LAND & WATER 
January ii , 1917 
The Retreat in Roumania 
By Hilaire Belloc 
I 
F the reader will look at the accompanying map he 
will see that tl^e Allied line now lies, not exactly 
traightencd, but still not very irregular, from the 
Oituz Pass (ttie issue from which is still securely 
/O 30 30 *> 
lield) to the Lower Sereth. A few da- ■ ago it covered 
Focsani and Braila. To-day both'Braila and Focsani 
are uncovered. The mountains to the north-west 
(summits of about 3,000 feet with easy contours), are 
being disputed : the enemy slowly advances in them. 
His ad\ance is least at the Oituz— where he is still 
\irtually immobilised, and grows broader and broader as 
one goes south. Now what does this mo\-ement mean ? 
What is the conception upon which the Russian Higher 
Command is operating in this very gradual retirement 
with its imimportant loss in prisoners, and its hitherto 
insignificant loss in guns ? 
What is the idea lying behind this deliberate fully 
co-ordinated and inexpensive retreat which has proceeded 
without interruption or serious hitch since, after the 
fall of Bucharest, the Russians formed in front of the 
Roumanian army and took over the opposition to the 
invasion while that army reformed behind the line ? 
A theory \udely held is a design to stand upon the 
line of the Sereth river. It is very doubtful. When we 
are told that the design is to relieve and hold the line 
of the Pruth, such a statement does not conform to the 
mere geography of the case, let aJone to the plan which 
the Russian Command is here ob\iously pursuing. 
Look at the angle which the existing line from the 
Oituz to the lower Sereth makes with the Pruth Vallej-, 
and ask yourself what would happen if at the present 
moment a general retirement' upon tlie Pruth was ordered? 
The line makes an angle with the Pruth Valley of more 
than 45 degrees. The troojK defending the CMtuz Pass 
ire 80 miles as the crow flies from the T,ower Pruth ! 
While the left wing of the long line (it is in its sinuosities 
more than 100 miles long) is in the innnediate neigh- 
bourhood of the Lower Pruth. To jn\ot round on the 
left and to swing back the distant right over those 80 
miles, would mean an operation of the most difficult 
sort possible — one would -almost have said fantastic. It 
would mean a gamble ui>on the certainty of being able to 
hold the left immobile for at least ten days and more 
likely a fortnight. It would mean a co-ordinated retirtv 
tnent more and morCTapid the further northward pne was 
along the line, without trans\'erse railways by which to 
carry it out, and it would mean very heavy losses even if 
the operation were ideally carried out, and a constant 
peril of disruption. Meanwhile, all the troops holding the 
further passes to the north of the Trotus Valley and 
beyond would have to be retired over even greater 
distances. 
Again, the Pruth does not form a continuous defensive 
li ne for our Allies, even if it were what it is not, a com- 
plete obstacle under the conditions of modern war. For 
the Russians hold the Bukovina and the Allied forces 
hold, the passes to the south of the Bukovina. Again, 
the southern half lives by the two railways which 
run down Moldavia from north to south. The line 
of the Pruth runs far east of all these positions and of 
the railways. 
No such operation is conceivable. On the contrary, 
the Russian plan is clearly of another kind, and we appro- 
ciate it best precisely by considering this recent retiiWA*; „ 
over the Lower Sereth. 
It is upon the extreme right of the line in -.«:7i of the 
Oituz Pass that the line is being keo* lnunobile ; it is 
upon the extreme left that retirenj .at is permitted. The 
Allied Higher Command in thi^. region has retired behind 
the Sereth becatise Braila was outflanked once Machin, 
on the further side of the Danube marshes, was taken, and 
the Dobrudja evacuated. To have tried to halt between 
Braila and tne Sereth would have been to fight with a 
difficult obstacle behind one, and the retirement across 
the Sereth means that the Allied Higher Command here 
intends to give the defensive line an even sharper angle 
to the Prtith valley than it held before. 
For after all, \\hat is the object with which- the Russo- 
Roumanian forces are here acting ? It is to cause the 
enemy — since he has here concentrated a maximum 
of strength and can compel a retirement — a maximum 
of loss ; to hold him to continued efforts which forbid 
his releasing any men for work elsewhere ; to avoid the 
en\elopment of any chance projection in the line, and to 
maintain a constant unbroken front before him, though 
that front slowly falls back northward and eastward. 
No one can understand these Roumanian operations 
■ who does not keep in mind the cardinal fact that the 
Central Empires and their Allies have put into them all 
the men they have available and to spare at this moment ; 
and that they are doing this with the full knowledge that 
they do. not see a sufficient reserx'c of men to render their 
immediate future secure. They are doing it side by side 
with a most violently emphasised demand for peace. 
A sound way of regarding the whole affair is to compare 
it with what is almost its exact parallel, the Russian 
retirement through Poland last year. The contrast 
between the two operations gi\-es a sort of working model 
whereby we may compare the present phase of the war to 
the phase of 1915. 
In 1915 the Austro-C.ermans operated with a vast 
reserve behind them : drafts available for the whole • 
remaining time they thought the campaign at all likely 
to last. They operated with divisions at full strength 
and with a mobile force which covered many hundreds 
of miles. To-day they are operating with reduced di\i- 
sions upon a line which, where it is continuous, is but a 
hundred miles long, and with forces about one-fifth of 
those which advanced through Poland. 
In 1915 the great retreat cost not far short of two 
million permanent and temporary losses to both sides, 
and the losses to the retreating Russians were enormously 
severe, because great numbers of their wounded fell as 
jjrisoners to the invaders, and in so falling rapidly 
depleted the already gra\ely insufffcient Russian equip- 
ment. To-day in the same interval of time the losses 
on both sides are somewhat imder 100,000, perhaps, 
for the invaders all told, somewhat over for the defensive. 
But that includes the considerable enemy success north 
of Bucharest' before the fall of that capital. The Allied 
losses in all the fighting since then, during which the 
retirement has been not only methodical but exceedingly 
slow, are insignificant compared with those of the great 
campaign of last year. 
In 1915 three months saw the Austro-German offensive 
sweep over the whole of Russian Poland up to and 
including Warsaw ; the fourth month saw the occupation 
of the whole of Poland ; before the fifth month was- 
