This was not officially confirmed, but apparently another attempt was made to strike Mackensen's rear from across the river. Meanwhile the Russo-Rumanian line was pressing Mackensen's front back, hammering especially on his left wing up against the river, until he was a bare few miles north of the railroad and thirty miles south of the point farthest north he had been able to reach. Here he seems to have held fast, for further reports of fighting on the Danube front become vague and contradictory. At any rate, the Russo-Rumanian advance stopped short of victory, as the recapture of the Cernavoda-Constanza railroad would have been. That Mackensen's retreat may have been voluntary, to encourage the enemy to advance and thereby weaken his front on the Transylvanian front, seems possible in the light of later events. Also, it was possible that his forces had been weakened by Bulgarian regiments being withdrawn and sent down to the Macedonian front, where Monastir was in grave danger and was presently to fall to the French-Russian-Serbian forces. From this moment a silence settles over this front; when Mackensen again emerges into the light shed by official dispatches, it is to execute some of the most brilliant moves that have yet been made during the entire war. CHAPTER XXX THE RUMANIANS PRESSED BACK Meanwhile hard fighting had been going on on the Transylvanian front, one day favoring one side and on the next day favoring the other. On November 5, 1916, the Germans regained Rosca heights, which the Rumanians had taken on the 3d. On the 7th the Russians were pressing the Germans hard below Dorna Vatra, while southeast of Red Tower Pass and near the Vulkan Pass the Rumanians suffered reverses, losing a thousand men as prisoners, according to the Vienna and Berlin dispatches. But before another week had passed it became evident that the Teutons were gaining, whether because of superior artillery, or because the Rumanians had weakened this front for the sake of the Dobrudja offensive. For each step the Teutons fell back they advanced two. Not unlike a skillful boxer Falkenhayn feinted at one point, then struck hard at another unexpectedly. Without doubt skill and superior knowledge, as well as superior organization, were on the side of the invaders. By the middle of the month the Rumanians were being forced back, both in the Alt and the Jiul valleys, facts which could not be hidden by the dispatches from Bucharest announcing the capture of a machine gun at one point or a few dozen prisoners at another. A few days later the London papers were commenting on the extremely dangerous situation in Rumania.