h with this little ally.

[Sidenote: Military conditions prior to Rumania's venture.]

[Sidenote: Failure of Germans at Verdun.]

I have said that there was not bad faith toward Rumania on the part of
the Allies when they induced her to enter the war, and that there was
not lack of intelligence on the part of Rumania when she followed their
advice. In order to understand the point of view of the Allies it is
necessary to have clearly in mind the military conditions existing in
the whole theatre of operations during the six months prior to Rumania's
fatal venture. In February the Germans had assembled a large portion of
their mobile reserves for their effort against Verdun. The constant
wastage of German human material continued almost without intermission
into May, with spasmodic recurrences up to the present time. Hundreds of
thousands of Germans were drawn from the visible supply of enemy manhood
by these offensives. By early May the failure of the Verdun venture had
probably become manifest to the German High Command, and there is
evidence that they were commencing to conserve their troops for other
purposes.

[Sidenote: General Brussiloff's offensive.]

On the 5th of June there began in Galicia and Volhynia the great
offensive of General Brussiloff which lasted, almost without
intermission, on one or another part of his front, until October. By the
middle of June this drive of the Russians began to divert German troops
for the defense of Kovel. In July started the British-French offensive
in the West.

[Sidenote: German troops diverted to Eastern front.]

With their reservoirs of men already greatly reduced by the Verdun
attacks, the Germans, by the middle of July, were compelled to find
supports to meet the continuous offensives on both the Eastern and
Western fronts. I cannot estimate the number of troops required by them
against the French and British, but I do know that between the 5th of
June and the 30th of August a total of thirty divisions of enemy troops
were diverted from other fronts against Brussiloff alone. This heavy
diversion was the only thing that prevented the Russians from taking
Kovel in July and forcing the entire German line in the East. So
continuous and pressing were the Russian attacks that more than two
months elapsed before the enemy could bring this offensive to a final
stop on the Kovel sector. Enemy formations arriving were ground up in
detail as fast as they came, and by the mi