The Entente Offensive, Autumn, 1910
preparations for the opening of hostilities, and on the 28th of Augu;t had taken over command of the German, Austro-Hun-garian, Bulgarian and Ottoman troops on the Danube and the Dobrudja Irontier. The only forces he had at his disposal were : west of Orsova, the Austrian Danube flotilla, very weak Bulgarian Landsturm of the older classes, employed in watching the Danube; at Rustchuk, Colonel Bode's mixed German detachment, drawn from the German troops in Macedonia, and a Bulgarian infantry division. Other weak Bulgarian forces were posted to the east of the railway line from Bulgaria into the Dodrubja. Several heavy German batteries and a Turkish division were on their way, but only at the rate of two to four trains a day, as the railways of northern Bulgaria could not cope with more.
Bulgaria's attitude to Rumania was most uncertain. While Germany and Turkey declared their solidarity with their Allies immediately after Rumania's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria did not think fit to do so until the ist of September. She made no definite stipulations as to her reward for her military assistance, such as the cession of the whole of the Dobrudja. At that time the situation on the Macedonian Front was responsible for a certain reserve on Bulgaria's part.
According to the arrangements arrived at between General von Falkenhayn and the Allies, Field-Marshal von Mackensen was to cross the Danube in the direction of Bucharest with the troops under his command.   General von Conrad had favoured this operation whole-heartedly, because he thought it promised corresponding relief  in Transylvania,   The  outcome  of this movement might mean the defeat of Field-Marshal von Macken-sen's weak army, either on the northern bank of the Danube or by an advance of the Rumanians and Russians over the Dobrudja frontier, which at that time was insufficiently protected.   Field-Marshal von Hindenburg and I rejected this plan, and advocated the invasion of the Dobrudja   by   Field-Marshal von Mackensen.   This would also be the best means of parrying a possible thrust into Bulgaria from the Dobrudja.   The idea of crossing the Danube could only be considered when the
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