"Budapest" erased from triumphal arch

From a realistic point of view, this kind of statement is the same as when the Russians say "We had defeated Nazi Germany" and forget Great Britain and U.S.A., and the Americans say ""We had defeated Nazi Germany" and forget Great Britain and Soviet Union, and occasionally even the British "forget" the others.

A pure non-political fact: the combined frontlines around Romania in Autumn 1916 were twice the length of the Western Front, while the Romanian troops defending them were one tenth of the total of combined French - French colonials - British - Commonwealth troops located in France.
The Romanian Army was under pressure in the same time from German, Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish troops. The Russian troops arriving in Romania at the end of 1916 were more burden than help.
The fact that "...the Hungarians occupied the Rumanian capital first, in 1916..." was possible under this situation. They would never achieve that without the others. The historians usually remember the event as the occupation of Bucharest by German troops - so big was the number of Germans, compared with Austro-Hungarians.
Actually, the leaders of Hungary became quite realistic about this after 1921, and never tried something serious alone. They waited the right opportunity (1940) and the right friends (Nazi Germany - Mussolini's Italy - Soviet Union).
"A friend in need is a friend indeed."

This post has been edited by Florin on January 11, 2013 08:57 am

That's of course true. I would never question it in a serious discussion.
Pretty much the same way, historians remember the occupation (to some "liberation") of Budapest in 1945 as a Soviet affair.

All I wanted to point out, trying to be sarcastic, using the same language of semi-covert messages, is how point-less is the political approach to a military event, how myths are created by politicians, and how these actually stick with a certain area of the public, because it fits an agenda.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on January 11, 2013 12:21 pm