On Saturday, 5 September 2026, the Decision Game Club will engage a ‘short problem’ posed to students at the US Army Infantry School in 1930. Featuring field artillery, tanks, veteran infantry, and partially trained troops, this exercise asks students to combine the actions of the various combat arms in a place where tree-covered hills gives way to open ground.

In keeping with the timeless traditions of our merry band of Musketeers, we will assemble, via Zoom, at noon (that is, from 1200 to 1300) and at eight pm (2000 to 2100).

We invite all supporters of our little flotilla of Substack blogs - The Warfare Mastery Institute, The Tactical Notebook, and Extra Muros - to take part in these exercises. So, if you have taken out a paid subscription to any of these publications, you can get on the distro list by sending an e-mail message to thecasemethodclub@gmail.

In most weeks, we will use the distro list to send out a single e-mail message. This will mention the subject of the game for the week and provide log-in instructions for Zoom.

If you are new to tactical decision games, decision-forcing cases, or Zoom, please feel free to lurk for a session or two before jumping into the deep end of ‘what, Sir, are your orders?’

This post continues a tactical decision game begun last week. So, if you have not already done so, please begin your engagement with this post by reading (and, better yet, playing the game inside) the following article:

For a short description of the structure of a motorized machine gun battalion, please see:

You deploy your motorized machine gun battalion to the heights south of Neidenburg. This action requires two hours: ninety minutes to cover the thirty miles between Ortelsburg and Neidenburg and half-an-hour to select positions for the three machine gun companies.

Tell me, General, why you chose this course of action? Why did you employ your motorized machine gun battalion as a complete unit? (That is, why did you refrain from sending each of the three motor machine gun companies to a different location?) Why did you send the battalion to Ortelsburg (rather than another place?)

This series draws its scenarios from an abstract, written by G.J. Braun of the American Infantry, that was published in the issue of The Command and General Staff Quarterly Review of Military Literature for September 1936. In this piece, Major Braun provides the following particulars for the original article:

Gustav Ponath ‘Verwendungsmöglichkeiten motorisierter MG-Bataillone: Eine Untersuchung an Beispielen aus dem Bewegungskrieg’ (Possible Ways of Employing Motorized Machine Gun Battalions: An Examination through Examples from Mobile Warfare) Militär-Wochenblatt (4 March 1936)

The following problem appeared in the first semi-annual volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931. (This periodical, which might well be described as a journal in all but name, replaced the collections of mimeographed instructional materials that the US Army Infantry School sent out to subscribers in the 1920s.)

For the philosophy behind theses problems, please see:

In 1931, American soldiers would have interpreted ‘battalion of light artillery’ to mean ‘unit armed with twelve 75^mm field guns’. That said, the quotation from Rudyard Kipling suggests the possibility that the author of this problem might have been thinking about an outfit armed with 75^mm mountain guns, weapons that might well be described as descendants of the ‘screw guns’ celebrated by the poet.

SITUATION

A Blue regiment, an interior unit, is to attack southward. Advance elements, prior to the attack, have reached the railroad in close contact with the enemy.

The eastern portion of the zone of action is wooded, rugged, broken and traversed by streams. The western portion is more open but contains some cover for advancing infantry.

(1) The Blues are well-trained veterans, supported by one battalion of light artillery, but no tanks.

(2) The Blues are partly-trained troops in their first action, led by recently commissioned officers for the most part. A company of tanks is attached to the regiment, and supporting artillery behind it is lined up almost hub-to-hub. Blue artillery and aviation are considerably superior to the Reds.

REQUIREMENT

Where does the regiment make its main effort in each case?

I invite paid subscribers to to use the comments section to share their own answers to the questions posed.

I will post the original (1931) solutions to the problem, as well as my own commentary, on Sunday, 6 September 2026.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 56 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

You can find a copy of Screw Guns on the webpage of the Kipling Society.

‘Good afternoon, Herr Leutnant.’

‘Fräulein, how may I help you? Are you here to visit someone? Have you a brother in this battalion? I will send my Bursche to find him.’

‘Actually, I came to see you.’

‘Now I see. You must be Fräulein Avatar. Your letter arrived yesterday. But, I must confess, I did not expect someone so young.’

‘I am older than I look.’

‘Forgive me, Fräulein. I was foolish to presume.’

‘Much is forgiven in a handsome man.’

‘Now you will make me blush, which is not the sort of thing a soldier should do.’

‘Then, we should speak of more soldierly things.’

‘Of course.’

‘As I mentioned in my letter, I am hoping that you could clear up some confusion on the subject of the organization of the pioneers of infantry divisions and army corps. At first glance, it seems so … lopsided.’

‘Indeed. Assigning one pioneer company to one division of an army corps, and two to another, seems to violate the symmetry of the organizations in question.’

‘So, tell me, Herr Leutnant, where the logic lies. Does the second company serve as the pioneer reserve of the army corps?’

‘Not as a rule. After all, Fräulein, we wouldn’t want to copy the French.’

‘Except for Napoleon.’

‘Touché, Fräulein, touché.’

Read more

The following links will take you to the component problems of this decision-forcing case, which puts you into the shoes of an inventor faced with a variety of obstacles, both technical and bureaucratic.

Milstack Saturday usually showcases the best articles I read on Substack in the past seven days. Today, however, it presents, for your reading pleasure, pieces praised in posts (or noted in Notes) by some of my favorite Substack authors.

Thanks to report shared by Migflug, Wargaming Weekly wonders whether, all other things being equal, a country ought to acquire ‘a smaller force of exquisite, expensive platforms or a larger force of cheaper, more expendable ones’.

Thanks to an article by Doug Beck, Donald Vandergriff views America’s acquisition crisis as a hindrance to ‘the adoption of mission command and maneuver warfare’.

Thanks to a piece posted by Militarnyi, Missile Matters tells us much about the Freya anti-ballistic missile.

Thanks his own blog, Nicholas Russon explores the possibility of a Maple Mujaheddin insurgency. (He also points to an extensive evaluation of that scenario that you can find on The Operational Art of War.)

The following post provides the author’s solutions to one of the sixteen short problems published in the very first (1930-1931) issue of the Infantry School Mailing List.

If you have yet to read, or, better yet, work through this problem, please do so before looking at the solutions.

(1) The Blue commander will reorganize, use the newly-arrived battalion to relieve the 1^st Battalion, and make a night attack, about 11:00 PM, one battalion on each side of the road, with the 1^st Battalion in reserve, to capture Hills B, C and D [the small hills south of the large hills] before the arrival of hostile reinforcements, which seems probable early to-morrow.

(2) The Blue commander will reorganize, and make a night attack, keeping the partly-trained battalion as reserve.

(3) With all troops partly trained, the Blue commander will reorganize during the night with the intention of resuming the attack at dawn.

Night attacks are frequently an indication of decisive leadership, which regardless of difficulties, strives to maintain the initiative and carry an action to a successful conclusion.

All night attacks are hazardous, and are particularly so with troops having had little training in such operations. In this case a night attack by partly trained troops might scatter the enemy. It is more probable that it would scatter your own troops.

An attack at dawn has fair chances of success, since if the enemy reinforcements are given several hours rest, as is probable, they will not arrive until some time after dawn.

If you pulled off a night attack in Case 3, well, we are a bit skeptical, but won’t quarrel with you too much about it. It’s aggressive, and if your subordinate commanders thought they could do it, maybe it would work. But an earnest prayer by the commander would not be inadvisable.

On Saturday, 22 August 2026, the Decision Game Club hosted two engagements of this problem. In both of these engagements, many participants proved far less fond of night attacks than the author of the exercise. At the same time, they often adopted courses of action that were more sequential than those called for in the author’s solution. In particular, many recommended focusing on the easternmost of the small hills before ‘rolling up’, from east to west, the enemy forces on the other two small hills.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 55 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

‘You may be wondering, Sisters, why am giving each of you a pair of scissors. Mel, what do you think?’

‘Are we going to LARP as Fates?’

‘Classic. I like it. But not today.’

‘I know! I know!’

‘Yes, Thalia!’

‘We’re going to download a game from Wargaming Weekly, print out the materials, cut out the playing pieces, and simulate some strategy.’

‘We’ll have to…

Read more

On 4 March 1936, the Militär Wochenblatt published a ‘comparative counter-factual case’. Called ‘Possible Ways of Employing Motorized Machine Gun Battalions’, this exercise in alternative history imagined a Tannenberg campaign in which the German Eighth Army employed, in addition to its many muscle-mobile units, a motorized machine gun battalion. In particular, the author of the piece imagined a series of situations in which a motorized machine gun battalion of the type serving in the German Army of 1936 might have provided important services to in August of 1914.

This post begins a series of decision games based upon Captain Ponath’s article. In keeping with the custom of this community, I invite holders of full-bore subscriptions to The Tactical Notebook to use the comments section to provide their own solutions to the problems.

In the northeast corner of East Prussia, in the vicinity of the town of Gumbinnen, the German Eighth Army has begun an attack against the Russian invaders of that province. (These belong to the First Army of Paul von Rennenkampf.)

Some ninety miles (150 kilometers) to the south, the Russian Second Army has begun to cross the border that separates the German Empire from its Russian counterpart. A portion of that army, composed of five infantry divisions, is advancing towards the area occupied by a German army corps (XX. Corps).

The main body of XX. Corps, which includes a motorized machine gun battalion, has assembled in the vicinity of Ortelsburg. Cavalry patrols operating in the area south of Lautenburg, Neidenburg, and Ortelsburg have observed Russian columns moving in the general direction of those cities.

You command XX. Corps. You plan to move the bulk of your formation - two infantry divisions and a battalion of heavy field howitzers - to the area southwest of Lautenburg in order to strike the flank of the advancing Russian forces. The officer commanding the motorized machine gun battalion reports directly to you. What mission do you give him?

This series draws its scenarios from an abstract, written by G.J. Braun of the American Infantry, that was published in the issue of The Command and General Staff Quarterly Review of Military Literature for September 1936. In this piece, Major Braun provides the following particulars for the original article:

Gustav Ponath ‘Verwendungsmöglichkeiten motorisierter MG-Bataillone: Eine Untersuchung an Beispielen aus dem Bewegungskrieg’ (Possible Ways of Employing Motorized Machine Gun Battalions: An Examination through Examples from Mobile Warfare) Militär-Wochenblatt (4 March 1936)

It would be great fun to speculate about the way the Punic Wars might have turned out if Hannibal had possessed a machine gun company. I think, however, that such an exercise would have little practical value.*

Ludwig Ritter von Eimannsberger

In the very near future, The Tactical Notebook will post several pieces on the subject of ‘comparable counter-factual case studies’, works of alternative history that begin with the addition of units of newer types to the orders of battle of older armies. In particular, we will, in the next few days, describe a study in which Gustav Ponath examines the role that a motorized machine gun battalion might have played in the Tannenberg campaign of 1914. Later this fall, we will publish a series about Ludwig Ritter von Eimannsberger, an Austrian artillery officer who imagined what the great tank battles of the First World War might have been like if they had been fought with the armored and motorized units of the 1930s.

On 6 October 1936, the Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres) published a graphical catalog of deployable units serving in the German Army on that date. Most of these took the form of infantry, cavalry, field artillery, tank, and pioneer outfits of types familiar to students of the early years of the Second World War. Two battalions, however, stood out from this otherwise conventional crowd.

Styled as ‘motorized machine gun battalions’, these outliers provided muscle-powered army corps with mobile reserves of rifle-caliber firepower. To that end, each battalion of that type consisted of a headquarters, a communications platoon, a motorcycle platoon, and three fully motorized machine gun companies. (Each of the latter broke down into four four-piece platoons, each of which employed four heavy machine guns.)

On 4 March 1936, theMilitary Weekly (Militär Wochenblatt) published an exercise in alternative history in which Gustav Ponath described the services a motorized machine gun battalion might have performed for one of the component army corps of the German Eighth Army during the Tannenberg campaign of 1914.

A decision game based upon that speculation will soon appear in the pages of The Tactical Notebook.

Gliederung der Truppen des Heeres ab 06.10.1936, German Documents in Russia, Akte 91 page 18

On most Saturdays, the Decision Game Club hosts two online exercises: one at noon (Eastern Time) and another at eight (also Eastern Time). However, as Saturday, 29 August 2026 will find me on the road, driving a rental truck full of household goods, I will not be able to run the Zoomdezvous scheduled for that day.

Regular meetings will resume on Saturday, 5 September 2026.

If you would like to take part in these exercises, please send an e-mail message to thecasemethodclub@gmail.com. (Please note that the Decision Game Club limits participation to people who have taken out paid subscriptions to The Tactical Notebook, the Warfare Mastery Institute, or Extra Muros.)

Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755-1813) spent the first nine years of his military career in two very different institutions. From the summer of 1773 to the summer of 1778 (and thus between the eighteenth and twenty-third years of his life), he studied at the at the Wilhelmstein, the military academy of Count William of Schaumburg-Lippe Bückeburg. From 1778 through the summer of 1782, he served as a junior officer in the 8^th Cavalry Regiment (‘d’Estorff’s Dragoons’) of the Hanoverian Army.

Each of these two periods exercised a powerful influence in the education of the young soldier. Nonetheless, biographers of Scharnhorst have invariably paid far more attention to the five years that Scharnhorst spent at the Wilhelmstein than to his four years as a dragoon. Even Ludwig von Estorff, the great-grandson of the eponymous commanding officer of d’Estorff’s Dragoons, devoted four full paragraphs of his pocket biography Scharnhorst und Wir (‘Scharnhorst and Us’) to the time that Scharnhorst spent as a cadet, but only one to his tour of duty as a horse soldier.

Georg Heinrich Klippel Das Leben des Generals von Scharnhorst (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1869)

Max Lehmann Scharnhorst, (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1886)

Viktor von Lignitz Scharnhorst (Berlin: Behr, 1905)

Ludwig von Estorff Scharnhorst und Wir (Berlin: Koehler, 1926)

Siegfried Fiedler Scharnhorst: Geist und Tat (Herford: Maximilan, 1963)

Charles Edward White The Enlightened Soldier, Scharnhorst and the Militärische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801-1805 (Westport: Praeger, 1989)

Klaus Hornung Scharnhorst: Soldat, Reformer, Staatsmann, Die Biographie (Munich: Bechtle, 1997)

For the familial relationship between Ludwig von Estorff (1859-1943) and his great-grandfather Emmerich d’Estorff (1722-1796), see Deutschen Adelsgenossenschaft Jahrbuch des Deutschen Adels (Berlin: Bruer, 1896), pages 609-610 and 617.

As my copy of that splendid book sits at the bottom of a box of books, I was not able to consult the first volume of Dr. White’s definitive biography, Gerhard von Scharnhorst: The Formative Years, 1755-1801 (Barnsley: Casemate, 2020) (Casemate)

The US State Department is offering 10-week paid internships to mid-career college students, recent college graduates, graduate students, and veterans of the US Armed Forces.

The deadline for the program taking place in the summer of 2027 (1 September 2026) approaches quickly, so, if this interests you, or someone you know, please act now. You can find details on this official US government webpage.

Allegorical figures of Lady Liberty and Columbia not included.

Milstack Saturday showcases the best articles I read on Substack in the past seven days.

The Warfare Mastery Institute does the math on saturation attacks.

St. James Briefing Room briefs readers about Russian attempts to stop the United Kingdom from providing long-range drones to Ukraine.

Fleet Logic sings the praises of the SM-6 missile of the US Navy, and, having done that, describes its definitive defect.

The Connecting File examines the relationship between service on America’s southern border and the development of the skills, habits, and attitudes needed to practice maneuver warfare.

John Spencer reminds us of the deep roots of the recent reincarnation of the shell shortage of 1915.

This post continues a series of pieces that provide background to a group of decision-forcing cases that will, in the very near future, appear in the pages of The Tactical Notebook.

On 27 August 1916, the Kingdom of Romania entered, on the side of France, Russia, Serbia, and the British Empire, the First World War. In response to this surprise, the Central Powers cobbled together a pair of polyglot field forces that, within three weeks of the onset of the crisis, proved able to invade the homeland of their new enemy.

From the north, the German Ninth Army, made up of German and Austro-Hungarian forces, crossed the Carpathian Mountains. From the south, Army Group Mackensen (made up of Bulgarian, Austro-Hungarian, and Turkish elements) attacked along the Black Sea Coast. In keeping with their time-tested customs, the Germans provided the latter army group with its commander (Field Marshal August von Mackensen), general staff officers, technical services, and ‘corset-stays’ (German combat units that served to stiffen the fabric of allied formations).

Like other armies that fought on the continent of Europe at the time, the German armies invading Romania were supplied almost entirely by railroad. This presented problems for the Ninth Army, which, having fought its way through the Carpathians, now found those mountains standing between itself and its logistical lifeline. In particular, a defile called the Iron Gate stood at the intersection of the Danube River and the railroad that ran from Budapest (a major supply center for the Central Powers) to the Romanian capital of Bucharest.

The Romanians knew well the importance of the Iron Gate, and had, as a result, taken steps to keep it out of enemy hands. They placed fortifications of the coastal variety, with heavy guns pointed towards the south and west, made it difficult for the Bulgarian forces on the far side of the Danube to cross that river. It also prevented enemy gunboats from using the river as a highway. The Romanians also deployed an infantry division that, while poorly equipped by the standards of the day, served to block the northern route into the defile. At the same time, the Romanians did little to protect the Iron Gate from enemies coming from the east.

To exploit this vulnerability, one of the component German infantry divisions of the German Ninth Army organized an unusual task force. Known as both Abteilung (Detachment) Picht (after its commander) or Sturmgruppe Picht, this ‘operational maneuver group’ avant la lettre consisted of

• an ordinary infantry battalion

• cargo trucks borrowed from the divisional supply column

• two truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns

• linemen and radio operators from the divisional signal unit

• a handful of horsemen from the divisional cavalry regiment

Making use of the road that ran beside a railroad track, and profiting from the slow decision cycles of the Romanian leaders in the area, Sturmgruppe Picht required less than two days to reach the eastern defenses of the Iron Gate. Once there, it lost no time in capturing a coastal defense fort from its undefended landward side. This, the Germans set up an ambush for the Romanian reaction force that, thanks to the work of their wiretapping service, they knew would soon arrive.

When the Romanians proved unpunctual, Captain Picht made use of the lull in fighting to capture Turnu Severin, a nearby town of 24,000 inhabitants. There, after taking hostages to ensure the good behavior of local civilians, he set up his defenses. The next morning, four Romanian battalions attacked. On the second day, the better part of a Romanian division attacked. While both attempts failed and the bodies of dead Romanians littered the outskirts of the town, they put enormous strain on Sturmgruppe Picht. In particular, the German machine guns had been worn out beyond immediate repair, one of the two anti-aircraft guns had been knocked out, and stocks of ammunition were running low.

At the point in time when it seemed that Sturmgruppe Picht would soon have to throw in the towel, reinforcements arrived from both ends of the Iron Gate. On the eastern end of that defile, the German bicycle brigade of Baron von Quadt, which had been dispatched from the Ninth Army in response to Captain Picht’s request for help, struck one flank of the Romanian position. In the west, an Austro-Hungarian brigade exploited a gap in the disposition of the Romanian formation to appear on the other side of that formation. With powerful enemies on both sides, the Romanian division fled towards Bucharest, leaving the Iron Gate, and thus the new supply route of the Ninth Army, firmly in the hands of the Central Powers.

Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson On Armor (Westport: Praeger, 2004) pages 19-23

Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson Readers’ Companion to On Armor (Blogspot) Chapter 2

A few days ago, a librarian from the Combined Arms Research Library warned me of an upcoming change to the IT infrastructure of that institution. This, he kindly explained, would soon send the sources on the far side of many of our links to Davy Jones’ Locker.

In the months to come, I will locate and repair the broken links. While I am doing this, you can find particular sources by using the new search engine. (The link will take you to a page hosted by Ex Libris Discovery.)

In the autumn of 1916, Gustav Ponath commanded the machine gun company of Sturmtruppe Picht, a motor-mounted, reinforced battalion sent out to seize an important defile in the Transylvanian Alps. Early in 1933, he wrote an article about this expedition for the premier military newspaper of interwar Germany, the Militär Wochenblatt.

While I have not been able to obtain a copy of the original article, I did find a translation that appeared, in June of 1933, in the Quarterly Review of Military Literature. Published by the Command and General Staff School Press, at Fort Leavenworth Kanas, the Quarterly Review of Military Literature would, in the fullness of time, become today’s Military Review.

In the middle of November 1916, after the breakthrough of the Transylvanian Alps, the German Ninth Army of General von Falkenhayn was advancing victoriously through Wallachia. Its right wing, the 41^st Division, was nearing Craiova while a whole Romanian division continued to block the Danube and railway at the ‘iron gate’ of Orsova.

The opening of this defile was a matter of life and death for the supply of the army. Therefore the General von Falkenhayn decided to intrust this mission to a small independent detachment. This meant for it, and its leader, great responsibility, daring, and judgement. It was one of the few opportunities ever granted to a reinforced battalion to operate independently.

At dawn, 20 November 1916, the detachment was assembled north of Filiasul. Commanded by Captain Picht, it consisted of the 1^st Battalion, 148^th Infantry; two truck-borne anti-aircraft guns of the 1^st Battery, 79^th Field Artillery; one-third of an ammunition train of the 79^th Field Artillery; one officers’ patrol of the 10^th Dragoons; parts of the motor transport unit of the 41^st Infantry Division; and one radio detachment. It marched in the direction of Turnu Severin, towards the rear of the 1^st Romanian Division.

This division on the Cerna River at Orsova was blocking the ‘iron door’ and the Danube crossing against the Austro-Hungarian troops of Colonel von Svico. The advance continued smoothly. The troops on trucks sped ahead to the west towards Strehaia.

At Prunisor, one of our translators succeeded in cutting in on the postal telephone line and intercepting enemy information. He overheard Romanian cavalry make the following report: ‘Prunisor clear of the enemy.’ At that very moment, we reached that town.

A bit later the enemy changed his tune. The telephone announced: ‘one enemy cavalry division reinforced by infantry, artillery, and armored cars [our truck column!] in march.’ Did this mean us? Finally the Romanian commandant of Turnu Severin, Lagerstroh, alerts the garrison. That causes speculation.

On 22 November 1916, we learn a lot more about the enemy. The detachment nears the girdle of forts at Turnu Severin. At the Balota railroad station the translator learns from the postal wire of the advance of Romanian infantry, three militia companies with two guns, from Turnu Severin toward the mountain defile at Simian. A race ensues for this place.

Then the detachment runs into the west fortress, 10 km east of Turnu Severin. It is occupied, but fronts on the Danube opposite the Bulgarian bank. It is captured in hot haste; two Romanian officers and a hundred and thirty men are made prisoners. The prisoners are quickly disarmed and incorporated in the march column. There is not time to bother with them.

It is now pitch dark. The detachment falls out on the highway. A wagon appears before the 1^st Company. It does not halt when ordered to. It is fired on. At once a gale of fire breaks loose from the village of Simian. It is the Romanian reinforcement from Turnu Severin. Simian is charged with the bayonet and the two or three enemy companies are dispersed. Two machine guns and sixty-five prisoners are captured and the advance on Turnu Severin continues.

At 8:00 P.M. the detachment enters the town in close order. It seems entirely deserted. The chief authorities are summoned and held as hostages in the city hall. It sounds like a fairytale: a German force of four hundred men in rear of a Romanian combat division, on their sole route of communications, in a hostile city of 24,000 population, and without information or means of reconnaissance.

In the marketplace Captain Picht organizes the companies for defense of the city. Three companies, each with a [two-gun] machine-gun platoon, are distributed to three sides of the city. The fourth side is protected by the broad Danube. The remaining company remains in the marketplace as reserve. At the jail, Austrian prisoners are released, equipped with captured guns, and constituted as the last reserve.

The populace, wakened from their sleep, believe we are Bulgarians of whom they are deathly afraid. They throw up their hands but are quieted when we tell them we are Prussians.

At dawn, a Romanian column distance of eight hundred meters is seen crossing the wide plains in front of our city. It disperses under our machine-gun fire. All that remains is a pair of guns pulled by oxen. It is the signal for combat.

The 4^th Company is engaged with Romanian riflemen on the north front. The enemy advances to the outskirts of the water tower and cemetery. About four Romanian battalions attack the city from east, north, and west to clear their rear. In the east the 17^th Romanian Infantry issues from its own barrack to attack the weak 1^st Company. From the water tower Romanian machine guns are hammering the 4^th Company. It loses six platoon leaders.

To our great surprise the people of the town are sitting on fences and walls watching the drama. When the first one is hit they all run screaming to the cellars. Romanian artillery shoots into the houses. Our two artillery pieces take up the battle against these great odds.

New Romanian columns advance from the north. The 1^st Romanian Division from Orsova is approaching. At extreme range my machine guns hammer the closed columns of riders, artillery, infantry. Reinforcements are sought from across the Danube. A Bulgarian lieutenant with two machine guns is ferried at great risk across the stream. That is all.

After the second night of uncertainty, and with ammunition fast disappearing, we experienced the heaviest day of combat, that of 24 November 1916. The entire 1^st Romanian division encircles the city. One assault follows another. The assault groups come from the water tower, the cemetery, and the barracks. After intensive artillery fire which disables one of our two guns, new assault waves come on. The last reserve is used, the last round has been issued. Captain Picht calls for assistance. But where is this to come from?

In the afternoon on 24 November 1916 another terrific assault is launched on all our fronts. Our defense breaks down. The machine guns are boiling. There is no one to bring water. There is no way out. Firing and dying is all that goes on. Lance corporals and riflemen take the places of fallen leaders. The last hour has come. The last rounds are husbanded. Wounded remain where they fell. The dead are stripped of ammunition. The one remaining field gun on the north front at the cemetery is now able to fire case shot 100 to 150 meters.

Late in the afternoon suddenly, like salvation from heaven, the Bavarian cyclist brigade of Colonel von Quadt, breaks through the enemy ring from the outside. It tears through the town with two truckloads of ammunition in a storm of enemy fire. It is the saving of Sturmtruppe Picht.

As the third night approaches in the embattled Turnu Severin the depleted companies lie between the houses, dug in at picket fences, and, loaded with ammunition, await the last and most intense effort of the Romanians. The terrain ahead of us swarms with enemy. In the darkness signal rockets break forth. Then the nightly assault breaks loose. The defensive fire roars. Wounded scream ahead of us. Not an enemy gets into the town.

When the noise dies down in the morning of 26 November 1916, we pull ourselves out of the rifle pits. Two paces ahead of my machine gun lies the nearest Romanian and beyond him a long assault wave of dead. The wide terrain before the city is lifeless. The enemy has withdrawn.

A day of rest to collect the tremendous booty, to bury about six-hundred dead, and care for the numerous wounded. On 26 November, the detachment is assigned to the Austro-Hungarian command of Colonel von Svico, whose brigade is pursuing the withdrawing enemy.

As part of and at the head of this unit, Detachment Picht ruthlessly drives the gradually dispersing 1^st Romanian Division to the southeast along the north bank of the Danube. The detachment pushes on through Rogava, Cetatea, Bailesti, Piscu, Bureni, Aftumati, giving the enemy no rest. In daily battles his rearguards are overthrown, prisoners and booty captured.

Finally, on 5 December 1916, the enemy sets up a line of resistance on the Alt River. The bridges ahead of him have been demolished in time by the German Ninth Army. He cannot withdraw to the east. Here the detachment captures thirty officers, one thousand seven hundred and seventy men, four artillery pieces, and much material.

On 6 December 1916, on the day of the conquest of Bucharest, there occurs the last act of this heroic combat. In the midst of a hot assault, in a cracking fire fight, suddenly the noise ceases. Bearers of a flag of truce appear at the edge of the village of Tia Mare. To avoid further bloodshed, the remainder of the 1^st Romanian Division, including nine staff officers, eighty-two officers, three thousand and six hundred men, seven artillery pieces, four machine guns, eighty vehicles, and a great deal of war material, lays down its arms.

Gustav Ponath (A. Vollmer, translator) ‘Operation of a Detached Force in Rear of an Army: The Opening of the Iron Gate, Rumania, 1916’ Review of Military Literature (Number 49, June 1933) pages 42-47 (Hathi Trust)

Gustav Ponath Die Geschichte des 5. westpreußischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 148 (History of the 5^th West Prussian Infantry Regiment Number 148) (Oldenburg i.O., G. Stalling, 1933) pages 265-279 (Württembergische Landesbibliothek)

Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson On Armor (Westport: Praeger, 2004) pages 19-23

On 27 February 1898, Karl Albert Gustav Ponath, a pastor serving a rural community in the Prussian province of Pommerania, welcomed his third son into the world. Ten years later, that son, Gustav Karl Ernest Ponath, entered the cadet school located in the castle of Plön, the capital of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein.

The outbreak of the First World War found Ponath studying at the senior cadet school in Lichterfelde, then a suburb of Berlin. Within hours of mobilization, he reported for duty, as a senior officer candidate, with the 5^th West Prussian Infantry Regiment, Number 148.

The first number in the name of the unit indicates its place in the list of infantry regiments belonging to the province of West Prussia. The second number tells us that the outfit is the 148^th infantry regiment to be formed for service with one of the armies of the German Empire (other than that of the Kingdom of Bavaria, which numbered its regiments in separate series.)

In attending the cadets school at Plön and Lichterfelde, and joining Infantry Regiment 148, Gustav Ponath followed a trail blazed by his older brothers Johannes (‘Hans’) and Friedrich (‘Fritz’). On 23 August 1914, Lieutenant Friedrich Ponath, who had been seconded to the 1^st Jäger Battalion, died while fighting the Russian invaders of East Prussia. Three days afterwards, Lieutenant Johannes Ponath received a wound that put him out of commission for several months. Johannes Ponath, who appears in the photo at the top of this post, would later command rifle companies of Infantry Regiment 148, suffer two additional wounds, and 27 July 1917, die while serving as an aerial observer.

In the last week of August of 1914, and thus the same week in which one of his brothers died in action and the other fell wounded, Fähnrich Ponath commanded a two-gun platoon of the Machine Gun Company of his infantry regiment. He performed so well in that role that he won both the Iron Cross (Second Class) and promotion to the rank of lieutenant. Thus, on 1 October 1914, Gustav Ponath became the youngest commissioned officer in any of the armies of the German Empire.

Gustav Ponath Die Geschichte des 5. westpreußischen Infanterie-Regiments Nr. 148 (History of the 5^th West Prussian Infantry Regiment Number 148) (Oldenburg i.O., G. Stalling, 1933)