Germans take Brăila

On 5 January 1917 the troops of the Central Powers occupied Brăila, the last large town in Wallachia still held by the Russians and Romanians. According to the Austrian official history (Österreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg), General von der Goltz’s German cavalry division of the Danube Army rode in from the west, while the Bulgarian 4th Infantry Division forced its way in from the east, across the Danube. The date of 5 January is also given by the British historian of the war John Buchan and the Romanian historian Constantin Kirițescu, although the latter writes of 4 January elsewhere in his work. In Romania, which reckoned time by the Julian calendar, it was 23 December 1916.

Brăila was one of Romania’s most important ports. It lay on the left bank of the Danube, just above the mouth of the Siret, and sea-going ships could reach it. It had been a free port since 1836, and a grain exchange had operated there since 1882. A large part of Romania’s grain exports passed through Brăila and neighbouring Galați. After the fall of Bucharest the town lay in the path of the army of Field Marshal August von Mackensen, which was advancing north-east along the Danube. The Russians surrounded it with a bridgehead with lines of trenches from Latinul through Romanul to Tichilești. On the other side of the river, in the Dobruja, they were still holding a bridgehead at Măcin, connected to Brăila by a pontoon bridge.

The German commanders did not agree on whether to attack the town at all. According to the Austrian official history, following the supreme command’s guidelines of 31 December, Mackensen entrusted the capture of Brăila to General Robert Kosch’s Danube Army. General Erich von Falkenhayn, commander of the neighbouring Ninth Army, considered that Brăila need not be stormed and that some of Kosch’s troops should rather support his attack on Focșani. Mackensen, however, did not change his mind. On 3 January the Bulgarians broke into the bridgehead at Măcin and advanced along the causeway towards Brăila in order to strike it from the east.

On 4 January the Danube Army’s attack began. The German 217th Infantry Division, together with the Austro-Hungarian group of Colonel Szivó, broke through the Russian position north-west of Romanul, and the Bavarian 11th Division rolled up the trenches as far as the confluence of the Buzău with the Siret. The bridgehead had been torn open at a dangerous point. Buchan adds that the Bulgarians were already shelling the town from across the Danube, and since Brăila was not part of the line on the Siret on which the whole defence was to stand, it was decided to evacuate it. During the night of 4–5 January the Russians withdrew to the northern bank of the Siret. They kept only small bridgeheads on the marshy islands near Vădeni.

The victors found no great booty in the town. According to Kirițescu the Russians had stripped it completely: the warehouses, docks, stores and even the shops were empty. The day after Brăila was taken, the German supreme command ordered the Danube Army to give up the Bavarian 11th Division and began withdrawing further units from Romania to other fronts. The front in this area settled on the marshy lower Siret, between Brăila and Galați, which remained on the Romanian side. Brăila remained under the occupation of the Central Powers until the end of the war.