Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

12 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

rhetorically of the Near East as the nerve centre of the war, and she was ready to indulge this curious fancy. Her Balkan incursion, if the fates were kind, would postpone the final offensive in the West till the winter was past and she could get her last levies __the classes of 1916 and 1g17—ready for the field. The adventure was entrusted to Field-Marshal von Mackensen, the ablest soldier whom Germany had yet produced. Reports began to arrive, chiefly from Bucharest, as early as the middle of August that some kind of concentration was going on north of the Danube. Goods traffic between Rumania and Austro-Hungary was suspended. Units began to disappear from the Russian front, to the confusion of Russian staff officers, who could not fathom the reason for corps going suddenly into reserve. The Army of the Balkans was being formed, and its constituents were mainly drawn from the armies of the Centre. Before the end of August at least six divisions had gone southward. The fierce battles of early September for a little held up further reinforcements, but by the middle of the month ten divisions seem to have been assembled north of the Danube and the Save. They included the army of von Gallwitz, which had won the line of the Narev, and was mainly German in character, and the Austrian corps of von Koevess, which had been with von Woyrsch, and had taken Ivangorod. Western Serbia was neglected, owing to the difficulty of the country, though an Austrian detachment watched the banks of the Drina. The ey Es J disposed opposite Belgrade, and along Sepz-ito. ER rs Bulgarian frontier. On the 1gth of September, about two in the