End of the Battle of the Argeș

On 5 December 1916, at a conference at headquarters, King Ferdinand I approved a plan for a general retreat of the Romanian army about 100 kilometres to the east. It was decided not to defend Bucharest. This brought to an end the battle of the Argeș, in which the Romanian counter-offensive against the forces of Field Marshal August von Mackensen had turned into a defeat. The British chronology of the war gives this day as the date of the battle’s end, although its outcome had already been decided on 3 December. In Romania, which reckoned time by the Julian calendar, it was 22 November.

As late as 2 December General Constantin Prezan believed he would destroy the German 217th Division, which his strike group had almost encircled between the Argeș and the Neajlov since 1 December. But General Erich von Falkenhayn, who thanks to captured Romanian orders knew Prezan’s whole plan, threw his divisions into the gap behind the Romanians. On 3 December Bavarians, Turks, German cavalry and the regrouped 217th Division attacked the Romanian 2nd/5th Division from three sides. According to the American historian Glenn Torrey, the Romanians held out until about 1 p.m., after which the 2nd/5th and 9th/19th Divisions fled in disorder across the Neajlov and the Argeș as far as Bucharest, losing almost all their artillery. That same day the German 41st Division broke through to Titu and forced the Romanian First Army to retreat behind the Dâmbovița, while General Morgen’s troops took Târgoviște.

On 4 December the Romanian high command, already moved to Buzău, took over the direction of operations from Prezan. According to Torrey, the French colonel Pétin demanded “in the interest of the Entente” another battle before Bucharest and Ploiești, but a Romanian officer replied that the army would then be irretrievably destroyed. The head of the French military mission, General Henri Berthelot, admitted that the Romanian troops were not capable of a new effort. He proposed a retreat to the Râmnicu Sărat–Viziru line, where Russian troops were concentrating. It was his plan that the King approved on 5 December. The retreat was to proceed in stages, and if the enemy attacked, the army was to avoid a decisive battle and fall back further, step by step.

Meanwhile the Central Powers were closing in on the capital itself. The Danube Army crossed the Argeș and approached the Romanian positions on the Sabar river, General Viktor Kühne’s corps reached Buftea, and General Eberhard von Schmettow’s squadrons stood just before the north-western front of the Bucharest forts. On the morning of 5 December Mackensen sent an envoy to the commandant of the fortress with a summons to surrender the city. According to the Austrian official history there was nothing to defend it with, because the guns of the forts had been removed even before the war for the heavy artillery of the field army. The envoy returned with the answer that Bucharest was an open city. That same day, as the Romanian 16th Division, withdrawing from the Prahova valley, passed through Câmpina, the derricks of the oilfields there were set on fire, according to the Austrian official history with the participation of two senior British officers. Smoke from the burning wells shrouded the whole area.

The next day German troops entered Bucharest without a fight, and the Bavarians took Ploiești. The Battle of the Argeș had drawn almost the whole Romanian army into the fighting and broken its strength. According to the Austrian official history, after the defeat the Romanians lost confidence in their commanders, and the remnants of the shattered divisions were sent to Moldavia to be rebuilt.