The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Torrey, Glenn E

Abstract

Most of the attention of historians in writing and teaching about World War I, or even the Eastern Front, has focused on the behavior and performance of the great European powers, so we know a lot about Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, probably in descending order, much less about the Ottoman Empire, but even less about the states, armies, and societies of southeastern Europe. Serbia, among the recently independent states, is probably best known among the group, partly because Serbia’s refusal to accede to Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo was the immediate cause of the outbreak of the war, and partly because of more recent wars of Yugoslav succession that have created new audiences for the prehistory of the modern conflicts. Romania, by contrast, has suffered relative neglect, so the volume under review is a welcome contribution to understanding how the non-great powers nonetheless were able to exert much more influence on the outcome of events than is generally understood. Romania started the war in an alliance with the Central Powers, which had been renewed as recently as 1912, but declared its neutrality until August 27, 1916, when it switched sides and declared war on AustriaHungary. Despite what turned out to be quite accurate intelligence about the secret negotiations with the Entente and the military buildup, the German High Command refused to believe that Romania’s Hohenzollern King Ferdinand would betray his dynastic and ethnic ties. Like Bulgaria, which also entered the war late but chose to ally with the Central Powers, Romania’s entry into the war was motivated above all by hopes for postwar territorial gains, above all in Transylvania. Also, like Bulgaria, Romania’s independence as a sovereign state was relatively young, dating to 1881, and Bulgaria entered the war against Russia, which had helped ‘liberate’ it from the Turks in 1878. The Romanian chapter is also important in the history of the postwar peace settlement that rewarded Romania with a state twice its prewar size, but also one full of hostile minorities and embittered neighbors in Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Soviet Union, all of whom wrought their revenge on