronts 
which those Empires had to supply be taken into account, 
it will be admitted that this compensation w-as far from 
negligible. But as far as Roumania was concerned this 
was poor consolation, for she only benefited by it ver}' 
indirectly, while she saw enemies rising before her, 
immediately, who were much too strong for her inferior 
resources. She was thus going through a distressing 
stragetical experience, one which very often befalls 
generals whose movements do not conform sufficiently 
to the general plan but who carry on a particular opera- 
tion. When one is only a unit in a whole— and that is 
the position of all the national armies, large and small, 
whicii make up the grand total of the army of the Quad- 
ruple Entente— it is an imperative necessity to sub- 
ordinate one's movements to the general plan. The 
mistake that Roumania made was in forgetting this 
axiom of strategy. We shall see easily what it means 
if we take the trouble to go down to the fundamental 
principles of military operations. 
'Hie first of these principles declares the object of 
strategy to be the destruction of the enemy or enemies. 
If there are more than one enemj-, which is the case now 
of the belligerents in the European war, there is a pre- 
liminarv' question to be studied, namely, which is the 
principal enemy, in order that if possible he may be des- 
troyed first or, in any event, that he may never be lost 
sight of, so that he may be attacked at the earliest possible 
moment. Vox his destruction will entail the easier des- 
truction of the subsidiary enemies. 
No one will dispute that in the present war the principal 
enemy on the Teutonic side is the German ^Empire ; 
neither will anyone dispute that the war will end when 
that enemy has succumbed. Austria, Bulgaria and 
Turkey will count for nothing directly Germany ceases 
to support them. Hence the importance of the Western 
and Russian fronts, on which Germany is attacked directly 
at thie points nearest to her vital parts. 
But the question was -to decide an analogous case upon 
the strategical chess-board in the Balkans : there, too. 
it was necessary to destroy the principal enemy, who had 
to be attacked and destroyed at the outset. 
Now, what is the significance of an Allied Offensive in 
the Balkans ? It implies that as the German resistance 
in France and in Russia is obstinate, it is adv-antageous'- 
to supplement the direct attack on the western and east- 
em fronts by an indirect attack on the south supported 
by a turning movement through the Balkan peninsula. 
In this jH'ninsula the principal enemy will be the one 
which offers the most immediate and the most complete 
opposition to the turning movement ; and that one is 
the Germt^n-Bidgarian army. 
Besides ascertaining the ))rincipal enemy, strategy has 
to observe a second principle. This is to destroy this 
enemy as speedily and utterly as possible in order to 
escape the continuance and the might of his blows. 
Hence the necessity to concentrate the maximum possible 
force against him. The greater the force ready and avail- 
able to move, the more thorough will be the end made of 
him. The application of this principle required the 
concentration against the principal enemy, Bulgaria, 
the obstacle in the way of the turning mov^ement of all 
the effective forces at disposal. 
In the light of these jirinciples the mistakes made in 
the intervention of Roumania became apparent. Her 
campaign was directed against two enemies simultaneously, 
the Austro-Hungarians on the west and the Bulgarians 
on the south, and she distributed her forces between 
these two adversaries, with a majority on the west, wheji 
she ought to have arrayed the greater part of them against 
that one of the two whom it was of consequence to put 
out of action first. 
Strategical logic has taken its revenge. It always docs. 
Fortunately the mischief is not irreparable. New forces 
will make the initial losses good and a new plan of cam- 
])aign conformable to the requirements of the new situa- 
tion created by the enemy's successes, will correct the 
mistakes of the earlier one. One thing is irreparable, 
and will always be : the time that has been lost. No man, 
not the best and greatest general, can ever recover the 
time that he has lost. 
* * * * * * 
The principles of strategy having been thus stated 
we must not forget the principles of equity. If Roumania 
did make a m.ilitary mistake we must acknowledge that 
it was a difiicult matter for her Government to avoid it. 
One cannot expect all the people of a nation to be 
strategists. Roumania's national aspirations drew the 
eyes of her people towards the west, towards the Hungar- 
ians, from whom the war was to snatch a subjected 
Roumanian population. The Hungarian was the enemy 
in the eyes of the Roumanian people, not the Bulgarian 
from whom nothing could legitimately be demanded. 
There was therefore some difficulty in rnaking the people 
understand that in order to vanquish the Hungarians and 
conquer Transylvania, which is in the west, it was neces- 
sary to declare war upon Bulgaria and march to the 
south. Even nations with a higher average standard 
of intelligence and education than the Roumanians 
would have had some difiiculty in understanding that. 
The offensive against Bulgaria and, as a result, the march 
through the Dobrudja consequently and logically was 
the business of the Allies. It was their part in the union 
of the contracting powers. It rested upon them to pre- 
pare for this move which was designed to secure the 
initiative over the adversary. And with regard to the 
political consequence of the plan as thus conceived, it was, 
for Roumania, to declare war simultaneously against 
Austria-Hungary as a Roumanian war seeking satisfaction 
of legitimate national aspirations in Transylvania, and 
against Bulgaria as a war in alliance with the Quadruple 
luitente, requiring freedom of passage for the troops of .the 
Quadruple Entente through the Dobrudja. 
In this manner the situation was clear. While taking 
the internal governmental difiiculties of Roumania intc 
consideration, the right application of the principles of 
strategy was assured and their application disposed' of 
political co7iiplications. 
