German postcard map of the Romanian theater of war, with map labels in Bulgarian added in red. From north to south the labels are Russia, the Austro-Hungarian regions of Galicia and Bukovina, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and, along the Black Sea, the Romania region of Dobruja. Romania's primary war aim was the annexation of the Austro-Hungarian region of Transylvania, with its large ethnic Romanian population.
Vogelschaukarte des rumänischen Kriegschauplatzes.German map labels:Vogelschaukarte des rumänischen Kriegschauplatzes.RuslandGalizienBukowinaUngarnRumaniaBulgariaDobrudschaBulgarian overprint in red:на румънския театър на войнатаБърд око на картата на румънския театър на войната.Лтичи погдедъъ Бърд око на картата на румънския войната театърРусияГалисияБуковинаУнгарияРумънияБългарияДобруджаA 498 E.P. & Co. A.-G. L.
"Colonel Ştefan Holban, commander of the 2nd ID, lamented on 14 March [1917], 'A multitude of our brothers have died, while the lives of others hang in the balance. I cried when I read the report of deaths and my heart breaks when I see how the flower of Oltenia perishes day by day.' A few days later Holban himself fell ill. The epidemic was less severe in the units of the 2nd Army at the front, which were farther from the apex of the contagion in or near Iaşi. Nevertheless, the Austro-German command was worried enough to implement preventive measures on its side of the line."
Romania entered the war on August 27, 1916, and was overrun by Central Power forces by the end of the year, driven out of Wallachia and Dobruja and back to Moldavia where the Russians held the Allied line. Typhus, typhoid, dysentery, jaundice, and influenza sickened and killed a large part of the Romanian army, peaking in February and March, 1917.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, page 175, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
1917-03-14, 1917, March, Romania, Rumania, disease
