Norwich bulletin., 1916-12-01

through between the Rumanians at
 Hermannstadt and the central range
 September 27 passed without the
 frontal attack occurring. It was learn
 ed, however, that the Runanians were
 taking their artillery through the de-
 file. On the following day the flank
 ing bodies began to be pressed by the
 Rumanians. Reinforcements could not
 be brought into the mountains at short
 notice, so that the prospects seemed
 not the brightest.
 On September 29 a strong artillery
 fire in the north announced that the
 frontal attack was being made. The
 alpine troops advanced to positions
 directly overlooking the road in the
 Gafle. Already the road was filled
 with the van of the retreating Ru-
 manians. It was caught in the ma-
 chine gun and rifle fire of the Ger
 mans at two points, one south, the other imediately north of the village of V=res Torony. The slaughter was
 terrific as The Associated Press cor
 respondent is able to testify from a visit to the spot. In a few minutes
 the narrow road was filled with dead men and animals.
 From Boicza the Rumanian retreat was pressing upon those on the road, who on their right had unscaIable precipices upon which perched the en- emy, and on their left another preci-
 pice and a deep river. Men, animals and wagons plunged through the roads guard rail into the surging tor rent below, never to come to the sur face again. Their bodies were still ! resting on the rock ledges and sand l banks when the correspondent went over the ground. At Veres. Torony there is a stone bridge across a mountain stream emp tying into the Alt from the west. A German machine gun platoon reached I O h icrf1 r,INT +<DT- T 1 under fire. Soon the space between the ramparts was filled with dead and wounded men and animals. Death | reapsd it's fullest harvest here. These who were not cut down by the hail of bullets plunged over the bridge into the water, where wounded men and animals formed a writhing mass. The cry came "sauve qui peut" An entire army, or that part of it which lad been driven into the gorge melted of a sudden into a panicky, fleeing
 mob. Again the river claimed hun enough to reach the other side feli l under the machine gun fire of the Germans.
 The pressure forcing the Ruman- ians into Red Tower Pass was exert ed by the frontal attack which Falk-
 enhayn engineered from the north. Had it been possible to close the Alt valley east of Hermannstadt the en- ! tire First RGnanian army would have been annihilated. As it was this route was in part open, though to close it had been intended and had been the cause of the delay of the frontal at- tack. With every stick abandoned the re- mainder of the First Army dispersed in the Foothills of the Fogaras noun tains, ard later reached Kronstadt. At Boicza the remnants of the Ru-
 manian train were seen by The As- sociated Press correspondent. The Imperials had taken away whatever had value. Over a square mile of
 meadowland and fields the wreckage of the train spread. Imperial artillery had wrought havoc with the column. The fragments of thousands of army vehicles, farm wagons and carts told an awful tale of the surprise Fa1ken- hayn had worked on the Rumanians. Out of the wreckage loomed high the
 kitchen wagon of the commander of the 18th Rumaniap division. On the
 ground lay tons of Rumanian general staff maps showing Hungary as far as Budapest and Silesia. Bundles of
 Runanian sovereignty in the invaded was the stationery which Bucharest administration of the annexed terri . tories. No dream was ever more rudely shattered.
 With the Red Tower Pass taken, the Imperial troops advanced east through the Alt valley and set out to clear the Ghost Forest of the Second Ruman-