No wanton breach of faith.
It seems to me that the evidence I have submitted above clears the Allies, including Russia, of any wanton breach of faith toward Rumania, though the failure of their intention to relieve her certainly does not diminish their responsibility toward her in the future.
Germans on defensive in the north.
In the final analysis the determining factor in the ruin of Rumania was the failure of the Allies to foresee the number of troops the Germans could send against them. Their reasoning up to a certain point was accurate. In July, August, and for part of September it was, I believe, almost impossible for the Germans to send troops to Transylvania, which accounts for the rapidity of the Rumanian advance at the beginning of their operations. The fallacy in the Allied reasoning seems to me to have been that every one overlooked certain vital factors in the German situation. First, that she would ultimately support any threat against Hungary to the limit of her capacity, even if she had to evacuate Belgium to get troops for this purpose. For with Hungary out of the war it is a mate in five moves for the Central Empires. Second: the Allies failed to analyze correctly the troop situation on the eastern front, apparently failing to grasp one vital point. An army can defend itself in winter, with the heavy cold and snows of Russia sweeping the barren spaces, with perhaps sixty per cent of the number of troops required to hold those identical lines in summer. It should have been obvious that, when the cold weather set in in the north, the Germans would take advantage of this situation, and by going on the defensive in the north release the margin representing the difference in men required to hold their lines in summer and in winter. Possibly the same condition applies to the west, though I cannot speak with any authority on that subject. Apparently this obvious action of the Germans is exactly what happened. When their northern front had been combed, we find forces subtracted piecemeal from the north, reaching an aggregate of thirty divisions, or at least nearly fifteen divisions more than had been anticipated. The doom of Rumania was sealed.
Retreating armies must reach defenses.
What happened in the Russian effort to support Rumania is exactly what has occurred in nearly all the drives that I have been in during this war. An army once started in retreat in the face of superior forces can hold only when supported en bloc or when it reaches a fortified line. The Germans with all their cleverness and efficiency were not able to stop the Russian offensive of 1916 until they had fallen back on the fortified lines of the Stokhod in front of Kovel. In the Galician drive against the Russians in 1915, the armies of the Tsar were not able to hold until they reached the San River, on which they fought a series of rear-guard actions.
Russian corps on Sereth line.
So it was in Rumania. The Russian corps arriving on the installment plan were swept away by the momentum of the advancing enemy, who could not be halted until the fortified line of the Sereth was reached.
Rumanians played the game.
Russia in chaos.