“That’s how it was meant to be. That’s war. Those soldiers are not to blame.”

In the autumn of 1916, the most intense battles of Romania’s entry into the war took place in the Olt Valley. While Romanian troops managed to advance into Transylvania between August and September, the entry of Bulgaria into the war on the side of the Central Powers, alongside the German troops joining the Austro-Hungarian forces, drastically altered the front’s fate.

The Romanian army was forced to retreat, and the autumn brought about what came to be known as the War of the Passes.

In the Câineni–Titești–Perișani area, dramatic battles unfolded, with Romanian troops putting up fierce resistance and making enormous sacrifices. However, the Romanian army was defeated, and by 1917, Romania was under occupation.

In Titești, the occupying German troops built a military cemetery, where German, Austrian, Hungarian, and eventually Romanian soldiers were buried, though predominantly Germans. The cemetery, built with mountain stone and featuring a tall oak cross, still stands today.

At the end of the war, the military cemetery was not demolished. On the contrary, the local population took care of it. “That’s how it was meant to be. That’s war. Those soldiers are not to blame,” the people say. The cemetery also contains the graves of three Romanian officers, one of whom was the poet Second Lieutenant Constantin T. Stoika. At the age of 23, he described the war’s atmosphere in Țara Loviștei:
“I saw Șuicii, the Lunci outpost, and Câinenii de Vâlcea mutilated by enemy artillery. The villages of Găujani and Boișoara were a sea of smoke, as the heavy German artillery had been trying for three hours to set them ablaze. (…) A battery retreats before the fog lifts, towards Titești, which is being torn apart by shells. At dawn, towards Spinul.”