CAMPANIA ARMATEI ROMÂNE ÎN 1916 DESCRISĂ ÎN MEMORIILE CAPORALULUI SANITAR VASILE MIHĂILESCU
THE ROMANIAN 1916 CAMPAIGN SEEN BY CORPORAL VASILE MIHĂILESCU

Summary/Abstract: Three quarters of a century after Romania’s involvement in World War I we had a chance to see printed some of the war records of the medical corporal Vasile Mihailescu born in Panciu city. This article refers to the 1916 campaign which started in mid August until the stabilization of the front in southern Moldavia on the lower Siret River and middle course of Putna River in the early January 1917. Although his studies were limited to the elementary school, the writer managed like few others to describe the horrors of war, the sufferance undergone by the Romanian army since its retreat from southern Transylvania. After an optimistic start, especially among the civil population, which hailed with enthusiasm the trains carrying Romanian troops to Ardeal in order to liberate the Romanian provinces under the Austrian Hungarian rule, the war records tell about the days, weeks and months of continuous retreat in front of the enemy. The repeated defeats against an enemy with superior military technique, having already two years of war experience, better equipped and well organized, caused disarray amongst the Romanian army. Corporal V.M. describes the activity of the Ambulance of XIIIth Division starting with medical officers and pharmacists to medical corporals and soldiers: arranging of campaign hospitals in schools and town halls, amputations of arms and legs, taking care of wounded, the burial of deceased, the cleaning of parasites and others. We can read dreadful pages describing the retreat of the Romanian army and population under continuous rain, cold, walking in muddy dirt roads where canons, military carts, ambulances, campaign kitchens used to get stuck, usually accompanied by carts carrying the wealth of refugees, cattle, women carrying children in their arms etc. The campaign ended in a disaster for the Romanian army.

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