Start of the Battle of the Argeș

On 1 December 1916 the Romanian army made its last attempt to save Bucharest. General Constantin Prezan’s strike group attacked the left flank and rear of General Robert Kosch’s Danube Army, which a week earlier had crossed the Danube and was advancing along the road from Alexandria towards the capital. Between the Neajlov and Argeș rivers, a few dozen kilometres south-west of Bucharest, the largest battle of the Romanian campaign began. In Romania, which reckoned time by the Julian calendar, it was 18 November.

Prezan’s plan

The Romanians had noticed that the Danube Army had pushed far ahead of General Erich von Falkenhayn’s German Ninth Army, approaching from the west, and that its left flank was exposed. Prezan, supported by the head of the French military mission, General Henri Berthelot, wanted to drive into the gap between the two armies, first push Kosch back into the Danube and then turn against Falkenhayn. For the attack he assigned the 2nd/5th, 9th/19th and 21st Divisions and the 2nd Cavalry Division, while the First Army was meanwhile to hold off the Germans from the west. The attack, set for 29 November, was delayed because the divisions had to march several dozen kilometres each along sodden roads, harassed by German cavalry. The Austrian official history states that the Romanian attack began on 30 November, but that day the Danube Army pushed the Romanian 21st Division and General Iancovescu’s group back behind the Neajlov. According to the American historian Glenn Torrey, the strike group’s main attack began only towards the evening of 1 December.

The Central Powers did not expect a Romanian counter-attack. From the evening of 30 November a new command organisation was also in force: the Ninth Army was now subordinate to Field Marshal August von Mackensen. Neither he nor Falkenhayn believed that the Romanians would put up a serious defence in front of the capital. Mackensen was even planning to take the Bucharest fortress on the march.

The fighting on 1 December

In the morning the German 217th Infantry Division threw the Romanian 21st Division back behind the Argeș near Mihăilești, but did not pursue it. The 9th/19th and 2nd/5th Divisions were already advancing on its exposed flank. According to the Romanian historian Constantin Kirițescu, at dawn six companies of the 9th/19th Division took the village of Bulbucata with the bayonet, without firing a shot. Prezan’s new orders, however, arrived late, and reading them was made difficult by the lack of a cipher, so the main attack went in only towards evening. At about 6 p.m. heavy fighting began for the wood and village of Bălăria, and at 10 p.m. the Romanian 40th “Călugăreni” Infantry Regiment broke into the village, where the staff of the 217th Division was located. The Romanians took more than 200 prisoners and three heavy guns, and the divisional commander, General von Gallwitz, fled with his staff. The Germans withdrew from the Argeș to the Neajlov and formed a horseshoe, facing in three directions. The 2nd/5th Division got only as far as Letca Veche, held up by fighting with Turks of the Ottoman 26th Division.

In the south, on the lower Neajlov, the Romanian Iancovescu group was beating off Bulgarian attacks. According to the Austrian official history it held its positions; according to Kirițescu, towards evening, threatened with envelopment, it gave up the river bank and fell back to bridgeheads on the Argeș. In the evening the first brigade of the Russian 40th Division, one of the two that the Stavka had promised the Romanians after long entreaties, reached the battle area. The Austrian official history notes that the Romanian command had left uncovered a 60-kilometre gap between the strike group and the First Army. General Viktor Kühne’s German infantry was advancing through it unopposed, and with it General Eberhard von Schmettow’s cavalry. In the north General Stratilescu’s First Army was still falling back before General Krafft’s group.

The captured order

The day that on the main sector held out the promise of victory for the Romanians also brought them disaster. In the afternoon a car carrying two staff officers of the Romanian 8th Division lost its way on the upper Argeș and drove into the German units. The officers were carrying operational orders that revealed Prezan’s whole plan. The documents reached Falkenhayn, who had just moved his headquarters to Râmnicu Vâlcea. The Austrian official history writes that “at a single stroke the darkness lifted” that had until then shrouded the Romanians’ intentions. At the same time Mackensen twice asked Falkenhayn for urgent help for the threatened flank of the Danube Army.

Falkenhayn at once decided to exploit the Romanian mistake. That same evening he ordered the Bavarian 11th Division to turn south-east, into the rear of the Romanian strike group, and the 41st Division to swing north-east to cut off the First Army’s retreat. The Romanian command did not yet know of the loss of the plan, and exaggerated reports of success were spreading through its staffs. The decision was to come within the next two days.