The Romanian Army Of World War Ii

Although Romania had fought for the Allies in World War I with the fall of her allies the Czechs and the French mid-1940 she was forced to join the Axis. A coalition government was formed under General Antonescue who proved to be one of Germany's most effective military allies. The Romanian army saw extensive action and suffered terrible losses in operation Odessa and at Stalingrad. By 1944 the Soviets were within the Romanian borders and the King sued for peace. Romania's defection significantly accelerated the end of World War II. Her natural resources were now denied to Germany and her forces constituted the fourth largest Allied army. this book details the uniforms, equipment and unit organisation of the Romanian army during the entire conflict.

Romania's Holy War rights the widespread myth that Romania was a reluctant member of the Axis during World War II. In correcting this fallacy, Grant T. Harward shows that, of an estimated 300,000 Jews who perished in Romania and Romanian-occupied Ukraine, more than 64,000 were, in fact, killed by Romanian soldiers. Moreover, the Romanian Army conducted a brutal campaign in German-occupied Ukraine, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, partisans, and civilians. Investigating why Romanian soldiers fought and committed such atrocities, Harward argues that strong ideology—a cocktail of nationalism, religion, antisemitism, and anticommunism—undergirded their motivation. Romania's Holy War draws on official military records, wartime periodicals, soldiers' diaries and memoirs, subsequent war crimes investigations, and recent interviews with veterans to tell the full story. Harward integrates the Holocaust into the narrative of military operations to show that most soldiers fully supported the wartime dictator, General Ion Antonescu, and his regime's holy war against "Judeo-Bolshevism." The army perpetrated mass reprisals, targeting Jews in liberated Romanian territory; supported the deportation and concentration of Jews in camps or ghettos in Romanian-occupied Soviet territory; and played a key supporting role in SS efforts to exterminate Jews in German-occupied Soviet territory. Harward proves that Romania became Nazi Germany's most important ally in the war against the USSR because its soldiers were highly motivated, thus overturning much of what we thought we knew about this theater of war. Romania's Holy War provides the first complete history of why Romanian soldiers fought on the Eastern Front.

The Royal Hungarian Army was Germany's largest ally on the Eastern Front, but information about the Hungarian Army in English is rare. Deployed in Ukraine at the beginning of the war, the Hungarian Army was involved in a number of brutal encounters with the Red Army, including stubborn resistance in Transylvania in the summer of 1944, and the brave defense of Budapest in the face of overwhelming odds. The Hungarian Army was a varied and colourful force, ranging from mountain troops and tank units to horse cavalry and specialist infantry. All of these are illustrated in full-colour artwork, with full details about the Hungarian Army's own, quite distinct uniforms and insignia as well as many of its own weapons and tanks. This is an essential starter resource for wargamers, modelers, re-enactors and military historians.

The Red Army in Romania is the first comprehensive study of the Soviet occupation of Romanian territory in 1940-1941, and its occupation of the country at the end of World War II, which lasted until Soviet troops withdrew from the country in 1958. Based on previously unavailable archival sources, it sheds light on the occupation policies of the Red Army and Soviet policy in Eastern Europe generally at the end of World War II. The authors, both well-known historians, discuss the geopolitical and historical conditions that allowed the Red Army to occupy Romania. They analyze the consequences of the occupation on the country, particularly on political life, as it led to the establishment of a Communist regime in Romania. The Red Army in Romania is a valuable book for students and researchers alike. Constantin Hlihor is a professor of history at the University of Bucharest and a researcher at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies and at the Academy for Military Studies in Bucharest. Ioan Scurtu is a professor of history at the University of Bucharest and former director of the Romanian National Archives.

Despite a strategically vulnerable position, an ill-prepared army, and questionable promises of military support from the Allied Powers, Romania intervened in World War I in August 1916. In return, it received the Allies' formal sanction for the annexation of the Romanian-inhabited regions of Austria-Hungary. As Glenn Torrey reveals in his pathbreaking study, this soon appeared to have been an impulsive and risky decision for both parties. Torrey details how, by the end of 1916, the armies of the Central Powers, led by German generals Falkenhayn and Mackensen, had administered a crushing defeat and occupied two-thirds of Romanian territory, but at the cost of diverting substantial military forces they needed on other fronts. The Allies, especially the Russians, were forced to do likewise in order to prevent Romania from collapsing completely. Torrey presents the most authoritative account yet of the heavy fighting during the 1916 campaign and of the renewed attempt by Austro-German forces, including the elite Alpine Corps, to subdue the Romanian Army in the summer of 1917. This latter campaign, highlighted here but ignored in non-Romanian accounts, witnessed reorganized and rearmed Romanian soldiers, with help from a disintegrating Russian Army, administer a stunning defeat of their enemies. However, as Torrey also shows, amidst the chaos of the Russian Revolution the Central Powers forced Romania to sign a separate peace early in 1918. Ultimately, this allowed the Romanian Army to reenter the war and occupy the majority of the territory promised in 1916. Torrey's unparalleled familiarity with archival and secondary sources and his long experience with the subject give authority and balance to his account of the military, strategic, diplomatic, and political events on both sides of the battlefront. In addition, his use of personal memoirs provides vivid insights into the human side of the war. Major military leaders in the Second World War, especially Ion Antonescu and Erwin Rommel, made their careers during the First World War and play a prominent role in his book. Torrey's study fosters a genuinely new appreciation and understanding of a long-neglected aspect of World War I that influenced not only the war itself but the peace settlement that followed and, in fact, continues today.

Romania and World War II is a collection of studies, in English and Romanian, by distinguished American, European, and Romanian historians on the situation of Romania during World War II presented at the First International Conference of the Center for Romanian Studies held in Ia?i on 25-26 May 1995, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. This book reveals the results of research by leading specialists from around the world addressing many important aspects of Romania’s involvement in World War II.The papers published in this volume include Charles King, The Moldovan ASSR on the Eve of the War: Cultural Policy in 1930s Transnistria; Kurt W. Treptow, Alegerile din decembrie 1937si instaurarea dictaturii regale; Nicholas M. Nagy-Talavera, Reminiscences of Iorga’s Murderer: Traian Boeru; Florin Constantiniu, Un episod pu?in cunoscut al rela?iilor româno-sovietice (1941); Larry L. Watts, Incompatible Alliances: Small States of Central Europe during World War II; Mihai Retegan, The End of the War in Europe: Consequences for the States of Central and Eastern Europe, A Comparative Study; Valeriu Florin Dobrinescu, Unele considera?ii privind intrarea României în razboiul na?iunilor unite (1944-1945); Gheorghe Onisoru, Uniunea Sovietica si România: de la 1944 la 1947; Paul E. Michelson, Recent Historiography on Romania and the Second World War; and many others.Edited by Kurt W. Treptow, Romania and World War II will be of interest to students and scholars of twentieth century Romanian history, as well as World War II.