Romania in the Second Balkan War, Internet sources

I'm interested in this campaign, but I can find very little info about it.
1. Why did Romania fight against Bulgaria? To take ground to defend Bucharest and Mangalia like I. Antonescu said? To fight the will of the Central Powers like Iorga said? Who made the call and what were his reasons? Any diplomatic talks before the war? Why it was not used another moment to fight Bulgaria like 1885?
2. What was the O.B. of romanian army (division level) and how was deployed.
3. How the campaign unfold
4. Any lessons learned? Despite no serious oposition it was far from a succes.

TY

What did Iorga mean by fighting the will of the Central Powers? Romania was part of the Triple Alliance. German intervention detered Austria from giving assistance to Bulgaria.
There was no reason to fight Bulgaria in 1885. Bulgaria was smaller and she was in fact attacked by Serbia, while in 1913 Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece and she had gains after the 1st Balkan War.
Why did Romania fight? Some say balance of power considerations, others territorial ambitions.

p.s. What do you mean you can find very little info? You mean books, articles, or internet pages?

take care

Austria did not like Serbia to much and hated to see her size grow. So, they wanted Bulgaria to take Macedonia and they were willing to go to war for that, but the germans thought different and forced them to give up. Anyway the germans did not want to see Bulgaria defetead so they wanted Romania to stay neutral.
The Balcanic Wars were a serious diplomatic defeat for the Triple Alliance having the friendly Turkey and Bulgaria defetead.
If Romania had claims on Cadrilater she could use them in 1885 when Bulgaria broke the treaty from the Berlin Congress of 1878 by taking Eastern Rumelia. An angry Russia withdraw all her officers from the bulgarian army and Serbia went to war against Bulgaria, but the campaign was halfhearted and Serbia was defetead.
Bulgaria was right to be angry because after the Frist Balkanic War because Serbia and Greece ignored her and divided Macedonia between them despite the fact that Bulgaria did most of the fighting against the ottomans.

PS First internet pages, second books.
I am!

This post has been edited by Kosmo on December 22, 2005 07:44 am

No, in my view, the Germans did not want to see the Triple Alliance broken. If Austria-Hungary would have fought allied with Bulgaria, and Romania against Bulgaria, then Austria-Hungary would have been at war with Romania, though both part of the same alliance.
Turkey did use the Second Balkan War for its own gains -- they recovered the Adrianople region from Bulgaria and maintained their foothold in Europe.

p.s. well , I see you did find some info afterall, judging from your post

take care

This post has been edited by Imperialist on December 22, 2005 10:03 am

German did put to much trust in the Triple Alliance.
No major power wanted another major power involved in the Balkans. For Austria to go to war for Bulgaria would have been a german disaster as it will have to face Italy, Russia, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania and maybe France and Britain.

p.s. I need more, much more info, I'm an info junkie

And where did you get that from? Despite the forces involved by Romania, it was a clear success. The peace treaty signed at Bucharest was saluted by the international press as an example of equilibrium in the area, the Romanian army mobilized surprisingly fast and was the better armed among all the combatants (the only one to possess modern machine-guns, the Krupp model 1904 rapid fire field cannons, the Danube monitors, the individual medical kits for the soldiers); also, airplanes from the Air Observation Corps were used, at only two years distance from the time when Italians used them, for the first time, in the war with Turkey. The only major enemy for the Romanian army was the plague epidemics from the Bulgarian territories, which took somehow by surprise the medical corps.

This post has been edited by Agarici on December 23, 2005 09:40 am

@ Agarici
From The Memories of Argetoianu who served as a medical officer.
He says that no bulgarian oposition was met by his division (from Oltenia), that the cavalry division that was speeding towards Sophia was blowing the bridges behind her, that the airplanes and automobiles were used repeatedly to tell the troops to stop the advance, food supplies were short and cholera decimated the troops because the medical staff was poorly trained, officers and soldiers did not obey prevention measures and the medical supplies were very small including something for womens period , but nothing usefull.
Ionel Bratianu led the romanian troops in Silistra, despite the fact he was only a volunteer, in Teddy Roosvelt style.
I don't know how true are this allegations, but is obvious that much more loses occured because of diseases than fighting.

The Romanian forces were organised in 2 groups:

Main Operations Army
- 4 Army Corps (1 to 4)
- 8 active divisions and 2 reserve
- 2 Cavalry Divisions

MOA was concentrated between the Jiu and Olt rivers.

Dobrogea Corps
- 5th Army Corps
- Divisions 9 and 10
- 3rd Division as reserve

OOB:

1st Army Corps - Bechet
4th Army Corps - Corabia
2nd Army Corps - Islaz
3rd Army Corps - Turnu Magurele
5th Army Corps - Medgidia

Map of OOB and operations:

http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=12/35604511614.jpg&s=x12

source for info and map: Istoria Militara a Poporului Roman

Thank you very much for the OB and map. Very useful.

On the map it looks like the sangeac of Novi Pazar became part of Serbia after the First Balkanic War. I'm not sure about the faith of this piece of land, but I believed the austrians give it up when anexing Bosnia Hertzegovina to Serbia. It looks like I was wrong and was held by the ottomans.

This post has been edited by Kosmo on December 23, 2005 10:51 am

The annexation of southern Dobruja in 1913 was not done because of imperialistic desires. Initially, after the 1st Balkan War, Bulgaria was forced by the Great Powers through the St. Petersburg Protocol (9 May 1913) to cede the fortress of Silistra to Romania, which it did not respect, although it had signed it. The idea was to keep the balance of forces in the Balkan Peninsula. The Romanian intervention in the 2nd Balkan War was following intense pressure from the Kaiser, who feared the Bulgarian hegemony might be installed in the Balkans if they defeated their former allies Serbia and Greece and annexed more land. This put an end to a war, which could have generated an earlier WWI and which brought a lot of horrors to the area. Ethnic cleansing was not invented by Milosevic you know. Generally after Bulgarian, Greek, Serb or Turkish troops left a town, there was a massacre. The Carnegie Commission published a report in 1914 on the atrocities carried out during the war. The Romanian troops were only guilty of several rapes (which have already been dealt with) and the bombing of a museum by mistake.

Based on Bulgarian sources, their aviation was at least at pair with the Rumanian one in 1913. For example, they used aerial bombs, while the Rumanians did not.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 23, 2005 03:15 pm

Actually the Bulgarian army also had 75mm Krupp cannons. The Romanian army captured several batteries that were installed in the Turtucaia fortress and used against their previous owners in 1916.

Romanian soldiers:





source of the photos and more info about Balkan Wars (including Bulgarian air force): http://www.elgrancapitan.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=61051

And how was Silistra crucial to the balance of power between Romania and Bulgaria?

Hi Imp,

Victor didn't actually write "crucial", so he doesn't have to defend it.

Romania, then much smaller than it is today, had not taken part in the First Balkan War because it had no border with Turkey. By contrast Bulgaria had taken the central role, had been phenomenally successful and had made very large gains that changed the ballance of power in the Balkans. This was presumably why Silistra was regarded as a balance-of-power issue.

It should be remembered when discussing Southern Dobrogea that Turks were then the single largest population group there. It was not, therefore, definitively ethnic Bulgarian territory at the time. In an admittedly rather convoluted way, territorial gains by Romania in Southern Dobrogea may be regarded as indirect gains off the Turks even more than they were directly off the Bulgarians.

Cheers,

Sid.