Rejecting the Soviet Ultimatum in 1940, Implications

the mood in Poland was allways more defiant vs. the SU AND the communists, partially for the influence of the Catholic Church. also, Poland didn't enjoy a 20+ year domination by an illiterate cobbler who turned an entire country into his personal circus.
other than that, for some time, Poland was high up in the SU priority list (until the 80ies to be more specific when the the GDR became the most reliable ally), unlike Romania.
but by far, the largest damage was done by the "carpathian genius".

it would not have been Hungary alone.

This post has been edited by dead-cat on March 07, 2008 01:53 pm

So what some here are basically saying is that Romania would put up a fight against aggression only if attacked by a lone, weaker state (like never) or when it would have an army worthy of making it equal to that of the more powerful opponent (like never).

And since you mentioned the "Carpathian genius", he had the sense of introducing the people's war doctrine.

Coming a little back to the original subject: implications for Romania in the case of rejecting the soviet ultimatum.

Memorium regarding "Horea" campaign plan for 1938

MARELE STAT MAJOR
III Section
I Bureau

Notice regarding the M.U. (Mari Unitati - Divisions) needed for set up the Campaign Plan

Hypotesis:

1. Romania engaged on 3 fronts.

a. War with Hungary: secondary actions against USSR and Bulgaria.
Oligations:
-against Hungary: 140 battalions (14 divisions)
-against USSR: 153 battalions (17 divisions)
-against Bulgaria: 75 battalions (8 divisions)
Total: 368 battalions (39 divisions)

b.War with USSR: secondary actions against Hungary and Bulgaria.
Oligations:
-against USSR: minimum 153 battalions (17 divisions)
-against Hungary: 112 battalions (12 divisions)
-against Bulgaria: 75 battalions (8 divisions)
Total: 340 battalions (37 divisions)

c.War with Bulgaria: secondary actions against USSR and Hungary.
Oligations:
-against Bulgaria: 120 battalions (12 divisions)
-against Hungary: 112 battalions (12 divisions)
-against USSR: 153 battalions (17 divisions)
Total: 385 battalions (41 divisions)

In the considered hypotesis (war on 3 fronts) the medium number of forces needed is 39 divisions.
Our present total forces is insuficient for the needs required.
2. Romania engaged on 2 fronts.

a. War with Hungary and Bulgaria.
Oligations:
-against Hungary: 140 battalions (14 divisions)
-against Bulgaria: 75 battalions (8 divisions)
Total: 215 battalions (22 divisions)

b.War with USSR and Bulgaria.
Oligations:
-against USSR: minimum 153 battalions (17 divisions)
-against Bulgaria: 75 battalions (8 divisions)
Total: 228 battalions (25 divisions)

c.War with Bulgaria and Hungary.
Oligations:
-against Bulgaria: 120 battalions (12 divisions)
-against Hungary: 112 battalions (14 divisions)
Total: 232 battalions (24 divisions)

d.War with USSR and Hungary.
Oligations:
-against USSR: 153 battalions (17 divisions)
-against Hungary: 112 battalions (12 divisions)
Total: 265 battalions (29 divisions)
...
In comparison with the total number of MU which we can raise, it remains at our disposal only 8 infantry divisions+4 brigades (3 mountain and 1 border), which is not sufficient for:
-the covering of the third front;
-general reserves
-reinforcements and replacements for the main front.

source: col. ® C. Mosincat - Politica de aparare a vestului Romaniei (1930-1940), vol. II - Documente, citing from A.M.R. fond 1948, dos 455, f. 181-195.

Bolding is made by myself, not by the author of the original document.

Or having an ally at borders or allied forces on the national territory (like 1916 or 1941)

Poland rejected the German ultimatum on the belief that the Western Allies would take immediate military actions against Germany in their support. It was the so called "Western betrayal".

There is a myth usually perpetuated in Rumanian historiography, namely that before the war Rumania was surrounded by enemies and thus was isolated, or in other wording, Rumania had no allies, except the Black Sea.
In fact, out of the six neighbours Rumania had in the late 1930s, three militarily rather strong states were friendly and allies (Yugoslavia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia) and three unfriendly, or outright hostile (USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria), of which only the USSR was a militarily strong state.
Of course, the situation changed by mid-1940, but by then war was already raging on for almost a year.

A misleading concept about the Polish army of 1939, generally perpetuated by modern historiography is that, in hindsight, the Polish Army is generally considered as no match for the German army. However, back then, in the late 1930s, the European military specialists considered the Polish army as an equal opponent to the fledgling German army, in fact the best one in Central or Eastern Europe (except for the USSR, of course), fully capable to match the German army. Of course, history proved otherwise. No one, or few, would had ever envisaged the eventual outcome of the first German military action.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 08, 2008 08:57 am

British military mission considered Poland's army better then the Red Army, at least Liddle Hart says they did in his History of WW2.

I doubt that poles really expected that the West will defeat the germans quickly as everybody thought in WW1 terms. They expected that themselves will do much better then they did as Denes rightly points.

Imperialist you are perfectly right, this type of thinking would mean that Romania would never fight alone the SU and her army and alliances were there to deal only with Hungary and Bulgaria. It does not make sense.

I have no ideea what would have happened if Romania fought the soviets then, but I still say that the actions that were done were extremly bad and might be viewed not as the best of a bad situation, but as an huge disaster.

The efects that we feel today include the losses of teritory in the East and the creation of another romanian speaking nation. The lag behind that the 40 years of soviet rule brought for all Central European countries it's much larger then the one that existed in 1938. The losses in poulation and property were great. Having your leader shot for war crimes it's worse then having some petty criminals accused of this.

What more could we had lost if we had fought in 1940? Our precious "soveraignity" that meant german and soviet occupation?

Hi Guys,

One has to look at the overall situation in June 1940.

1) Germany and the USSR were then allies and had already agreed to a Soviet land grab in Basarabia and Bucovina. Therefore the two greatest land powers were against Romania.

2) France had just been conquered and the UK driven from the continent. Therefore Romania had lost its two major traditional supporters.

3) Germany controlled the sources of almost all Romanian weaponry due to its occupations of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and France and its alliance with Italy.

4) With the exception of an indifferent and similarly isolated Yugoslavia, Romania's other neighbours, Hungary and Bulgaria were hostile.

Romania was in a much weaker position than either Poland or Finland in 1939.

Anyone who advocates that Romania should have fought in June-September 1940 must explain why this would have been more advantageous for Romania than not fighting. At least by keeping the core of the state and armed forces intact Romania was able to regain Basarabia and Northern Bucovina in 1941 and Northern Transilvania in 1944. Neither could have been attempted if the state had been destroyed in 1940.

There was no glory and much indignity in the hard decisions of 1940, but they laid the groundwork for the counter-attacks under more favourable circumstances in 1941 and 1944.

Cheers,

Sid.

Looking at the issue from an "advantage in giving up" vs. "advantage in fighting" point of view means adopting a street-corner market barter attitude.

"So, putting up resistance would cost me 80 cents, cowardly giving up people and territory would cost me 50 cents. Oh joy, I can save 30 cents. That settles it, where do I sign?".

If history really valued petty barters then it would celebrate the giving up attitude, not the "we will fight them on the beaches..." attitude.

The issue is not about advantages it is about principles. The people left behind so easily paid taxes for decades so that the politicians could sign contracts, the generals play war, all in the name of protecting them. And when push came to shove, the army bailed out to ensure its "integrity" and abandoned everyone.

Imperialist, have you been born yesterday? Wake up!

A man dismissing principles and defending the cession of territory and people without a fight is unfortunately not uncommon, but still worrying.

Hi Imp,

Napoleon once said that he who defends everything defends nothing. This applies quite aptly to the Romanian situation in 1940.

What do you think the result would have been if Romania had fought in June 1940?

Cheers,

Sid.

This post has been edited by sid guttridge on March 09, 2008 04:20 am

Hi Sid,

The question is inappropriate imo.

Though a cost/benefit analysis is appropriate when starting a war of choice, getting involved in one or sending troops in peace missions, when a war is imposed on you the only thing appropriate to do is to put up the fight in defense, not giving in and trying to comfort your conscience by adopting a mercantile/barter point of view on a cowardly and unprincipled blunder.

When Romania gave in in June, the army staff leader in his remarcable wisdom advised the Crown Council to give in so that the army would maintain its integrity in order to be better prepared to stand up to a move against Transylvania from the West. We know what happened a couple of months later. In its desire to maintain "integrity" the Army shun its duty of defending Romania and ended up losing both Bassarabia and Transylvania without resisting. That blunder meant many thousands will die waging a war of aggression on foreign soil than waging a righteous defense in their own country. The result was the same - occupation, but the behavior was despicable. Carol II called it "rusinea nationala".

Hi Imp,

Do you think there were any circumstances under which armed resistance in June 1940 would have improved Romania's situation? If so, how?

Romania's problems were not fundamentally military, but diplomatic. The major international allies that had interwar military obligations to Romania (Czechoslovakia, Poland, France and the UK) had been knocked out of the picture for the foreseeable future by powers hostile to Romania. There was therefore no military solution to the country's predicament in June 1940. It had to rebuild its dilpomatic alliances first before it had any hope of improving its situation through military means.

Fighting is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. If that end cannot be achieved by fighting, then the raison d'etre for fighting is lacking.

Cheers,

Sid.

This post has been edited by sid guttridge on March 09, 2008 10:14 am

Because it is a very simplistic view. There are so many factors to take into account that it is pointless to even start listing them. I would expect you to know by now that economical development is not equal among countries.

What is more important to me is that while several million Polish citizens were killed during WW2, the Romanian citizens fared much better from this point of view. Some of us may not even have been here at all to discuss this.

The fact that you consider the two facts undeniable, it is only your opinion and others may differ.

All the members in the Crown Council lived through WW1, the Buftea Peace and the fall of the Central Powers. Romania gave up in March 1918 for similar reasons (avoiding a futile fight to the death and preserving a Romanian state), but then bounced back at the end of the year. We have the benefit of hindsight today. They didn't and most likely expected history to repeat itself.

My opinion is that:
1). the duty of the state is to exist, because it is the only way it can protect at least a part of its citizens
2). the duty of the army is to fight against external foes when the political leadership orders it to fight; there were many Romanian officers and soldiers that wanted to fight both in June and in August 1940

It is true that Romania could have resisted Hungary, but it is very probable that the Soviet Union would have assisted Hungary in its attack, making resistance futile.

Since you have adopted the moral highgorund in this discusion, please answer the following questions:
1. Should Romania have continued to fight to the death at the end of 1917 against the Central Powers?
2. Should Romania have resisted militarily in 1878 against Russia's annexation of Southern Bessarabia in exchange for Dobruja?

Romania could have never fought alone against the Soviet Union. It is common sense.

This is why several alliances were concocted during the inter-war era:
- Small Entente - against Hungary
- Balkan Entente - against Bulgaria
- Polish-Romanian alliance (supplemented by Western assistance) - against the SU

All crumbled in a matter of a couple of years.

Maybe I do not understand the rest of your post correctly, but are you implying that had Romania resisted in 1940, it would not have lost Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Herta at the peace conference or that we would not have had to endure Communism all these years?

Like I already mentioned in the earlier post, the losses in population suffered by Poland during WW2 are several million citizens. Romania lost much less. Pick up Constantin Chiritescu's work on the Romanian participation in WW1 and read a little about the German occupation in 1916-1918 to get a glimpse what was the best-case scenario in case of Nazi occupation. Include here the certain extermination of all Romanian Jews, Gypsies and entire villages that would support partisans. And after the Red Army would "liberate" Romania, blasting everything the Germans would not have destroyed in their retreat westwards, a Communist state would be set-up starting from 1944 (or earlier), a Communist state that would renounce Bessarabia and Bukovina "annexed by the Romanian boyars in their hunger for territory". Who knows, maybe that new Communist state would also renounce the rest of Moldavia, the Danube Delta or whatever Stalin would want to take*.

* For those who do not know how close we came to loosing a part of Maramures to the Ukrainian SSR, I recommend the several articles published in Magazin Istoric in 2007.