RUMANIA IN WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 239, 5 January 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

RUMANIA IN WAR.

By the Daily Mail Special Correspondent in Rumania, HAMILTON FYFE. A grey-green landscape which reminds me of South Africa. Flat as far as the eye reaches, without the kopjes that relieve the monotony of the veld. Far away there is a line of hills, is where the Danube flows. 1 do not know who started the 'legend of the : 'blue" Danube. All the Danube that i have ever seen is the colour of coffee (vith a great deal of milk in it. When you come to the hills you see this broad brown stream flowing sluggishly over their feet on one side, while on the other side the shore is flat and generally marshy, but rich in soil, so that Bulgarian market gardeners (for somo reason they always are Bulgarians who grow vegetables, for a living ii: Rumania) run their cabbage plots and onion beds down to the water's *dge. In very few places does the river flow between two high banks. Unfortunately, where it divides Rumania from Bulgaria the Bulgarians have the advantage of the cliffs. Even without these the river is a tremendous natural barrier. Each side has managed to <toss it since Rumania came into the war, but only at points where little imposition could lie offered to the swinging of the pontoon bridge and tho landing of troops. There i« this to remember also; autumn is the season when tbo river is at its lowest after tho summer drought. For months the landscape has been getting less green and more grey. No rain to speak of has fallen since the spring. We are in the second week of October, and *till the sun shines steadily for ten hours day after day. Between eleven o'clock and four the heat is as great a- that of our ordinary July weathe: ii England. The size of the stream 's still shrinking. Even the marshes are almost dry.

If you would so© the Danube at its, mofit' impiessivo, come in spring, ltj (ills itri valley then. You go across its J muddy waters for seven or eight miles on end. The famous bridge at Cernavodfl i.«> close on ten miles in length. Not all of it really bridgv; a largo part i- embankment. But for the whole M' those km miles thorn is at times nothing l>ut water on either side "of the train. At this se-is'tn <>n!a begins by ti os-iiiLr an arm of the river on a <U'ri suspension structure of not great kngrh. Then embankment. Then an-' other bridge, much longer, across x hike which n.'ver dries up. More embankment, and. t«i end up with, tbo bridge a<-m-s the Danube proper, with tl-i little ii.wn uf Onravoda on the .en ther ihore. TRANQUIL BEAfTV. Looking up and down the broad shining stream, ono's hoart swells it the tranquil beauty of it, ones" imagination is stirred by the thought of n.ll the history that has been made on its h ink-. .All n have been fighting here, f.c th'-y nre fighting n->w, pver since thev :■ r-1. _ formed themselves into' triKe=. nations, r;'.ees; over since nm-

bitious nun craved power and set on their to throw away their lives for it. Pinched in between- the Danube and the BLack Sea, this territory of the Dobrudja has i>een the scene of battles innumerable; of none, however, so vast and so bloody as that which is now engaging the energies and thinning terribly the ranks of 300,000 men. Away to the south the plain widens and becomes more like the veld than ever, for now there are kopjes. 'Hie belts of acacia trees grow more thickly and the lulls along this river bank become bigger. Here is the battlefield. Here the Rumanians have been holding up the advance force which Mackenseu finny savagely into their southern provinces at the beginning of the war. An attempt has been made tt spread the story that they did not expect Bulgaria to fight against them That is not exact. Radsolavoff, the Bulgarian Premier, did indeed try to lure Mr. Bratiano into the belief that his country might remain neutral so far as Rumania was concerned. But all illusions had been dispelled' during tho weeks that preceded Rumania's declaration of war against Austria. It was only at Russian Headquarters that tho belief prevailed in Bulgaria's unwillingness to fight against her ''creator.'' How thin persisted it is hard to imagine. 1 can answer for it that no such i(J!e dream was cherished in Petrograd. Soldiers have queer senttmqatUf.ities. Psychology has never l>een their strong suit. Tough old Maekensen took full advantage of the unprepaiiedncss of Russians and Rumanians to meet an attack on this front. The finst weeks of the war were a nightmare of mistakes and misunderstandings. One hopes these have been left behind. The result ojUthem is seen in the crowded state of the Rumanian hospitals. Train after train of wounded passed us -is we sped in a military "special" to Medgidia, the dirty little old Turkish town which is the principal base, 'for the Dohrudjn fighting, In a Red Cross de toehinert which was working very hard not far fioni the front i came across an Kngli-h surgeon, St. John by name, nephew of a oik • well-known diplomatist, formerly a student at (JuyV Retold mo how severe the strum upon the slender resources of this little country had lie.'ii. In tho whole of it there were only some fifteen hundred medical men : not more, he believed, than sixtv edd surgeons. ' Think ol their offer!" t • cop - h ith wounded ! DFsY KXF..MY AEROPLANE*. '■We want ovtrvthituv' lie said. -A«-k them in England to -end us thousands of pairs <if rubber chives nnv amount of lint and cotton-wool, antiseptics, anaesthetics. Yon can s<v> ■what the cluinf.es of doing our work properly will be if this rush of wounded goes on." In another hospital Prin--11 ss ('nrr-'aii' e Cant iou/.oiic told me tnucli tic same. "It was impossible that we could be prepared for this." The plucky, energetic little Princes, who founded the hospital herself and runt; it herself in spite ef In':- fifty years, threw up oloo.iiont hands. Another piquant personality I met i:i the Dobrudin was Lieutenant de Flers. part-author with M. Cnillavct of ' "1.0 Roi." "ho Bois Snore," "L'Hahit Vert," and other witty and vastly

amusing farces which have delighted both Paris and London this many n year. I am sorry to say —and I regret —that M. de Flere says he means to write no more farces. He is too much occupied with the serious side of life. We travelled from Medgidia to Constanza together, across the grey-green plain where flocks of wild turkeys gobbled and flew where herds of buffaloes graze. Besides being a port of some note. Constanza is Rumania's only seaside place. I moan in the sense of e. holiday piace. VI cannot say I have very restful reco\fections of it, but that is because enemy aeroplanes were dropping bombs on it nearly all the time I was there. This is their constant occupation Out of 2-3.000 inhabitants only 0,000 are left, and I am sure I do not know where they conceal themselves. One certainly does not see them in the street 1 ', which are empty. The shops are nearly all closed, the big Casino by the sea is boarded up, thj promenad'.' is a stony waste. The place scorns uterly deserted. I do not mean thta the 20,000 who arc-, missing have been killed by aeroplanes. They have fied for fear of this fate. Dr. St. John and I nearly met t ourselves, for at eight o'clock in the evening an invisible waterplane began bomb-dropping in the dark. One moment we were admiring the moon on the water, the next we were flat on our stomachs, and just as well too, for tinee lilts were made quite near us. one. in the roadway only twenty yards away. We got up before dawn next morning end started our special train off at six o'clock. As we drew away from the town we heard explosions, and, loking back, we saw a speck in the air making things unpleasant for Constanza. I do not wonder the 20.000 went aw:Tv.