The Royal Palace in Bucharest, Romania. A postcard altered to show the German flag flying over the palace.
Bucuresti. Palatul Regal, Königliches SchlossBucharest. Royal Palace
". . . some entertained the fantasy that 'Averescu had set out for Bucharest . . . and that Mackensen would be enveloped.' The rejoicing was short-lived. As Shcherbachev lunched with Prezan at the American Legation on 25 July, he received the famous Kerensky telegram ordering all Russian armies to cease offensive action. Half seriously, Berthelot told Shcherbachev that if he had received such an order, 'I would have simply put it in my pocket.' 'Impossible,' the Russian replied. The telegram had arrived en clair, and the soldiers' councils knew its contents before he did. He could do nothing but order his armies to hold their positions."
The Battle of Mărăşti began on July 24, 1917 with an attack by the recovered and newly re-armed Romanian army advancing with Russian support, support that was questionable before it actually occurred. Russian Prime Minister and Minister of War Alexander Kerensky had launched his offensive on July 1, Russia's first following that country's February Revolution that overthrew the Tsar, but brought a pro-war government to power. By late July Russian troops were refusing to fight, retreating, and deserting in large numbers. German General August von Mackensen had commanded the Central Power Danube Army in the Romanian invasion. General Alexandru Averescu commanded the Romanian Second Army; General Dmitri Shcherbachev was Russian commander on the Romanian front; General Constantin Prezan, Chief of the Romanian General Staff; and Henri Berthelot head of the French Military Mission to Romania. Bucharest was, and remains, the capital of Romania.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 204, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
1917-07-25, 1917, July, Battle of Mărăşti, Mărăşti, Battle of Maraşti, Maraşti, Romania, Alexander Kerensky, Kerensky, Mackensen, von Mackensen, August von Mackensen, Averescu, Alexandru Avere
