Talk:Romania during World War I

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Romania, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Romania-related topics. Please visit the the Wikipedia:WikiProject Romania if you would like to get involved. Happy editing!
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
	edit · history · watch · refresh To-do list for Romania during World War I:
No to-do list assigned; you can help us in improving the articles in the same category

Bulgaria Portal

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Bulgaria, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Bulgaria-related topics. Please visit the project page if you would like to participate. Happy editing!

This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale.

Low

This article has been rated as low-importance on the project's importance scale.

To-do list for Romania during World War I:

edit · history · watch · refresh

No to-do list assigned; you can help us in improving the articles in the same category

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.

Start

This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Additional information and associated task forces:

	This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met
Associated task forces (nations and regions):
	Romanian military history task force

The name of the country is Romania. IMO all instances of Rumania should be changed to Romania (at least to avoid unnecessary redirect) and article should be moved to Romanian Campaign (WW I) AdamSmithee 08:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Moved and changed.

Ronline ✉ 11:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

1 POV
2 True but misleading
3 Not easily found?
4 Which general?
5 Add chart with Entente and Romanians losses

[edit] POV

To say that we had poor officers is not only POV, but also insultive. This whole article clings with an anti-Ro tone. --Candide, or Optimism 13:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I have corrected some of that, but the article still maintains a cynical and quite negative view of the Romanian role in WWI.

Ronline ✉ 13:58, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Not only that, the article contained a lot of errors and inconsistencies, e.g. Along the way Mackensen's army defeated a Romanian force that crossed the Danube behind his line of advance. The defeat of this Romanian force demoralized the garrison of the fort at Turtucaia, which surrendered on September 6. How could the Turtucaia garrison be demoralized by an event (i.e. the Flămânda Maneuver) happening 3 weeks later? Or Russian reinforcements under General Zaionchovsky arrived in time to halt Mackensen's army before it cut the rail line that linked Constanţa with Bucharest. AFAIK, the slow advance of the Russian reinforcements (not 200,000 men-strong, as promised by the Russian High Command) and Zaionchkovsky's indecisiveness made possible the swift advance of the Mackensen Army Group. The troops under Zaionchkovsky's command fought half-heartedly (at best) on the Dobruja front (with the notable exception of the Serbian Division), but they're portrayed as some kind of superheroes coming to the rescue of the poorly-trained and poorly-led Romanians. Also there were suspicions (I have to look up more sources to confirm this, I read it in Constantin Kiritzescu's "History of the War for Romania's Reunification" ("Istoria Războiului pentru reîntregirea României (1916-1919)") that the Russian High Command withheld some of the ammunition supplies and deliveries from France and most of them didn't arrive on time or not at all. However, it must be underlined that the Romanian High Command made tremendous mistakes, both strategically (coordination with the Russian High Command) and operationally (not sticking to the original plan, moving troops between the 2 fronts so they were on the road when needed on either front etc.) and the Romanian Army was not prepared (neither materially nor regarding the training) for the war. The Romanians had to learn the hard way that this was not the happy joyride of the 2nd Balkan War. Mentatus 07:55, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know which source inspired this (brilliant) POV: "Clearly, Romania chose a bad time to enter the war. Entry on the Allied side in 1914 or 1915 could have saved Serbia from conquest. Entry in early 1916 might have allowed the Brusilov Offensive to succeed. Instead, they joined late, and a mutual distrust was shared by them and the one major power that could directly help them: Russia." Romania did choose a bad time to enter the war, but only because they had no military treaty signed with France, Britain, or Russia. In the summer of 1914 they were still bound by their 1883 secret treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary (or rather, a secret clause of the 1883 treaty, that very few people in Romania, apart from the king Charles I, knew about). Practically the entire parliamentary body was favorable to Romania's entering the war on the Allies' side, because everybody there was Francophile and everybody wanted Transylvania, with the notable exception of Constantin Stere, who was Bessarabian and a former political prisoner in Tsarist Russia. Romania COULD have entered the war in 1915, after Charles I's death, but the negotiations with the Allies didn't go as easily as hoped, which is, after all, alluded to in the article. In 1916, France sent considerable ammounts of guns and cannons, as well as trainers under the command of General Berthelot, so that the Romanian Army, although inferior to Central Powers troops, was not that poorly equiped. Anyway, as I said, they did join the Allies rather late, and the Bolshevik Revolution (which allowed them to gain Bessarabia and Bukovina, and kept Romania's territory free of the presence of Russian troops) was a sheer luck (at least temporarily). To make a long story short, the paragraph I quoted is pure speculation. One cannot know what would have happened if Romania had joined the Allies sooner. Moreover, one might ask what would have happened if Romania HAD entered the war in 1914, but on Germany's side, as it should have, according to the 1883 treaty. Probably nothing much, except that it would have never gained new territories. Possibly a lot, since the outcome of the war ultimately hung on a thread; in the early fall of 1918, Germany and Austria-Hungary still looked like they could win the war, but too many divisions had been lost on the Eastern Front (where Romania could have helped), and civil unrest in German major cities (influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution, which might never have happened) played a final, crucial, role in Germany's surrender. This is, again, speculation, which looks a whole lot better on this page than in the article proper. Quatrocentu 07:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

"If Romania had sided with the Allies earlier in the year, before the Brusilov Offensive, perhaps the Russians would not have lost" and "Entry in early 1916 might have allowed the Brusilov Offensive to succeed". The Brusilov Offensive articles list it as a (decisive) Russian victory. Am I missing something ? To me, the article entertains the possibility of Romania joining the Allies, so the above quotes make no sense. (Dante, 01 Dec 2006 13:08:33 GMT)

[edit] True but misleading

In the article, the last phrase of "Romanians made up the largest ethnic group in Transylvania, though the territory, located on the western side of the Transylvanian Alps, had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary for much of the last 900 years" was changed to "…had been part of the Kingdom of Hungary since 1867". This is technically correct, in that there was a period before that in which there was no Kingdom of Hungary (it was part of the Austrian Empire before the establishment of the Dual Monarchy, but for all but some brief intervals in that 900 years, Transylvania had been included in whatever understanding of "Hungary" existed at the time. While I acknowledge that the rewritten statement is technically true, the other statement (possibly with "Kingdom of" struck) homes in on something far more important in terms of understanding the historical stakes. - Jmabel | Talk 05:02, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, Transylvania was ruled as part of Hungary from 1000 until the 16th century, after which it became an independent principality. From then onwards, it was under Ottoman, and some Habsburg, suzerainty, after which it was under direct Austrian rule. It was only in 1867 that it became a province under direct Hungarian control (since the 16th century, it had always had special, semi-independent status). In the context of World War I, I think it's important because we should be looking at modern history, from the 1600s onwards, when Transylvania's fate was very uncertain and it was ruled by a multitude of powers, rather than saying that it had historically been ruled mostly by Hungary, which is somewhat inaccurate (technically, Hungary did rule Transylvania for the majority of the time since 1000).

Ronline ✉ 06:53, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Once again, after several changes, this is still problematic: "…Transylvania, which had been controlled by Hungarians in most of the 2nd millennium…" with "Hungarians" linking to Kingdom of Hungary. As Ronline notes above, much of this time Transylvania was independent (dominated by Hungarians, but not by the Kingdom of Hungary), etc. - Jmabel | Talk 06:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not easily found?

We need more links to this page, it doesn't show up in the searches, and its hard to find otherwise. What's up? I think I'm too much of a newbie. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.7.128.51 (talk • contribs) May 1, 2006.

[edit] Which general?

An anonymous, uncited, edit with no summary changed "the recently promoted General Averescu" to "the recently promoted General Prezan". I'd appreciated comment. I'd really appreciate sourcing. - Jmabel | Talk 05:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)