8\ 
LAND & WATER 
January 25, 1917 
the loop of Focsani and to get at the literal railway 
(3, on Map II.) beyond the river, and so interrupt our 
Allies' communications. 
The next sector of the Putna line, which I have called 
sector B on Map I., runs from the ferry at Paripani to 
the \-illage of Rastoca, and is in length rather over seven 
miles. Its characteristic is an immense mass of marsh, 
through which the little stream of the Putna winds, 
mostly towards the southern edge. There is only one 
practicable way across this mass of bad going, and that 
is along the causeway used by the north-eastern road 
from Focsani, which crosses the Putna at the Zamfirei 
bridge. 
We have seen in a former article how the Austro-German 
forces cooped up in the plain of Focsani would be 
threatened from this formation of the river by an enemy 
possessed of superior artillery, for the river coming thus 
suddenly down south makes a flank and exposes (in 
theory at least) the troops within the loop of Focsani 
to fire from both sides, from the north as from the east. 
But in practice, the ground being wliat it is and the 
enemy's remaining suj^eriority in artillery on this front 
what it is, the shape of the Putna's course does not really 
imperil the Austro-German troops in the belt of Focsani, 
though it embarrasses them for movement. The marshes 
are so very wide and the lack of roads across them so 
conspicuous that onl}? a considerable apparatus of heavy 
long range pieces would enable our Allies to use their 
adNantage here. Conversely, the enemy can hardly 
cross here. He can hardly hope to effect a forcing of the 
defensive line across this great belt of bad land. 
When the Putna issues from these marshes in the 
neighbourhood of Rastoca we get a third sector, which 
I have marked on Sketch I. by the letter C. It is some 
II miles in length or slightly less. The Putna here, 
somewhat swollen in size, but stiU quite a small river of 
not more than 200 feet across or so, runs between hard 
banks and through a cultivated plain. But an attack 
upon this sector would not yield the results that can be 
found elsewhere. 
There is a narrow peninsula between the Putna and 
the Sereth, and if the Putna line here were carried or even 
threatened, a stronger main obstacle upon which the 
defensive could immediately fall back would be the 
Sereth just behind. In other words, a really serious 
Austro-German effort here would compel the abandon- 
ment of the Putna, of course, but would achieve nothing, 
because it would simply create a new defensive line, 
much stronger, just beyond the Sereth, or rather, allow 
our Allies to fall back to such a line, which undoubtedly 
has been prepared and which is identical in \alue to the 
])resent line. 
The remaining sectors are two. The shorter sector I 
have marked D on Map I., it may be called the Sector of 
I'undeni. The last sector, the beginning of which 
is indicated by the letter E (and which stretches right 
down to Galatz where the Sereth falls into the Danube) 
is a mass of very broad and most difficult marshes which 
are the characteristic of the Lower Sereth in its entirety. 
Right beyond the Sereth- Putna line a crossing of the 
Danube delta below Galatz is possible — as has previciusly 
been mentioned in these columns, but its results doubt- 
ful. So far as the Putna-Sereth line is alone concerned 
the only place where the offensive tffort could be usefully 
made would be that upon which the enemy concen- 
trated a small Turkish force the other day, to wit, the 
extremity at Galatz. If he were to get a footing on the 
further side of the Sereth at Galatz it would indeed 
give him political possession of the town and a further 
control of the Danube, but it would not effectually turn 
the Putna-Sereth line, because of the defensive oppor- 
tunities immediately behind Galatz. Moreover, the 
enemy has hitherto failed at the Galatz point and there-, 
fore, both as a consequence of this failure and from the 
nature of the opportunity, he is concentrating upon the 
Fundeni sector, and on the point of Fundcni itself, in 
his effort to break the Putna-Sereth line. 
What are the special advantages for him in this point 
of Fundeni ? 
We have already shown in previous issues what the 
main advantages to him are. Fundeni stands in a loop 
of the river Sereth upon which he can bring a converging 
fue if he manages to occupy both sides of the loop, and 
Fundeni is the last dry crossing place before the huge 
marshes of the Lower Sereth begin. 
Let us see what his fortunes have been in this neigh- 
bourhood bv examining the details of the locality upon 
Sketch Map III. 
The river Sereth in this region is about 250 yards 
broad : that is more than half the breadth of the Thames 
through London. It is not fordable, and immediately 
below the large village of Fundeni it begins to form upon 
either side of its stream very wide marshes in which stand 
stagnant serpentines, old backwaters which have been 
cut off by alluvial deposits in the past. In tliis marsh 
there are strips of drier land, notably one on the right 
bank at the point marked A in Map III., but though the 
marshes are now partially frozen, they make, as a whole, a 
very difficult approach to the Sereth banks. 
Above Fundeni the ground is hard upon either bank, 
with occasional beaches of gravel, especially that marked 
B just opposite the village. 
To the west of this gravel bank B is the large scattered 
village of Nanesci, which is somewhat protected from 
attack by two narrow stretches of water, the remains 
of an old course of the Sereth. The houses of Nanesci 
stand separate from one another in gardens, and ai-e 
connected by narrow rambling lanes, the whole 
agglomeration being something like a mile across. 
The High Street of Nanesci, or main road, goes up 
northward across the Sereth by the bridge at C, which 
has. of course, been 'broken since the Russians re- 
oossed it. Southward it makes for the point of the Icop 
