The Royal Palace in Bucharest, Romania. A postcard altered to show the German flag flying over the palace.

Bucuresti. Palatul Regal, Königliches Schloss



Bucharest. Royal Palace

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Monday, July 9, 1917

"At the end of the first decade of July 1917, the troops belonging to the Romanian Second Army (the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 8th Infantry Divisions and the 2nd Cavalry Brigade) deployed on the hills west of the locality of Mărăşti, in contact with large units belonging to General Gerock Group, were awaiting for the attack order. The Second Army under command of General Alexandru Averescu was entrusted the mission of piercing the Austro-Hungarian and German lines and of advancing beyond the valley of the Putna river; it was from there that later on, together with the Romanian First Army and the neighbour Russian troops, the decisive strike was to be delivered on the enemy forces in the Focşani zone.

The ratio of forces was, in the main, in favour of the Romanians . . ."

Quotation Context

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, but after peaking in February and March, 1917, with the return of warmer weather, and with the help of a French military mission under General Henri Berthelot, the Romanians were able to rebuild. In July, 1917 they planned an offensive against German and Austro-Hungerian forces under Friedrich von Gerock.

Source

Romania in World War I, a Synopsis of Military History by Vasile Alexandrescu, page 47, copyright © 1985, publisher: Military Publishing House, publication date: 1985

Tags

1917-07-09, 1917, July, Romania, Marasti, Mărăşti, Alexandru Averescu, Averescu, occupied Bucharest