THE EASTERN FRONT - THE BALKANS
ROMANIA JOINS ALLIES: 27TH AUGUST 1916
THE INVASION OF ROMANIA: SEPTEMBER – DECEMBER 1916
Acknowledgements
Intro: youtube.com Map-Romania: nzhistory.govt.nz Map-Invasions: (detail) historica.fandom.com Battle Pic (left): ww1live.wordpress.com Battle Pic (centre); Reddit by Romanian artist Ion Stoica-Dumitrescu Battle Pic (right): quora Postwar Map: wikiwand.com
When war broke out in August 1914 Romania declared its neutrality. The monarch, King Carol I, was not strongly opposed to an alliance with the Central Powers, but many within the government and the public in general had no wish to have Austria-Hungary as a wartime ally. To do so would banish any hope of seizing Transylvania, an area which was ethnically Romanian, but then an established part of Hungary. Indeed, such was the overwhelming desire to gain this territory – and two other regions of a similar nature – that on the 27th August, 1916, under pressure from the Allies, and greatly encouraged by the rapid progress the Russians were making in the opening phase of their Brusilov Offensive, declared war on the Central Powers. The Allies, fairly confident that this extension of hostilities would bring about the final collapse of Austria-Hungary, promised Romania support in the capture of Transylvania and the regions of Bukovina and Banat. It seemed that Romania’s long held dream of establishing an enlarged and united nation was about to be realised. Without delay the Romanian army, around 650,000 in strength, crossed into Transylvania via the Southern Carpathian Mountains and, facing little opposition, had captured most of the frontier towns within a fortnight.
That,xhowever, was as far as the Romanian army got. In the meantime, the Central Powers had dispatched the new Austrian 9th Army to Transylvania, under the command of General Erich von Falkenhayn (the so-called “Blood Miller of Verdun”), to counter the Romanian attack, and formed the Danube Army – made up of Germans, Turks and Bulgarians and commanded by General August von Mackensen – to invade from the south-east, via Bulgaria. Both armies had crossed into Romania by the 1st September and, advancing rapidly inland, had converged on Bucharest, the capital city, by early December. In places, the Romanians did offer some strong resistance, especially against the 9th Army, but by the beginning of October, they could not hold their line. They suffered serious setbacks and heavy losses, and by the end of the year only Moldavia in the north-east was left in their hands. The rest of the country, which included its vast coal and wheat fields, and the valuable Ploesti oil deposits, was occupied by the Germans and their allies.
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But this rapid overthrow was not simply due to the supremacy of the forces of the Central Powers. As one might expect, there were additional factors. Firstly, and perhaps foremost, was the unpreparedness of the Romanian army itself. Little thought had been given to the need of defensive measures in the event of a counter-attack, and there was a substantial lack of essential equipment, including rifles, machine guns and field artillery. And, despite firm assurances of ground support (put at 200,000 troops), there was, in fact, a serious lack of assistance from her Allied partners. The ultimate failure of the Brusilov Offensive – it had been brought to a standstill by the end of September and then forced to retreat – meant that Russian support in the shape of men and war material was much more limited than expected. Nor did the British and French fulfil their commitment to the Romanian cause. Their plan to advance from the Greek port of Salonika did manage to fight off a Bulgarian attack, thereby safeguarding Greece, but it did nothing to relieve the Central Powers’ pressure on Romania itself. And the Allied promise of supplying 300 tons of war material on a daily basis was certainly not kept, given the problems involved!
In the aftermath of the war, the Axis Powers took over most of Romania. The Romanians did manage to keep Moldavia in their hands from 1917 (“Independent Romania”), but by May 1918 they could no longer continue in what was virtually a state of siege, and negotiated a peace settlement with Germany. They regained much of their land, but by the Treaty of Bucharest, Romania was to lose all of Dobruja – a region bordering the Black Sea – to Bulgaria; give control of all Carpathian passes to Hungary; and be required to lease out all of its oil reserves to Germany for 99 years. However, six months later, following the virtual disintegration of both the Russian and Austrian-Hungarian Empires, Romania rescinded the Bucharest Treaty and, the day before the German armistice, rejoined the war as a member of the Entente! The move was just in time to benefit from the fruits of the postwar settlements! But they were to come at a cost and with a delay of more than eighteen months. On the lst December 1918, representatives of ethnic Romanians within Hungary proclaimed their union with the Kingdom of Romania (the Proclamation of Alba lulia), but this led to a series of bitter conflicts with Hungarian forces. As we shall see, it was not until the international Treaty of Trianon on the 4th June, 1920, that the former Hungarian territories of Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia and Bukovina became officially recognised as part of Romania. It had been a long and costly struggle.
Incidentally, Romania has a claim to fame, albeit of no particular value! It must be the only country in the world which has had such a chequered and tortured history over so brief a period of time, well short of five years (28th July 1914 to 11th November 1918). 1. It was a neutral country from 28th July 1914 to 27th August 1916. 2. A member of the Entente from 27th August 1916 to 9th December 1917. 3. In a state of armistice with the Central Powers from 10th December 1917 to 7th May 1918. 4. A non-combatant country from 7th May 1918 to 10th November 1918. And 5. A member of the Entente from 10th to the 11th November 1918! ...…
...... In fact, at the outbreak of the war, Romania, together with Italy, had a secret alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dating back to 1883. However, the Rumanians refused to honour the treaty on the grounds that the attacks on Austria were not “unprovoked”, as required in the agreement. This left them free to join the Allies and increase the hope of securing the province of Transylvania, where over half of the population (out of 5 million in total) were of Romanian extraction.
As we have seen, the entry of Romania into the war on the side of the Allies was very much motivated by the outstanding success of Russia’s Brusilov Offensive, begun in June. The government felt confident that, having been given the support of the Allied powers – notably that of Russia – it would be able to embark upon the conquest of Transylvania and other Hungarian territories where the majority of people were of Romanian extraction. Such confidence was misplaced. The Brusilov Offensive, in fact, ended in failure and, together with the lack of food and the oppressive state control within Russia at this time, played no small part in bringing about the overthrow of the Czar and the establishment of a provisional government. As we shall see, riots in Petrograd were to bring about the opening moves of this Russian Revolution.
