Rejecting the Soviet Ultimatum in 1940, Implications

Submision to arbitration was voted in the Crown Council of 29/30 August 1940 with 21 votes for and 11 against.

Actually the Romanian Army of 1940 was not such a great army. Romanian Army was definitely not prepared for war, and in a rather poor condition.

For example, on 15 June 1940 the Romanian Army had (in brackets the required qty.):

mortars: 598 (1,695)
anti-tank guns: 668 (1,667)
infantry guns: 150 (1,183)
field guns: 1,545 (1,992)
AA guns: 72 (195)
howitzers: 564 (990)
tankettes: 35 (884)
tanks: 200 (640)

Actually the Romanian Army of 1940 was not such a great army. Romanian Army was definitely not prepared for war, and in a rather poor condition.

For example, on 15 June 1940 the Romanian Army had (in brackets the required qty.):

mortars: 598 (1,695)
anti-tank guns: 668 (1,667)
infantry guns: 150 (1,183)
field guns: 1,545 (1,992)
AA guns: 72 (195)
howitzers: 564 (990)
tankettes: 35 (884)
tanks: 200 (640)

That didn't stopped her one year later to "invade" USSR along Germany.Many things happened in one year,heh.
Romanian Army , quantity wise , is not even today "such a great army".Quantity is subjective.

This post has been edited by Zayets on August 31, 2005 12:52 pm

Yes, during 190/41 it was a big effort to improve the situation of the Army. For example, in 40/41 was imported and received equipment worth of 26.7 bilion Lei, while in 39/40 the received equipment was only of 9.3 bilion Lei. For the military industry it was allocated 225 milion Lei, while in 39/40, for the same purpose, only 75 milion.

Also the German military mission improved considerably the quality of the training of some of the troops and officers.

Not only quantity of equipment was insuficient, but also the quality of the troop's training was low. This was proved in the first year of war, by the high rate of casualties among the junior officers and NCOs. At home, many were trying to evade being sent to front.

I tell you what,Army will never have enough.This is a very known fact.Problem is what they receive.
Anyway.for the sake of statistics,what for Lei are those?Actual,old.

Oh yes? And they formed in one year time such a great army in term of training? Probably you have done the miltary service , you'd know that in few months you barely learn how to shoot the darn thing. Of course,elite troops have intensive training,but given the fact that new equipment entered less than one year training on new equipment will make them elite rookies.And don't forget we talk regular army,lots of "trupeti"

This post has been edited by Zayets on August 31, 2005 01:57 pm

Statistics are in Lei of that time. And the problem was not that Army would never have enough, but that it had very little according to the needs of a unit at full capacity.

I didn't say that. I just noted that the training methods improved somewhat during 40/41 than in the previous years.

A lot of things DID happen in one year. The officers had 12 more months to study the switch from French-influenced defensive warfare to the new style of German offensive warfare.
And the soldiers had 12 additional months of drills and practicing new formations, techniques, etc...

You can actually learn a lot in one year, you know.

One may perhaps say that quality is subjective, but quantity is certainly not.

A lot of things DID happen in one year. The officers had 12 more months to study the switch from French-influenced defensive warfare to the new style of German offensive warfare.
And the soldiers had 12 additional months of drills and practicing new formations, techniques, etc...

You can actually learn a lot in one year, you know.

One may perhaps say that quality is subjective, but quantity is certainly not.

You do learn many things in a year,for sure.But not reforming a whole army.That's another thing for sure.I don't think I have to give you examples.The most common one is transition of Eastern Block armies from Soviet standards to NATO standards.And officers were to be trained abroad for 1-2 years,some of them in multiple batches.Not to mention elite troops (aviation,mountain,marine infantry etc)
Our troops learned in 1 year (40-41) everything.And don't give me the doodoo with drills.I know very well what drill was in the army from 1920-1940.I had two grandfathers doing these drills.In peace time I did more "drills" than they did when the draft came.
If you want to argue on this , fine.One thing is clear.You can't train an army in one year.And certainly you don't learn all your troops to use the new techniques in one year.That's why I say,there was a great army even before 1940 otherwise they would take way more time for "drills".Geeez.

Study they could, but with what were they going to do what they were studying?
Also, I've read that Antonescu, while war minister already introduced the new type of ideas, somwhere around 1939 if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to see where I read it.

take care

Then you should know that drills aren't exactly rocket science and you don't need a decade to instill them into the troops.

For officers, it takes a lot longer because they're dealing with tactical notions and battle plans. Even so, one year is enough for them to become much more efficient in warfare.

I don't want to argue about this either, but you have to agree that the Romanian Army in 1941 was both qualitatively and quantitatevly superior to the one in 1939.

This does not mean that by 1941 they were ready and fully reformed. They still had a lot to learn, and their shortcomings were evidenced by various studies and comments made by battlefield generals at the end of the Bessarabia/Bukovina campaign, and later on after the Odessa siege.

But even though they still had a lot to learn, they were much more efficient than in 1939.

This post has been edited by mabadesc on September 01, 2005 03:24 am

I do not contest that.All I wanted to say is that making an army in one year is just a dream.Besides,we talk about 1940-1941 timeframe.More precisely Sept 15th - June 22nd.You don't think that soldiers do everyday drills,do you? Because even in those times there was no big difference compared with today. And back then ,soldiers were from peaseants/workers category (that includes inferior officers),officers were educated people,often originating from wealthier people.Was no uniform pattern as today.Definitely army character was already formed by 1940,they didn't have to educate it one more year.Is practicaly impossible.And learning to use supposedly new technique AND BEING PROFICIENT takes time.More than a year.At least for the regular trooper.Officers,is adifferent story.If they have the good material,then he can apply what he learned in the school.You don't think Guderian learned the blitzkrieg in one year?He was just smart.And he had the good material.An army trained 5 years in a row combined with prussian officer type.That's a winner.But used by a maniac it will eventualy fail into oblivion.

This post has been edited by Zayets on September 01, 2005 05:35 am

Interesting article in Jurnalul National Sept. 1st 2005.Link here :
http://www.jurnalul.ro/articol.php?id=5256

It has something to do with the subject of this thread

Hi Guys,

I would suggest that the Romanian Army of 1941 was smaller, but qualitatively superior to that of 1940.

For a start, in 1940 there were large scale desertions by soldiers from the minorities, as a result of which the active 12th, 16th and 17th Divisions had to be disbanded. By contrast, in 1941 almost the entire Romanian Army manpower was ethnically Romanian and therefore much more uniformly reliable and motivated than in 1940.

(It should be pointed out that both the Poles and Yugoslavs had similar problems with the reliability of their minorities. It was a consequence of the still multi-ethnic composition of many of the supposedly national states created or expanded after WWI.)

In 1940 there were 11 very poorly equipped reserve divisions in the Romanian order of battle. Only one (35th) saw combat in 1941, suffered an early embarrassing reverse in Basarabia and all remaining reserve divisions were dissolved. Romania fought the rest of the war only with its better quality active divisions.

Over the winter of 1940/41 the German Military Mission to Romania trained 1st Armoured Division and 5th, 6th and 13th Infantry Divisions to more modern German standards.

As a result of the Oil Pact with Germany Romania got much Polish weaponry over the winter of 1940/41, including many hundred Bofors 37mm regimental anti-tank guns.

And so on......

The Romanian Army of 1941, although still suffering numerous weaknesses, was qualitatively significantly better than it had been in 1940. The Soviets apparently noticed this. The American journalist Alexander Werth, in his book "Russia at War" reports a Russian officer at Stalingrad as saying that the Red Army was surprised by the determination of the Romanian Army in 1941, given earlier events.

Cheers,

Sid.

The subtitle of the thread is "Implications".
I'll try some.

Given that the bulk of the German army was in France, Romania resisting the Soviets would have given an entirely new dimension to the situation in Europe. The Germans would have protested in advance any soviet pursuit of Romanian forces over the Prut, fearing that the oil fields would have fallen to the soviets. And I think the Soviets would have been satisfied with Bassarabia, and would have witheld further pursuit, not wanting to complicate the realtion with Germany unnecessarily.
If Hungary would have been hasty in entering Transylvania, in hope of winning it while the romanians were engaged in the East, the Soviet refusal to pursue over the Prut would have left them alone to face the Romania. I think that would make it a pretty balanced fight. By the time Germany turned around to settle the issue, and propose the Arbitration, the latter would have taken into consideration the military gains on the ground too, which presumably would have been at least more favourable than the actual Arbitration that we know in history, the Hungarians unable to penetrate that deep.
Bottomline, the resistance in Bassarabia would have been a token morale and experience resistance, not a decisive one. But in my view, it was necessary.

Now, this is the rough sketch of what I consider to be the "implications". I dont have time now to integrate into this all the numbers and military dispositions at the time.
I hope it will provide a framework for further debate for all of us here.

take care

Hi Imperialist,

So, in essence, by fighting for Basarabia, the result would have been exactly the same as not fighting for it, with the exception that Romanian losses would presumably have been much higher than the 30,000+ men actually lost during the "peaceful" withdrawal over 28 June - 3 July 1940.

It also strikes me that it would be far more likely that the Red Army would cross what is now the frontier if it was in a state of war with Romania than if Romania conceded the Basarabia and Northern Bucovina as actually happened. We know this because we have Zhukov's battle plan for exactly that eventuality. It included a major encirclement operation in which one armoured pincer from the direction of Cernauti was to sweep down behind the Prut and enter Iasi from the north-west, while a second reached Iasi from the east via Chisinau.

Furthermore, if Romania didn't concede at least Southern Bucovina (which was Stalin's originally intended demand) as well after the fall of Iasi, the Red Army would have had little choice but to pursue the war westwards on Bucharest and the oil fields until it was concluded.

It is difficult to be sure where the Red Army would have eventually stopped, but we can be pretty certain that it was nowhere north of Iasi.

The proposed benefits of such an unfortunate experience on morale are obscure, whereas the material damage to the Romanian Army and additional territorial losses are pretty clear.

Cheers,

Sid.