Start of the Battle of Mărășești

On 6 August 1917 (24 July in the Julian calendar, then in force in Romania) the German Ninth Army of Field Marshal August von Mackensen’s army group attacked the Russian positions on the river Putna, north of Focșani. By evening it had routed the Russian 34th Division and broken several kilometres deep towards the small town of Mărășești. During the night the gap was closed by the Romanian 5th Division, rushed across the Siret. So began the greatest battle on the Romanian front. The British chronology of the war calls this day the beginning of the “second phase of the Battle of Mărășești”, because it regards the Romanian offensive at the village of Mărăști in July as the first phase. These were, however, two different battles: at Mărăști the Romanians attacked and the fighting ended on 1 August, while at Mărășești the Germans attacked.

The pincers

The German Supreme Army Command decided to exploit the disintegration of the Russian army after the defeat in Galicia and to occupy Moldavia, the last scrap of Romania that remained in the hands of King Ferdinand I. General of Infantry Johannes von Eben’s Ninth Army was to advance from the Putna northwards along the western bank of the Siret, through Mărășești and Panciu to Adjud. Two days later the Austro-Hungarian and German group of General Friedrich von Gerok was to strike towards it from the mountains, through the Oituz valley. If both arms of the pincers met on the river Trotuș, the Romanian Second Army and part of the Russian Fourth Army would be cut off in the Vrancea mountains.

The Austrian official history (“Österreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg”) writes that at the beginning of August Mackensen’s staff still preferred to return to the original plan and force the Siret further east, at Nămoloasa. Some of the reinforcements, including the German Alpine Corps from the Western Front, could enter the fighting only around 9 August. Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, however, insisted on starting according to plan on 6 August, probably in order to coordinate the blow with the attack from Bukovina, where the Austrians and Germans had just retaken Czernowitz. Four assault divisions were therefore assembled near Focșani. The attack was to fall on the sector where the weakest resistance was expected. The Romanian historian Constantin Kirițescu, citing German documents, writes that the Russian 34th Division had for weeks been fraternising with the Germans and had even been negotiating a local ceasefire.

On the evening of 5 August Mackensen left occupied Bucharest for the front. According to Kirițescu, at the station he said goodbye to the officers seeing him off with the words: “See you in two weeks in Iași.” At the same time in Iași, under the chairmanship of the King, Romanian ministers and generals were debating whether, in the event of a catastrophe, to evacuate the government and the army to Russia. For the time being it was decided only to remove some of the offices and property.

A front being rebuilt

The Germans struck at the worst moment for their opponent. The Russo-Romanian command, fearing an attack from Bukovina on northern Moldavia, was just rebuilding the front. Several corps of General Alexander Ragoza’s Russian Fourth Army were to leave for the north, to a new manoeuvre army. Their positions on the right bank of the Siret were to be taken over by the divisions of General Constantin Cristescu’s Romanian First Army, waiting in villages on the left bank. The relief was to begin on the evening of 6 August and last until 10 August, at night only, so that the enemy would not notice it. On the sector of the attack, from the Siret to Irești, there stood meanwhile only three Russian divisions: the 34th, 13th and 103rd. Kirițescu stresses that opposite them the Germans had seven divisions in the front line.

The breakthrough

During the night of 5/6 August the German artillery showered the Russian lines between the village of Făurei and the Siret, and the Romanian batteries beyond the river, with shells. Towards morning gas was released from the German positions, flowing especially onto the Pădurea Neagră wood. Between four and seven o’clock the fire reached its greatest intensity. At about 7.30 a.m. the infantry of General Curt von Morgen’s German I Reserve Corps went forward: the 12th Bavarian Division by the Siret, the 76th Reserve Division in the centre and the 89th at Făurei, with the 216th Division in the second line.

According to Kirițescu the Russians put up almost no resistance and by noon had lost three successive lines of defence, while the Germans crossed the Putna and two further valleys. The Bavarians took the village of Rădulești, the Pădurea Neagră wood and the village of Ciuslea. Some of the Russian infantry fled over the pontoon bridge at Ciuslea to the eastern bank of the Siret, and the Russian commander ordered the bridge to be set on fire. When the Germans tried to cross the river on the march, they found the bridge in flames and came under the fire of the Romanian artillery from the high eastern bank. They therefore put off the crossing. Further west the Germans took the Balta Ratei wood, pushed back the flank of the Russian 13th Division and captured ten guns, and in the evening the 216th Division occupied without a fight the village of Străjescu, abandoned by the Russians.

By evening the Russian front had been broken over a width of 10 kilometres. According to the Austrian official history the centre of the German wedge had advanced about 3 kilometres. Kirițescu writes that along the Siret the Germans had penetrated nearly 10 kilometres into the Russian positions, and along the Focșani–Mărășești railway 3 kilometres. Most of the Russian soldiers fled north, abandoning fortified positions. The Russians brought their reserve 71st Division up to Mărășești.

Romanians in the breach

The Russian commanders asked their neighbours for help, and Romanian headquarters ordered Cristescu to give it immediately. At four in the afternoon General Aristide Razu’s Romanian 5th Division was ordered to cross to the right bank of the Siret that same day, without waiting for the night-time relief. At about eight in the evening the 32nd “Mircea” Infantry Regiment stepped onto the bridge at Cosmești, over which Russian soldiers were fleeing in the opposite direction, many without rifles and without caps, on foot, on horseback or clinging to artillery limbers. Cossack military police with bayonets tried to keep order. To get the regiment through, the Romanians set up a machine gun on the bridge and fired a few bursts into the air. In the dark, guided by German flares, the regiment reached the Gârla Morilor stream and between one and four in the morning dug in between Moara Albă and the village of Străjescu.

Beside it, over the pontoon bridge at Furceni, the 8th “Buzău” Infantry Regiment crossed and occupied the village of Doaga. The Romanians believed that the Russians were still in Străjescu. At 1.40 a.m. on the night of 6/7 August they were greeted from the village and the wood by the fire of German machine guns: the Russians had withdrawn without warning anyone. Until morning there was fighting with bayonets and grenades by the light of flares. More regiments came up behind the 5th Division, and the remaining divisions of the Romanian First Army set off for the Siret. By dawn the Romanians had closed the breach with a line from Moara Albă to the Siret, across the direction of the German attack.

Kirițescu drew attention to the unusual character of the battle that then began: the Germans started it against the Russians and finished it, on the same front, against the Romanians. Mackensen had expected an easy victory over the demoralised Russian army. Instead, for the next four weeks he had to storm the positions of Romanian divisions that had been trained since the winter by the French military mission.