Question regarding Romanian Army equpiment, Adrian helmets, blue-grey uniforms...

Hello everybody!

1. Does anybody know when did the French model Adrian helmets enter in use in the Romanian army? More specifically, were they in use before the retreat of the troops and administration in Moldova (and the reorganization of the army from the beginning of 1917)? Kiritescu, in his extensive book about WW 1, presents some regiment-level comparative table with the organization and equipment of the Romanian, German and Austrian armies. He points out that before 1917 Romanian army had “very few, if any” helmets.

2. In the Second Balcan War (and if I’m right in 1916 also) the Romanian soldiers’ uniforms were khaki (light khaki, dark khaki?). When did the (light)blue-grey uniforms enter in use? Why was the color changed?


3. During 1915-1916, before Romania’s entering in the war, France delivered a number of Nieuport 11 fighter planes to Romania. Does anybody know how many? I red somewhere that in the initial stages of war they were not armed, the machine-guns (Lewis?) being delivered later. Could anybody confirm that information? And if it’s true, when were the machine-guns for the planes delivered?

4. The same question for the Farman 40 reconnaissance-bombers: were they armed in the beginning of the war? And if yes, what type of machine-guns did they use? How many of them were in service in the Romanian aviation in 1916?


5. And finally a more general question: does anybody have any kind of statistical situation with the types of weapons and equipment delivered to the Romanian army between August 1914 - August 1916?

Thank you in advance!

This post has been edited by Agarici on January 22, 2006 10:49 am

I can help you with question number 5. However, the list is too long to type it here. Are you interested in something specific from the list?

Thank you Dragos! I’d say that the entire list could be useful for the site and for the members interested in WW 1 history, but I don’t want to abuse of your goodwill and free time. So I’m mainly interested in rifles (caliber, model and provenience), pistols/revolvers (caliber, model and provenience), swords (provenience), helmets, gas masks, cars/trucks, machine-guns (caliber, model and provenience), artillery (caliber, model and provenience) and airplanes (type) - too many things I guess. But I think any kind of information would be useful.

Note: I’m interested in almost every item provenience because I want to see if (and in what degree) the Central Powers continued to be the main weapon& equipment suppliers for the Romanian army after the country’s neutrality declaration from 1914, or their place was taken by the Triple Alliance countries.

This post has been edited by Agarici on January 22, 2006 11:48 am

Ok, here is some info.

Weapons from Germany and Austria (supplied in 1914):
- 24 Maxim MGs, cal. 6.5 mm
- 102806 Mannlicher rifles, cal. 6.5 mm
- 29535 Mannlicher carabines, cal. 6.5 mm

Weapons from the Entente countries (supplied until 15 August 1916):
- 4 French 75 mm AA guns
- 4 French 75 mm Deport guns
- 12 French 120 mm short guns
- 12 French 120 mm long guns
- 88 Scwartzlose MG (i don't know the origin, but not from Austria)
- 178 Chatellerault MG (French)
- 9982 Lebel rifles (French)
- 82000 pistols (of all types, from various countries)
- 100 trench mortars, 58 mm
- 240000 artillery shells
- 16235600 bullets for rifles and MGs
- 5295000 bullets for pistols
- 10000 shells for trench mortars
- 80 airplanes

This post has been edited by dragos03 on January 22, 2006 05:51 pm

As for questions 3 and 4, you will find this report useful:
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=1620

Romania bought the Mannlicher m93 rifle and carbine that used the rotating bolt compared to the Mannlicher m95 that used the strait pull bolt.

For the sake of historical accuracy I must point out that the "Triple Alliance" reffered to an alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy (Romania's previous allies). You guys must mean the Triple Entente (Russia, France, Britain)

For the sake of historical accuracy I must point out that back then Austria was not a self-standing country, but rather part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Gen. Dénes

1. The Adrian style helmet were ordered in summer 1916 and they started to arrive in Romania, through the long Nordic way (Archangelsk harbour), at the end of that year. These helmets were actually distributed to the troops in spring 1917, so all units were equipped with this headgear during the battles of summer 1917.
2. By the Royal Decree nr. 500 of 4th February 1912, Romanian army adopted a new campaign uniform, influenced by the austro-hungarian model, but made in grey-green (in fact a mixture of grey, green and blue threads of wool) cloth. The predominant colour of these uniforms was green.
During the Second Balkan War, most Romanian troops were equipped with M.1912 uniforms. However, many reservists still had M.1895 uniforms and equipment and, in many cases, even the officers wore a mixture of old and new, grey-green, uniforms.
Between 1914-1916, during the neutrality period, Romanian army was deprived from its main sources of supplies, so the original colours to dye the cloth were not available anymore. Romanian authorities tried to use other paints but the result was not satisfactory. From 1915 in the Romanian army rose a great variety of models of uniforms, with different cuts, made in different types of cloth, from light-blue (horizon blue) to khaki. In 1916 the Allies (Russian, Italians) sent different quantities of their uniforms cloth in Romania, so, the Romanian army appearance became even more variegated. During the 1917-1918, the shortage of cloth was so severe that every piece of tissue was used to make uniforms. Many officers converted civilian clothes into military tunics, heaving civilian bone buttons. For the other ranks, the uniforms were made in un-dyed cloth, as for the Confederacy troops of the American Civil War. Hopefully, in autumn 1917 romanian army captured great stores of Russian equipment in Moldavia and Bassarabia, so this gave a respite to the Romanian military authorities.
During the intervention in Hungary against soviet Hungarian forces, Romanian troops were equipped with British khaki uniforms and web equipment, delivered by the Allied Danube Army troops, but carried French style Adrian helmets and long Berthier rifles, which gave an unique appearance to the Romanians soldiers.

You can get more info regarding small arms reading this topic
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=1998

Thank you all for your feed-back.

Now I have another question, for those of you with specialized knowledge in weapons and armament. And a warning, the question might sound silly… I wonder why, after choosing a revolutionary small caliber for the rifles and after launching special orders in Germany for a special version (6,5 mm) of the German-made Maxim machine-gun, the Romanian military turned, by the end of 1912, towards an 8 mm MG (the Austrian Schwarzlose), ordered, surprisingly, in parallel with new batches of 6,5 mm Maxims (according to dragos03, the last 24 Maxims were supplied in 1914). Why didn’t they persevere in buying MG with the same caliber (either Maxims or modified Schwarzlose), since they bothered to order a special “Romanian” 6,5 mm variant of the Austrian Mannlicher rifle? Where is the logic in that, and moreover where is the logistical logic?

EDIT: apart from the "Romanian" Maxims, weren't there other 6,5 mm MG's availble?

This post has been edited by Agarici on January 26, 2006 02:09 pm

The answer is simple: they were trying to buy as many MGs as possible, any kind of MGs. The machinegun was a weapon with great potential and all the countries were reluctant to sell them, they wanted to keep them for their own armies. That's why the Romanian Army didn't succeed in buying enough of them and started the war with a catastrophic shortage. There was also a shortage of cannons.

At the start of the war, a Romanian battalion had 0-2 machineguns, no mortars, 3-4 light guns and 0-0,5 heavy guns. For comparrison, a battalion from the 1st Austrian Army had 6 MGs, 2 mortars, 6 light guns and 1 heavy gun. A battalion from the 9th German Army had 6-8 MGs, 4 mortars, 6-7 light guns and 1-1.5 heavy guns (medium numbers). This difference in firepower explains the heavy defeats in 1916.

Now I might not be brilliant but I have a problem with that number of MG allocated per regiment conforming with most of the historical sources. The same sources give a total number of around 460 MGs available for Romanian army in 1916. So dividing 400 to the 40 active infantry regiments, the result is 10 (supposing that the rest of 60 were used for the 10 or so cavalry regiments). So the exact fraction would be 3,3 MGs for each of the three battalions which form the Romanian infantry regiments. Are those figures (2-6 MGs per regiment) accurate, it’s my arithmetic faulty? And if they are accurate, how were the rest of the MGs used?? Any suggestion why they were not distributed to the active (as opposed to the reserve) infantry units?

I bought Kiritescu's book on WW1 today, so I might as well put it to use.

The Romanian army had more than 40 infantry regiments after the 1916 mobilization. There were in total 378 battalions and 104 cavalry squadrons.

The divisions 1st to 10th had each three infantry brigades (each of two regiments) and one vanatori regiment, plus one artillery brigade. These were best units in terms of training and equipment. They had a machine-gun section for each battalion (two pieces), so a regiment from these divisions had in total 6 MGs.

The divisions 11th-15th were created between 1914-16 by transforming the territorial commands. They had only two infantry regiments. There was only one machine-gun section per regiment.

The divisions 16th-23rd were created from the fourth battalion of teh regular regiments and were the worst equipped and manned. They had no machine-guns.

So dragos03's 0-2 machine-guns per battalion can be explained in the following manner:
- 1st-10th Division: 2 MGs/battalion
- 11th-16th Division: 0.67MGs/battalion
- 16th-23rd Division: 0 MGs/battalion

During the Second Balkan War, Romanian authorities saw that the 271,130 M. 93 Mannlicher 6.5 mm rifles were not enough to equip the whole infantry, including the reserve mobilized troops. A new order for 100,000 M.93 infantry rifles and 30,000 M.93 cavalry carbines was released for Steyr factories but the producer needed a year to get ready these particular weapons. An additional order of 24 M.1910 Maxim 6.5 mm cavalry heavy machineguns was also released for Deutschwaffen und Munitions Fabriken of Berlin.

To equip its army during the Balkan War, Romanian government bought in a hurry, from its ally, Austria-Hungary, 60,000 Austrian M.90 and M.95 Mannlicher 8mm. rifles.

Just before the European war started, by the 1st May 1914, Romania received 29,535 M.93/14 Mannlicher 6.5 mm. cavalry carbines (they were different from the M.93 model as they were equipped with bayonets), and the 24 M.1910 Maxim 6.5 mm cavalry heavy machineguns. By the 1st August, 102,806 M.93 Mannlicher 6.5 mm. infantry rifles were also delivered.

Just before Romania entered war there were received some weapons from the Allied and neutral countries: 81,947 revolvers of different models (61,145 Bayard 8mm revolvers made by Dahetze (?), Spain, about 16.750 Smith/Wesson 11 mm revolvers, made by Dahetze (?), Spain and 4,052 M.1893 8mm. French revolvers), 9982 Lebel/Berthier rifles, 268 M.1907 Chattellerault 8mm heavy machineguns, 88 Schwartzlose 8 mm. heavy machineguns (probably captured by Russia and then delivered to Romania),

Until December 1916 Russia also supplied Romanian army with 39,000 captured Austrian Mannlicher rifles.


Does anybody knows something about the following Spanish private producers of weapons. The Romanian government ordered 1915 at Dahetze (?) company 61,352 Bayard revolvers and 18,850 Simth & Wesson 11 mm revolvers. A further order of 10,000 revolvers was released in 1916 to Antonio Erasti (?) and another 5,000 to Arismendi&Gohenaga (?).