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Twentieth-Century Battles
Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania
In contrast to the trench-war deadlock on the Western Front, combat in Romania and Transylvania in 1916 foreshadowed the lightning warfare of WWII. When Romania joined the Allies and invaded Transylvania without warning, the Germans responded by unleashing a campaign of bold, rapid infantry movements, with cavalry providing cover or pursuing the crushed foe. Hitting where least expected and advancing before the Romanians could react--even bombing their capital from a Zeppelin soon after war was declared--the Germans and Austrians poured over the formidable Transylvanian Alps onto the plains of Walachia, rolling up the Romanian army from west to east, and driving the shattered remnants into Russia. Prelude to Blitzkrieg tells the story of this largely ignored campaign to determine why it did not devolve into the mud and misery of trench warfare, so ubiquitous elsewhere.
399 pages, Hardcover
First published October 23, 2013
25 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
About the author
Michael B. Barrett
4 books3 followersMichael B. Barrett is a retired Brigadier General and former assistant professor of history at The Citadel. A 1968 graduate of The Citadel, he earned his master's and doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and joined the faculty at The Citadel in 1976.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 24, 2023
Even though this book covers an aspect of World War 1 I knew little about and had some really good information, the detail of this book is just a bit overwhelming and made reading this book quite hard and not that enjoyable. The book covers the campaign in the Balkans after the Romanians joined the allied side and invaded the Austro-Hungarian Empire in August 1916. The reactions of the Austro-Hungarians and their German allies were well orchestrated and they had the Romanians on the back-foot and beaten in months. Unlike the stalemate of the Western Front, the advances were quick and well carried out by the disciplined and battle-hardened troops of the Central Powers against the ill-prepared and ill-equipped Romanians. The research is really good in this book, and there are a few nice maps that helps a bit to follow the actions. Overall not bad, just way too much info that could have been left out.
May 30, 2018
The quality of this study is unquestionable. The operational narrative is simply comme il faut , with a solid grasp on the vagaries of weather and soil in a high-altitude environment. The quality of the editor is superb. The layout eliminates the need for 99% of my customary pencil markings and each chapter is rounded off by a crisp conclusion. The supply of maps is plentiful and they are easy on the eyes. It fully earns the endorsements by Peers who have earned their spurs writing about the eastern fronts of the Great War: Richard C Hall, Graydon A. Tunstall and foremost Glenn E. Torrey
The battle-hardened professionalism of the German Army is evident when setting up a flow of men, horses and supplies down treacherous passes between cliff and stream. Similarly impressive is the tenacious ingenuity of the mountain troops as they battle their way from peak to peak in brutal close combat. To counter the illusion of infallibility, the nefarious effect of the (sometimes petty) arguments within the Austro-German command is a constant theme. Von Falkenhayn was unable to regain the position of influence within the High Command which he held prior to the stalemate at Verdun. The ambition of Archduke Karl, following his coronation in the midst of the Romanian campaign, to recalibrate the junior position of his armed forces within the Central Powers, proved equally illusionary.
On the other side of the mountain, the military misfortune of the Romanian armed forces get a fairer share of attention than the title would suggest. The crux of their strategy of liberating the Ruthenian lands under Hungarian overlordship. The three armies tasked with the initial drive into Transylvania represented 75% of their manpower, but a premeditated retreat by Habsburg border units caused them to disperse too widely in an area where the benefit of interior supply lines (read: railways) passed to the enemy.
The most interesting secondary theater, in my opinion, is the Dobrogea. This recently annexed province shows the classic shape of the salient. Its isolated, degraded fortifications were an easy prey for vengeful Bulgarian troops. Once the valued presence of their German allies under the redoubtable Von Mackensen cured their hydrophobia, they staged a series of amphibious operations that rank among the most colourful of the war, with an Austrian monitor flotilla prohibiting the intervention of the Romanian detachment upriver as they provided devastating naval fire support.
With 15 passes to defend, a successful breach in the barrier of the Carpathians was inevitable; the process of elimination from the side of the Central Powers serves to illustrate the invisible headaches that plague the adversary even as your strategic situation deteriorates into a two-front invasion (aggravated by the customary rivalries within the High Command).
Regarding the final phase, the fall of Bucharest and the retreat onto Iasi, the belated contribution of Russian troops to hold the line as the French military mission set out to revive the shattered Romanian forces is a dimension of note, since again, no author is obliged to include the friction between chief-of-staff Dumitru Iliescu and his passive Tsarist ally into the “Austro-German Campaign”.
So why do I only rate it 3 stars? It’s not business, it’s personal. The comparison with The Romanian Battlefront in World War I rears its head. It had more politics and more Romania to give it flavour, to make it fun. The exhaustive level of detail here is… exhausting. Notwithstanding the clarity of the maps, a fluid reading requires a detailed familiarity with Romanian geography which I sadly lack. On a minor note, the bibliography is very light on Romanian sources compared to Glenn Torrey. In a perfect world, these two fine books would exist as one.
The battle-hardened professionalism of the German Army is evident when setting up a flow of men, horses and supplies down treacherous passes between cliff and stream. Similarly impressive is the tenacious ingenuity of the mountain troops as they battle their way from peak to peak in brutal close combat. To counter the illusion of infallibility, the nefarious effect of the (sometimes petty) arguments within the Austro-German command is a constant theme. Von Falkenhayn was unable to regain the position of influence within the High Command which he held prior to the stalemate at Verdun. The ambition of Archduke Karl, following his coronation in the midst of the Romanian campaign, to recalibrate the junior position of his armed forces within the Central Powers, proved equally illusionary.
On the other side of the mountain, the military misfortune of the Romanian armed forces get a fairer share of attention than the title would suggest. The crux of their strategy of liberating the Ruthenian lands under Hungarian overlordship. The three armies tasked with the initial drive into Transylvania represented 75% of their manpower, but a premeditated retreat by Habsburg border units caused them to disperse too widely in an area where the benefit of interior supply lines (read: railways) passed to the enemy.
The most interesting secondary theater, in my opinion, is the Dobrogea. This recently annexed province shows the classic shape of the salient. Its isolated, degraded fortifications were an easy prey for vengeful Bulgarian troops. Once the valued presence of their German allies under the redoubtable Von Mackensen cured their hydrophobia, they staged a series of amphibious operations that rank among the most colourful of the war, with an Austrian monitor flotilla prohibiting the intervention of the Romanian detachment upriver as they provided devastating naval fire support.
With 15 passes to defend, a successful breach in the barrier of the Carpathians was inevitable; the process of elimination from the side of the Central Powers serves to illustrate the invisible headaches that plague the adversary even as your strategic situation deteriorates into a two-front invasion (aggravated by the customary rivalries within the High Command).
Regarding the final phase, the fall of Bucharest and the retreat onto Iasi, the belated contribution of Russian troops to hold the line as the French military mission set out to revive the shattered Romanian forces is a dimension of note, since again, no author is obliged to include the friction between chief-of-staff Dumitru Iliescu and his passive Tsarist ally into the “Austro-German Campaign”.
So why do I only rate it 3 stars? It’s not business, it’s personal. The comparison with The Romanian Battlefront in World War I rears its head. It had more politics and more Romania to give it flavour, to make it fun. The exhaustive level of detail here is… exhausting. Notwithstanding the clarity of the maps, a fluid reading requires a detailed familiarity with Romanian geography which I sadly lack. On a minor note, the bibliography is very light on Romanian sources compared to Glenn Torrey. In a perfect world, these two fine books would exist as one.
December 22, 2022
"Romania was a prelude to what the world would see in 1939-1941." pg 314
This was a well-written, scholarly, and thorough narrative. This was a learning experience as I knew zero about the Austro-German campaign in Romania. The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungry, Bulgaria, and the Ottomans) launched offensive operations aimed to counter Transylvanian and Romanian military attempts at liberating Transylvania and the Vlach people from Austria-Hungarian occupation. The Romanian army was shattered from the summer of 1916 to early 1917. The operational and tactical successes and failures on both sides were explained in-depth: logistics, military resources, railroads, infrastructure, and more.
BG Barrett delivered each chapter with thorough and extensive starting with the Romanian role before the campaign, the support from Russians alongside the Romanians, Moldova and winter warfare, the Central Powers final push to Bucharest, and their victory by January 1917. History overlooks this campaign but the amount of manpower and resources needed to navigate the mountain passes, fight a soldier with terrain advantage, and intervention from the Russians has shown this as an important deice in the WW1 history. The Central Powers' victory was neither cheap nor easy.
Furthermore, this campaign was the prototype of maneuver warfare that would become known as blitzkrieg. The Germans and Austrians employed rapid mobility, speed, and barrage that kept the enemy off balance, thwarted his efforts to create a defensive line, frustrated his attempts to assemble his forces, eliminated his chance to recover, and above all disrupting his plans and operations, leading to paralysis. This tactic would become rehearsed and perfected when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and France in 1940.
This was a well-written, scholarly, and thorough narrative. This was a learning experience as I knew zero about the Austro-German campaign in Romania. The Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungry, Bulgaria, and the Ottomans) launched offensive operations aimed to counter Transylvanian and Romanian military attempts at liberating Transylvania and the Vlach people from Austria-Hungarian occupation. The Romanian army was shattered from the summer of 1916 to early 1917. The operational and tactical successes and failures on both sides were explained in-depth: logistics, military resources, railroads, infrastructure, and more.
BG Barrett delivered each chapter with thorough and extensive starting with the Romanian role before the campaign, the support from Russians alongside the Romanians, Moldova and winter warfare, the Central Powers final push to Bucharest, and their victory by January 1917. History overlooks this campaign but the amount of manpower and resources needed to navigate the mountain passes, fight a soldier with terrain advantage, and intervention from the Russians has shown this as an important deice in the WW1 history. The Central Powers' victory was neither cheap nor easy.
Furthermore, this campaign was the prototype of maneuver warfare that would become known as blitzkrieg. The Germans and Austrians employed rapid mobility, speed, and barrage that kept the enemy off balance, thwarted his efforts to create a defensive line, frustrated his attempts to assemble his forces, eliminated his chance to recover, and above all disrupting his plans and operations, leading to paralysis. This tactic would become rehearsed and perfected when Germany invaded Poland in 1939 and France in 1940.
Blitzkrieg techniques originating between the wars in Germany started with the traditional German premise that destruction of the enemy forces was the main objective of any strategy or operation. When possible, the time-tested methods of attacking before the enemy could mass and moving around his flank or in his rear were preferred, but when circumstances dictated in the Transylvanian Alps, a penetration leading to a breakthrough would permit the German forces to engage the enemy in his vulnerable areas. pg 310In 2005, my senior year at The Citadel, I took an elective Geography class with Brigadier General Berrett. He is an extremely intelligent man; full of knowledge he loved to teach. He also had a dry, dead-pan sense of humor that made the class crack up. I'm glad I had the opportunity to read one of his works. I would recommend this to readers of WW1. Thanks!
November 16, 2022
A clear and insightful history of the campaign.
Barrett provides some good insight into how the German, Habsburg, Bulgarian and Ottoman forces were organized, led and employed in Transylvania, and shows how the campaign had many aspects that the blitzkrieg doctrine would later employ. He also notes the convoluted chain of command and the campaign’s logistics problems; Barrett shows how the Central Powers’ limited resources forced them to launch a quick, mobile campaign. The Romanian army comes off as weak, poorly led and almost suicidal.
The narrative can be bit hard to follow, since much of it reads like this: “The crisis in the Calimani mountains caused by the Romanian advance to Lunca Bradukiu (Palota) in the Mures Valley saw the unit reembark the following day for Prunda Bargalui, where it came under the temporary control of the 73rd Hunved Brigade, 1st Army Corps, of the adjacent 7th Army.” At one point Barrett refers to the “Dardanelles Peninsula.” Barrett’s assertion that the campaign was a precursor to German blitzkrieg warfare seems a bit forced at times. Also, there is little on the diplomacy prior to the campaign. Some readers may wish for more maps. Still, his description of the fighting in the mountains and the extreme conditions there is good.
A well-researched, well-written and compelling work.
Barrett provides some good insight into how the German, Habsburg, Bulgarian and Ottoman forces were organized, led and employed in Transylvania, and shows how the campaign had many aspects that the blitzkrieg doctrine would later employ. He also notes the convoluted chain of command and the campaign’s logistics problems; Barrett shows how the Central Powers’ limited resources forced them to launch a quick, mobile campaign. The Romanian army comes off as weak, poorly led and almost suicidal.
The narrative can be bit hard to follow, since much of it reads like this: “The crisis in the Calimani mountains caused by the Romanian advance to Lunca Bradukiu (Palota) in the Mures Valley saw the unit reembark the following day for Prunda Bargalui, where it came under the temporary control of the 73rd Hunved Brigade, 1st Army Corps, of the adjacent 7th Army.” At one point Barrett refers to the “Dardanelles Peninsula.” Barrett’s assertion that the campaign was a precursor to German blitzkrieg warfare seems a bit forced at times. Also, there is little on the diplomacy prior to the campaign. Some readers may wish for more maps. Still, his description of the fighting in the mountains and the extreme conditions there is good.
A well-researched, well-written and compelling work.
May 22, 2024
A general account of how Romania brought doom on its head in 1916, by attempting to grab Transylvania from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, only to bring firm German direction to that theater of the war. While I enjoyed reading what is a good campaign history, I did find the historical horizon of the author a little constrained. Though this campaign is invoked as precursor to the mobile, all-arms warfare that is usually described as "blitzkrieg," one doesn't get much sense that the author is aware that speed of action and force of will was always a component of the Prussian way of war, and that Erich von Falkenhayn's previous operational behavior at Verdun was the anomaly. Apart from that, I suspect that I would have been better off reading Glenn Torrey's general account of Romania in the Great War first.
Originally written: May 14, 2018.
Originally written: May 14, 2018.
April 26, 2023
Rather dry. The author provides a detailed description of the battles in World War 1 Romania and the political infighting on both sides. It describes the political in-fighting that occurred among the Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians as well as the Romanians. The book is a good reference for scholars but certainly not light reading.
April 1, 2019
Detailed history of Romanian battles
Very detailed book difficult to understand without thorough history of Romania Bulgaria and Eastern Europe on Kindle maps are very difficult if not impossible to read
Very detailed book difficult to understand without thorough history of Romania Bulgaria and Eastern Europe on Kindle maps are very difficult if not impossible to read
September 28, 2018
Excellent book can highly recommend it. It is a part of WW1 that is not so known and this book gives you the information about the the war but also the politics
October 20, 2016
An excellent book about an often overlooked campaign, "Prelude to Blitzkrieg" is a marvelous account of the Romanian campaign in World War I. Barrett does an exceptional job of shedding light to a campaign that usually receives scant attention in general histories of the war. He also manages to tell a balanced story that gives the Romanians more credit for their fighting abilities than is normally the case, while praising the Central Powers for their swift victory in a brutal environment. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in WWI in general and "forgotten history" in particular.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews