After the defeats suffered in the fall and winter of 1916, the Romanian Army went through an extensive process of reorganization and rebuilding. In the spring of 1917, plans were already being prepared for the initiation of an offensive on the Moldovan front. The main army planners, Generals Constantin Prezan and Alexandru Averescu, proposed two diametrically opposed offensive plans. Which plan received King Ferdinand’s approval?
Following the defeats suffered in the winter of 1916, the country’s army together with the Royal Family and the central administration retreated to Iasi. After benefiting from the help of the French Military Mission, the Romanian Army was rebuilt and military plans were made for an offensive against the Central Powers.
At the end of March 1917, both General Constantin Prezan, the head of the Romanian Army’s General Headquarters, and General Alexandru Averescu, the commander of the Second Army, each presented to King Ferdinand a military plan for a future offensive.
The clash of military plans and hubris
The plan presented by Constantin Prezan proposed that the new First Army, consisting of four to six reorganized divisions, would launch an attack west of Siret, at Nămoloasa, in cooperation with the Russian Sixth Army. Simultaneously, the Second Army would carry out a secondary offensive through the Oituz pass, towards Transylvania.
General Alexandru Averescu characterized this plan as “madness” and put forward another plan. He proposed that, instead of two armies attacking in different directions, the Second Army, led by him, should be reinforced and make the main attack in the south, towards the Putna River, Focşani and, finally, Buzau .
“Although his proposal can be supported with strategic arguments, you are tempted to see Averescu’s arrogance behind it. These opposing conceptions of the offensive contributed to a further exacerbation of the `the old rivalries within the Romanian command`”, considered military historian Glenn Torrey.
Russian troops, gripped by the revolutionary virus
But Romania’s military plans did not depend exclusively on the country’s army. The Russian allied military troops were going through a great revolutionary process in the spring of 1917. Chaos was replacing discipline among the Russian troops on the Moldovan front, and more and more soldiers were calling for peace and refusing to obey orders. That’s why Russian, but also Romanian commanders, considered that the only way to rid the Russian army of indiscipline was to send it to fight alongside the Romanian troops.
And the Russian generals appreciated the plan proposed by Prezan, so that, on the Moldavian Front, the Romanian 1st Army received the main offensive role: “to attack and break through at any cost” the front of the German 9th Army west of the bridgehead Muddy. Advancing towards Râmnicu Sărat, it would envelop the enemy’s rear guard.
A secondary offensive for the army led by Averescu
To Alexandru Averescu’s displeasure, the Second Army he led was entrusted with a secondary offensive, to attack the right wing of the Austrian First Army, then advance up the upper Putna valley and threaten the main route of communication between the two enemy armies: German Ninth Army and Austrian First Army.
“The Russian 4th Army, operating between the two Romanian armies, received instructions to break through the enemy front near Ireşti; then, heading south, towards Focşani, he had to join the First Army to destroy the enemy forces located between Siret and the mountains.
The Russian Ninth and Sixth armies in the south were tasked with carrying out local offensive actions designed to support and cover the advance of the other three armies. The offensive was scheduled to begin between June 12 and July 14. As it turned out, delays in the completion of preparations pushed the date of the attack to July 24th, with artillery training to begin two days earlier, Glenn Torrey stated.
„A sort of council of war”
Alexandru Averescu vehemently criticized the new plan, which generally confirmed General Prezan’s conception. Averescu expressed his criticisms and grievances both to the Russian generals and to General Henri Mathias Berthelot, the head of the French Military Mission in Romania. That is precisely why, on June 12, 1917, “a kind of war council” was held in Iași, as Berthelot would express, with the main Romanian generals and allies to listen to Averescu’s objections.
“After criticizing the existing plan, Averescu presented a completely new one. Instead of a breakthrough at Nămoloasa, he proposed one in the Vrancea region, where the 9th German and 1st Austrian armies joined forces. The enemy’s left wing would be thrown back into Transylvania, while the right wing would be forced to retreat south, towards Râmnicu Sărat.
In essence, Averescu’s plan called for an enveloping maneuver. The unspoken assumption was that he would lead her. The council unanimously rejected Averescu’s proposal,” says Glenn Torrey.
Anyway, preparations for the Nămoloasa attack were far too advanced to have made any major changes to the plan elaborated by Prezan.
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Source: www.descopera.ro
