RUMANIA'S POSITION.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 227, 17 November 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

RUMANIA'S POSITION.

WHAT SHE STANDS FOR.

A CRITICAL REVIEW.

By HI LA lUK BKLLOt.

Tiii? position occupied by Rumania at the present moment i> a serious matter. A consideration of the following extracts from an article by Hi'aire Bclloc in "Land and Water' of August 31, will assist in the obtaining of a sane reading of the 11 formation at present at our disposal. It has to be remembered that Mr. Belloc wrote just a few days after it was known that we had gained a new Ally. For that reason the greater part of tlu> accompanying article '.s taken from that portion of the original which dealt with the general ispect of the matter rather than the particular.

The intervention of Rumania is a matter of such great moment that one : is almost tempted to abandon for its general consideration the merely mili- , tary analysis which is the proper subject cf these pages. j All military action reposes upon j some civilian policy. It is necessarily ; directed to the achievement of politic:! . ends. It ultimately is dependent up- i on the judgment not only of soldiers , but of statesmen. And the interven- ] tion of Rumania means upon this poli- , tieal side that the approaching defeat j of the Central powers is now every- j where accepted. i

To appreciate the magnitude of such a revolution, to see in scale what it nivalis, one must appreciate how those countries stand which have for their immediate neighbours upon either hand the Central Empires and Russia; not only the countries which have a place upon the modern map but the races, the true politics of Eastern Europe. To the Rumanians as to the Poles, the Ruthenians and the various Southern Slavs also--to the Magyars even with their great quasi-independent power —the whole ,world seems to be in Oalance between Russia eastward and the two reigning houses of Central Europe, the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzul.eins on their west.

The effect of proximity upon judgment geographical proximity and that mental or moral proximity which comes oi familiarity through commerce or a common language or wliat not — is inevitably an effect of distortion. Thus, we in the West are full of Belgium and the submarine outrages, and stand surrpised at the way in which the Polish question, soy, or the division of raws in Galicia, or the boundaries of Rumanian language in the Bukovina, are discussed elsewhere as prime matters in the war. Bue we ourselves also se.' out of scak oui owfc AA ostein matters in t'ne war. But we ourselves Eastern Europe the fortunes of the great var throughout 1915 and the early part of this year seemed little more than a duel between the Itiiv sian Empire and the Central Powers. From this we may conclude what the effect was upon Eastern European opinion of the Austro-German advance through Poland, which terminated last October!

The dceision of Rumania and the action her Government t.obl< last Sunday night in declaring war upon the Hapsburgs nutans that the linal issue of that duel was now no longer in doubt even in East en Europe. It is a moral revolution of the utmost significance. and that aspect of it. I say, overshadows all the rest. But we are concerned in this paper chiefly with the military sido, and it W to this that I would now propose to turn in some detail.

We must first of all consider numbers—the basis of every calculation. Rumania is to-daj conscript with a complete system of Conscription upon the model of all the other Balkan States and of France. The Balkan States and the trench Republic alone in Europe had reached a complete system of this kind. All other conscript nations were content to enrol but a portion of their adult efficient male population upon its coming of age, and to exempt '-a- considerable proportion under a system which left this exempted part to receive either a partial training or none, and to postpone ".ts hill training till after the outbreak jf war.

With a population of about seven and a half million this system meant that Rumania could at her fullest strength, and without any abnormal forms of recruitment (such as the calling of inefficients or immature classes) ultimately develop a strength in the field of tlire? quarters of a million men. But her normal military organisation did not envisage any such strain. She has as a fact enrolled at this_ moment, equipped, established in their formations and depots something over 60!).<i00 men; how much over we sha'l not precisely know until offical statistics are available after the war—tor tlie last details of these matters are always kept as secret as possible. Roughly speaking, the disposition of this considerable force is as follows: To each of five regions into which Rumania is militarily divided, one active army corps of two divisions is attach* d. On mobilisation these are brought up to strength, and behind each is immediately formed a twin resent; corps of two divisions. Some twenty divisions, therefore, Ji'ganised in ten corps, five active and five reserve, form the army that will tike the field. This accounts for •. trifle over 400,000 men, a Rumanian d'vision being a little more numerous u its personnel than are our A\ extern i'()rnn:ti<;ns —l>nt tlir oxevss is n« % when we are only stating round 'lt is, at most, an excess <>i some .> per c. nt.J When we -ay "take the held we •!■ not mean that these twenty divisions will be oicupicd at once; a large proj ortion, perhaps over a third, will at lust stand as a strategic reserve. But twenty divisions is the figure we must keep 'in mind i\>r the organised striking force of the nation. There lemain under the present state of tee formations about another ■>'■) per cell I. —the. equivalent of another ten divisions—trained and in depots to be us:d as drafts, for filling up wastage as it oceui's in the fighting units an J kee;> them up to lull strength. Jn Other words, there is provision behind the armies to r. place as wastage goes on one man for every tji'o engaged: The attrition of the armies by war have eliminated half their original effectives before the Rumaiuin oragnisiitiou 'as at pivenlt est a i.islied fc~!s ni strain, or has to fall back (in order to maintain its effectives) upon normal recruitment; that is, upon the immature classes and the first groups of inefficients. . We shall do well at tlrs point to note the value of this quality at the present moment. Tt is true that num.mii is bringing ir. but twenty dins- j ions upon lines which, counting east

and west and south alike, are certainly occupying twenty times as many—or more. The mere numerical addition seems small. We shall sec in a moment that it is a very considerable and even momentous addition to the particular iield where it will l*> used: and this point of (juality has therefore great weight.

The Central Empires are, as we know, long past the stage in which abnormal recruitment has lieeome necessary. The inimatiire classes were called out by Austria first; n£xt by Germany. Austria-Hungary began to "comb out" the ineffic-ieuts more than a year ago, the German Empire eleven mcnths ago; men who had originally failed to pass the doctor were called in Austria and Hungary as early ts May and June, 1915; in Germany, by September and October. The ' first groups of inefficients were at these dates already encroached upon by the Centra! Powers. To the iirst two immature classes 1916 and 1917 already summoned in the Summer of 1915, Austria-Hungary was compelled to add some months ago the class 1918 and the German Empre began last June to follow suit ; the first German recruits of 1918 being summoned in Saxony (luring the month. The fresh Rumanian forces not only enter with mature classes onv, but with a very large reserve of drafts behind the field armies, which reserve is also composed of mature classes alone and of efficients.

There is another point about/ tho quality uf a fresh army which must not be neglected at this stage. Its proportion of officers and non-commis-sioned, that is, the trained :ind professional leaders, the framework or cadre of an army, is, in the case of Rumania, entire. The strain which modern war has put upoiuthis framework among all the original belligerents we know by experience to be enormous. The replacing of professional officers by new commissions, the holders of which haws necessarily received only an imperfect and rap:d instruction. is a necessity of war which inevitably lowers the quality of a force as time proceeds. It has affected most of the conscript belligerents fairly equally so far and affected them profoundly, but Rumania comes in at this moment with all that professional framework intact.

I said just now that though the addition of forces obtained by the intervention of Rumania looked small in proportion to the full Allied power, yet it was very considerable for the field in which it appeared. In order to appreciate this. Jet us compare it with the numbers recently engaged in that field-. The field m question may roughly be called the South-eastern front. It is the front which, until last Sunday, stretched from the Pinsk Marshes to the south orn border of the Bukovina and which now stretches on nearly another 300 miles to the Danube. We know to within a very small margin of error in what strength the en emy stood upon that front upon June 1 last. He had at least 14 and at most 47 divisions. The tremendous Russian victories of June and July obliterated a vast proportion of this original defending force. Much more than onethird of it was actually taken prisoner. Anything from one-half to two-thirds had ceased to exist as effectives within the first eight weeks of the great Russian uffensive.

The gaps were ultimately filled. The remaining German strategic reserve was entirely exhausted in the necessity of filling those gaps, and all that Aus-tria-Hungary could summon of reserve man-power at the moment was also sent forward. The depots were emptied, and the line, longer than before, to rtuous and only just patched up. was reformed; hut not reformed in a stable fashion; for, as we know, :t i 3 still ir. movement and spasmodically and locally still in ivtreat. Now the intervention of Rumania is equivalent to the bringing up to swell the pressure against that sorely tried line, or rather upon its flank (or wherever it may be decided to use the Rumanian army) new forces equivalent to half its own", for so we must reckon the perfectly fresh Rumanian divisions compared with the depleted and worndawn units of the remaining AustroHungarian armies in the iield. Another way to looking at it is to compare the Rumanian numbers with the Russian numbers in the field; to which tliev will form an addition, and of which they are but a prolongation The Rusisan "forces were more numerous of course, than the defence which thev attacked last June. The Rumanian' addition does not represent onehalf therefore, of the Russians act ins in this field, but it represents prohmillv something like one-third or verv little less. If we say that the Russian army from the Lower Stokhod in f'ont of Hovel on the Kovcl-Sarny railway down to the Burgo Pass have received an addition now upon theU lett n -nu of another .'lO per cent., we shall not be far wrongIt is, therefore, as a merely numerical addition, a very considerable event in the war. for ii adds upon quite a jky.v scale tilt l tactor cf weight ill t-ili> fie'd But. more important, than the numerical addition, even with its freshness. is the strategical effect fo the ltu-ni-uiian intervention in the matter _•! position. We are all. or we ought to lie by this time, familiar to weariness with the fundamental strategic issue of the war. The war has long been one greit siege, and its duration, like its issue, has depended upon the power of the Central Empires to hold the lines within which thev are contained by the Allies. The.-e lines lannot be shortened >y retirement save upon one sector; tlu Western sector. It is 'essential to teinember this. That porf'on of the enemy's which runs from the North Rea to the Alps (about a quarter or rather more of his total lines, and excluding the As : atie lines) would he shortened by retirement. It happen* to I>o precisely the sector upon which he is, for political reasons, most re-

luctant to retire; anj the proof of tl is that he has massed upon vluij she portion more than 12<J diviSons out wme 240 to 250, and those of his b©

Rather tiian give tip any portion of tl occupied alien soil, rather than let H population ->ee the approach of host! urmies towards their frontiers, he w| risk, as lie is now risking, an extreiJ tenuity of defensive hne upon eitW side of the two great concentrations] Verdun and the Soinme. He is gam ling, but lie evidently thmks the stakl north while. He evidently dread above all things, what at last he ma lie compelled to, a retirement towari German soil.

But at any rate, lie can somewhi shorten the line in the West. Elsewhere every retirement of h lengthens the line. In the East 1 cannot fail back save at the price of ii vasion, and even so his line necessaril lengthens as he retires. The san is true of the Balkan front.

The lines the enemy now holds, thei are extended almost beyond h powers. It is the extension which hi led to the present certitude of his d feat.

A\ell, the intervention of Rtiman adds to the.se gravely extended lin< something like another 3~>o miles.