stalin, winter war, and bessarabia

A friend of mine who likes to think of himself as a WWII scholar (by his own admission ) commented to me yesterday (we were discussing Barbarossa day) that the biggest mistake Stalin made was to fight the Winter War with Finland because it only got him a few miles of territory and made an enemy he didn't need to make. I got to wondering if the same kind of thing might be true of Bessarabia and Romania. If Stalin had left Bessarabia Romanian would Romania have joined in Barbarossa? It's a speculative question which we can never know the answer to (since it didn't happen), but it seems like something the people around here are more knowledgable about than I, so I wonder what you think.
Rich

No, it would have acted more like Bulgaria or Hungary. No sane person would have joined in full battle gear the germans for foreign soil, not even for that "anticommunist crusade"...

Alexandru H., i'm with an identic opinion, but, let's advance some more...

Sure, Eastern neighbour let us in our peace. At Bessarabia and North Bucovina provinces, but....

Western neighbours? Let's let a side for a short whilw Hungary, and look in back of them - Germany! Germany needs romanian resources, romanian land - for acces of german army to Soviet Union. Clear thing. Ok, i let enough time Hungary a side... So, Hungary wants Transilvany (they planned from that time a big succes with a Dracula trade mark ), Bulgaria forgot about geti, daci, and more later who had theyr land in pre-romanian state borders, and now had some lands claims on Romania.

Short final: WE WERE BEEN A NEW POLAND. And, i bet we don't move a finger to help polish guys.. and we follow theyr story in ww2. Of course, Stalin will want a half of Romania, for a some obvious reasons...

Iama

But not new problems. A friendly government should be enough to secure its interests. Of course, we would still lose northern Transylvania+Cadrilater, but I really doubt the fact that we would become a new Poland...Who in their right mind would want Oltenia?

But not new problems. A friendly government should be enough to secure its interests. Of course, we would still lose northern Transylvania+Cadrilater, but I really doubt the fact that we would become a new Poland...Who in their right mind would want Oltenia?

)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Hi Guys,

There are a lot of contingent "what-ifs" in this one, so let's fantasise.......

I think one should first ask what plausible reason the USSR would have to forego a claim on Barasrabia and Northern Bucovina and not on eastern Poland, the Baltic states or Karelia.

The only thing that I can think of is that the USSR might seek to keep Romanian oil out of German hands. The Poles, Baltics and Finns had no equivalent strategic natural resource. So, for this reason, no agreement is reached in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as to the respective Soviet and German spheres of influence in Romania.

This being so, having foregone its claim on Basarabia and Northern Bucovina, I would suggest that the USSR might well then have backed Romania over Transilvania, in order to keep Germany and its informal Hungarian ally as far away from Ploiesti as possible.

With the USSR and Romania as its main oil suppliers, Germany may then either have been forced to curtail its ambitions of conquest or attempt to seize an oil source for itself. This latter would necessarily have required attacking the more accessible Romanian oil fields. This would then perhaps have led to Soviet intervention to support Romania, thus starting the Eastern Front further westward and more disadvantageously for Germany.

This turn of events would presumably have kept King Carol on the throne for a while and, assuming Romania was not quickly overrun by the Germano-Hungarians, Antonescu and the Iron Guard out of power. However, at some later date you may be sure that Stalin would have sponsored a Communist coup of some sort and then, with a puppet Romanian Communist government under his control, Romania would "voluntarily" cede Basarabia and Northern Bucovina to the USSR. Indeed, with the Commintern still intact, Romania itself might have been absorbed by the USSR as the Greater Moldovan SSR.

Cheers,

Sid.

thanks to all for some interesting insights.
Rich

Exactly 65 years ago expired the Soviet ultimatum demanding Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Romania complied.

28 June 1940-28 June 2005

Romania condemns the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact that led to the annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina by the Soviet Union:

http://www.presidency.ro/index.php?_RID=de...&id=6394&_PRID=

Didn't wanted to open a new topic...
A pacient of mine,who is a retaired soviet AA major,told me an interesting story:
His father was an inteligence oficer during ww2.
Many people ask ,how come Stalin was suprised by the Barbarosa operation.
Here's a story told by this pacient father:
For a long period,before the German invation,soviet inteligence made regular servalience on German troops gathering near the border.The "mechanism" was simple but very clever;The spys were colecting the textill cloth that was thrown away by the German soldiers after cleaning their rifles.They were sent to a Moscow laboratory,where they named the tipe of vaselin used .Since the vaselin was always a "summer" one,Staling wouldn't belive someone will be stupid enought to atack him .No rifle will fire in sub zero temp. using this type of vaselin.
The other method,was to look for the quantities of sheep skins bought by the wermaht.
Since they were almost inexisted,Stalin figured that without sheep skins to make warm cloths,it is unimaginabale to start a war against him.

You might find this resource very useful, in your "What If ?" scenario.

All the best,

Al

http://www.shatteredworld.net/

On December 14 1939 Romania joined the western powers in condemning the russian operations against Finland, and the USSR was banned from the League of Nations.
Did the western powers (I guess only Britain left at the time) condemn the Soviet actions against Romania (in Bassarabia)?

ty

edit - you might find this interesting -- http://www.mil.fi/perustietoa/talvisota_eng/

This post has been edited by Imperialist on May 30, 2006 09:28 pm

Hi Imperialist,

Yes. This was one reason why Britain did not immediately declare war on Romania when it joined the German attack on the USSR. Britain tried to persuade Romania not to go beyond Basarabia and only several months later, when it was no longer possible to deny a Romanian invasion of the USSR proper, did the UK declare war.

Cheers,

Sid.

Very interesting, Sid. Does anyone here know why Romania declared war on December 6th?

http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/diplomacy39-45.html

Very interesting, Sid. Does anyone here know why Romania declared war on December 6th?

http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/diplomacy39-45.html

It would be interesting to have a confirmation of the Romanian Declaration of War on the 6th of December.

As Sid said, on 29 November 1941 Great Britain sent a note demanding Romania's withdrawal from the military activities on the territory of the USSR by 5 December (it would be interesting to find out what were they considering USSR territory in 1941). Romania's failure to reply until midnight on 5/6 December led the Great Britain to declare on 6 December a state of war between the two countries starting at midnight on 6/7 December 1941. The question therefore is whether there was a Romanian reply on 6 December and whether it specified that war is declared instantly. Otherwise, it appears that the British declaration of war preceded the Romanian one.