My War Memories, 1914-1918
without Rumania's corn and oil, even though we had saved the Galician oil-fields at Drohobycz from the Russians.
Since the Field-Marshal and I assumed the supreme command, we had made one great step forward, but a second was still to be taken. It meant the continued holding of the fronts, and, if we were to survive, a victory over Rumania. The year 1917 opened with this goal still before us. The great Entente offensive of 1916, with its attendant perils, had been successfully dealt with. We could dismiss it from our minds, but we found ourselves faced with a future fraught with new anxieties.
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The second step to which we had to make up our minds in the middle of October was extremely serious.
It was difficult to strike at the Rumanians through the frontier mountains or across the Danube; still more difficult to provide new troops for the continuation of the operations.
Of course, we had given prolonged consideration to the question of how to continue the operations against Rumania. The most profitable operation would be the simultaneous advance of both Army Groups, with their inner wings on Galatz ; or rather, if Mackensen's Army could push up to the mouth of the Danube below Galatz, while the Archduke Charles* Army Group pressed forward to the Sereth above Galatz, taking care to secure their inner flanks. The result of this would be the annihilation of the bulk of the Rumanian Army in Wallachia and the occupation of an area rich in just those warlike resources which we lacked. This splendid idea had occurred to the minds of the commanders on the spot, as well as my own.
Field-Marshal von Mackensen received the division he had asked for—the 2i7th—in time to enable him to attack the enemy's Tuzla-Cobadinu-Rasova line, and continue his advance to the Danube.
In view of the resistance, varied with violent attaflk. which the Archduke Charles' Army Group met with in
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