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Postwar postcard map of the Balkans including Albania, newly-created Yugoslavia, expanded Romania, and diminished former Central Powers Bulgaria and Turkey. The first acquisitions of Greece in its war against Turkey are seen in Europe where it advanced almost to Constantinople, in the Aegean Islands from Samos to Rhodes, and on the Turkish mainland from its base in Smyrna. The Greco-Turkish war was fought from May 1919 to 1922. The positions shown held from the war's beginning to the summer of 1920 when Greece advanced eastward. Newly independent Hungary and Ukraine appear in the northwest and northeast.
With Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in October 1915 assuring the defeat of Serbia by the end of November, the Balkanzug — the Balkan Railway, shown in red — connected Berlin and Constantinople. By the second week of November, Turkey received ammunition and weapons from its allies.
French Farman two-seater planes on the Romanian front.
Postcard of a cross-section of the German mine-laying submarine UC5, captured by the British.
Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
"A heavy seasonal fog over the Danube concealed Kosch's forces as they assembled and boarded a variety of boats on the night of 22 November. The crossing began the next day at sunrise. The initial landing parties met no resistance, and the well-organized transfer of the five divisions began. Each had approximately 20,000 men, 5,000 horse, and 1,200 wagons and required eight to ten hours to transport. On 23—24 November, two divisions crossed." ((1), more)
"At 7:30 A.M. on the second day, construction of the pontoon bridge began. It was completed in less than 24 hours, so that on 25 and 26 November the remaining infantry, the cavalry, and the artillery crossed. In contrast to Flămânda, the bridge and crossing at Zimnicea were not threatened by hostile warships or mines." ((2), more)
"The small unit of Romanian militia that responded to the initial cry of alarm on 23 November quickly retreated. The first serious Romanian counterattack was carried out early on 24 November by two battalions under the command of French colonel Ernest Mercier. 'After a semblance of resistance,' his Romanians panicked and fled. Mercier, left alone on the field, was seriously wounded. Despite these early encounters, the Romanian command failed to recognize the magnitude of the threat. A Romanian aerial reconnaissance flight on 25 November reported seeing a bridge but no troops on it or in the vicinity—this on a day when the greater part of the two infantry divisions, cavalry, and artillery passed over it. An operational order of MCG on the same day erroneously concluded, 'Weak enemy force has crossed the Danube.' Berthelot reflected the confusion existing at MCG: 'Some say only one regiment has crossed the river at Zimnicia. . . . Others are more pessimistic [saying] there are already three divisions north of the Danube.' Upset by the failure of air reconnaissance, he sacked the French officer heading the joint Romanian—French aerial operations." ((3), more)
"26th November [1916]Rumania is under even greater threat of invasion. The Government is said to have left Bucharest.In Belgium the deportations of unemployed, and even, it is reported, of other persons, grow more and more widespread.In France and England the problem of supplies has taken on a serious aspect.The Somme offensive is dying slowly, without the General Staff daring to admit it. The submarines are becoming increasingly active.The prospects of peace are more and more remote, but the speeches remain just as impassioned." ((4), more)
"I flew toward the Zepp and flew at right angles to and underneath him amidships, firing as I went under. I then turned sharply east, the Zepp turning east also. We then flew on a parallel course for about five miles and I fired 71 rounds at the Zepp. I estimated his ground speed to be approximately 70 mph. I was aiming at his port quarter and noticed first a small patch become incandescent where I had seen tracers entering his envelope. I first took it for a machine gun firing at me from the Zepp, but this patch rapidly spread and the next thing was that the whole Zepp was in flames. I landed at 12 midnight (British Time), engine and machine O.K. The Zeppelin which fell into the mouth of the Tees was still burning when I landed." ((5), more)
(1) Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916 invading Transylvania, Austria-Hungary. In September and October a German and Austro-Hungarian army drove the invaders back into Romania, while a combined German, Bulgarian, and Turkish army pushed the Romanians from southern Dobruja, a region between the Danube River and the Black Sea, northwards toward the delta of the Danube on the Black Sea. On November 23, a Central Powers army under German General Robert Kosch began crossing the Danube from Bulgaria into Romania 130 kilometers southwest of the Romanian capital of Bucharest. Kosch's army included four infantry divisions — one German, one Turkish, and two Bulgarian, and a mixed cavalry division.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 137, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(2) Four infantry divisions — two Bulgarian, one German, and one Turkish — and one cavalry division, nearly 100,000 men in total, began crossing the Danube River from Bulgaria into Romania near Zimnicea by boat on November 23, 1916. The pontoon bridge hastened the crossing which put the Central Power forces 130 kilometers southwest of the Romanian capital of Bucharest. The 'Flămânda Maneuver' was an aborted Romanian effort from two months earlier. The Romanians attempted to strike the rear of the German-Bulgarian-Turkish army then advancing northwards into the eastern Romanian region of Dobruja. On September 30, 1916, the 10th Romanian Division began crossing the Danube into Bulgaria, but less effectively than the invaders did in November. On October 1, German planes had bombed the Romanian pontoon bridge; on the 2nd, the Austro-Hungarians had released mines that floated downriver into it. The Romanians soon ended their misadventure.
(3) Four infantry divisions — two Bulgarian, one German, and one Turkish — and one cavalry division, nearly 100,000 men in total, crossed the Danube River from Bulgaria into Romania between November 22 and 26, 1916, putting them 130 kilometers southwest of the Romanian capital of Bucharest. The French provided military advice and material to Romania, and sent a French Military Mission led by General Henri Berthelot. MCG was Marele Cartier General, the Romanian High Command.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, pp. 137–138, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
(4) Summary of the bleak situation facing the Entente Allies as 1916 drew to a close, the entry from the war diary of Albert, King of the Belgians, November 26, 1916. Romania was then being invaded by a German-Austro-Hungarian army that had broken through the Carpathian Mountains to the west, and by a German-Bulgarian-Turkish army to the east and south that had just crossed the Danube River and threatened the Romanian capital of Bucharest. German authorities were deporting Belgians to Germany as forced labor. Shortages in France and the United Kingdom had not approached those that faced Germany and Austria-Hungary, but German submarine activity had increased and threatened supplies of food and war materiel, particularly from the United States. The Anglo-French offensive on the Somme was ended in November with little gain and over 620,000 Allied casualties. The Americans, led by recently re-elected President Woodrow Wilson, were promoting peace, and Germany would soon make a proposal that France and Britain would immediately dismiss.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, page 129, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(5) Account by British Second Lieutenant Ian V. Pyott of his destruction of Zeppelin LZ 34 late on the night of November 27, 1916. Eight Zeppelins set out to bomb industrial targets in the British Midlands on the 27th, a stormy night in which the airships were visible in the glare from the cities and the aurora borealis. One of the eight never made the crossing of the North Sea. Max Dietrich, commanding LZ 34, was flying at 9,800 feet and in the beam of a searchlight when Pyott sighted him. Dietrich and his crew were all killed, Dietrich on his 46th birthday. Early the morning of the 28th, a second Zeppelin, LZ 21 was shot down by airplanes 10 miles east of Lowestoft and fell into the sea with no survivors.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, page 159, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
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