Romania during World War II: Encyclopedia II - Romania during World War II - The war begins

Romania during World War II - The war begins

On April 13, 1939, France and Britain had pledged to ensure the independence of Romania, but negotiations on a similar Soviet guarantee collapsed when Romania refused to allow the Red Army to cross its frontiers. On August 23, 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which stipulated, among other things, the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia, along with the explicit lack of any such German interest in the area. Eight days later, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Romania officially remained neutral, granting refuge to members of Poland's fleeing government. After the September 21 assassination of prime minister Călinescu, King Carol tried to maintain neutrality for several months more, but France's surrender and Britain's retreat from Europe rendered meaningless their assurances to Romania.

In 1940, Romania lost territory in both east and west. In July, after issuing an ultimatum to Romania, the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia; two thirds of Bessarabia were collated to a small part of USSR to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The rest (Northern Bukovina and Budjak) was apportioned to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Shortly thereafter, on August 30 under the Second Vienna Award (or Vienna Diktat / Vienna Arbitration), Germany and Italy forced Romania to "give back", half of Transylvania to Hungary; this arguably historically Hungarian area was henceforward known as "Northern Transylvania", as against "Southern Transylvania", which remained Romanian. On September 7, under the Treaty of Craiova, the Kadrilater or "Quadrilateral" (the southern part of Dobrudja) was ceded to Bulgaria (from which it had been taken at the end of the Second Balkan War in 1913). Given the relatively recent unification of all the territories Romanians have felt as historically belonging to them on one hand, and on the other hand the fact that so much land was lost without a fight, these territorial losses shattered the underpinnings of Carol's power.

Ion Gigurtu's government, formed July 4, 1940 was the first to include an Iron Guardist minister: Horia Sima, a particularly virulent anti-Semite who had become the nominal leader of the movement after Codreanu's death, was one of the few prominent legionnaires to survive the carnage of the preceding years.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The war begins", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki