the railroad, thirty miles distant, preventing the
fleeing Russians and Rumanians from making any further stands. On the
following day, the 19th, the cavalry had reached the Orsova-Craiova
railroad and occupied it from Filliash, an important junction, to
Strehaia station, a distance of twelve miles.

Two days later came the announcement that Craiova itself had been
taken by the Teuton forces. This town is the center of an important
grain district on the edge of the Wallachian Plain. From a military
point of view the importance of its capture was in that it was a
railroad junction and that the Germans now held the line of
communication between the Orsova region, constituting the extreme
western portion of Wallachia, and the rest of Rumania. As a matter of
fact, as was to develop a few days later, the Teutons had broken
through the main Rumanian lines, and in doing so had clipped off the
tip of the Rumanian left wing. Some days later the capture of this
force was announced, though it numbered much less than had at first
been supposed--some seven thousand men.

But now a new danger suggested itself. The Teutonic invasion was
heading toward the Danube. Should it reach the banks of that river
there would be nothing to prevent a juncture between the forces of
Falkenhayn and those under Mackensen, thereby forming a net which
would be stretched clear across Rumania and swept eastward toward
Bucharest. Falkenhayn had only to clear the northern bank of the
Danube, and nothing could prevent Mackensen's crossing; as was
presently to develop, this fear was not without foundation. On the
24th came the announcement from Berlin that Falkenhayn had captured
Turnu-Severin on the Danube and that Mackensen's troops had crossed in
several places and effected a juncture with Falkenhayn's men. Farther
north the Rumanians were reported to be falling back to positions
along the Alt River, a swift, deep stream in its upper reaches which
broadens out into many arms down on the plain and forms a difficult
obstacle to an advancing army. At Slatina the bridge is over four
hundred yards in length. This, apparently, was to be the new line of
defense, running north and south. Still farther north, in the
Carpathians, in Moldavia, the Austro-Germans were developing another
strong offensive, and here, near Tulghes Pass, where the Russians held
the line, a pitched battle of unusual fury developed, bringing the
Austro-Germans to a standstill for the time