Romania - unprepared for war; why?, Why was Romanian army NOT ready?

My thesis is about the Romanian Army: "The Romanian Army at the beginning of WW2", about doctrine, materials, planning, information services etc. I will stop after Odessa. I wanted something else, but because I do my PHD at a "civilian" University (Al. I. Cuza, in Iaşi), my attending proffesor didn't want anything to do w/ Antonescu OR legion or something else. So I ended up w/ this thesis - not quite my desire, but... I'm in my second year so I have until spring-summer 2010.

there are few stronger flame-magnets than the performance of the romanian army in ww2, therefore this thread bears the potential of mass promotions.

However...
1. I did NOT intend to chat about the arguable performance of the army.
2. It is quite unfair that a promotion should be based on the simple number of comments, regardless of their quality/accuracy. Mass promotion, right? But the mass army isn't from the past?!?!?!

To be fair, others did think about that before 1940. De Gaulle and W. Sikorski wrote about it in the 1930s. Who knows, maybe there are others less known that did the same. The politicians and the army understood their points only after they actually witnessed it.

I presume you mean your Bachelor's Degree, not your PhD, since you're in the 2nd year of university.

Is there a theory or argument that you present or test in the paper or is it only a narrative?

MMM, I am not sure I get what you mean...
In as far as I know, a thesis is formed around a hypothesis and it has to demonstrate something new. "The Romanian Army at the beginning of WW2" is hardly new and it most definitely does not prove anything. It is a just a sterile description of a thing at a particular time. To be honest, your initial concept of "Was the Romanian Army unprepared for war and why? " sounded like a very plausible hypothesis.

As for the ranks, they are just another way of quantifying contribution to the forum, be it good, bad or indifferent. There are no promotion ceremonies, there are no rank-related privileges, and there is no deference to rank. You read too much into it.

Radu

re: imperialist Sorry to repeat myself: I'm in my second PHD year. I graduated in the last millenia (in summer 2000), I had my Bachelor's degree as well and now I was just "fishing" on this forum, but it seems that in troubled waters...
re: radub If you had anything to do w/ our stupid system, you know already that the title on the first cover is ONE thing, but what you really want to do inside the thesis may be slightly different. The title is Romanian army etc., but the theme is the stage of preparement and development of the army in the eve of www2; I shall also describe the beginning of the campaign. Is it clear enough now?
Accordng to you, there is no defference to the rank; but the hosts have some privileges, of course - as they should have on any other forum. So, the deference is not as much for the military rank, but for the "in-forum" rank - methinks

re2: imperialist
I didn't read your entire post. The PHD studies are also 3-years long, just like the college nowadays. I graduated in 2000, from a 4-year college back then After that, between 2005-2007, I graduated the master studies (bachelor is the equivalent word), and in 2007 I begun my PHD in History, w/ a special interest in military history (more precisely, WW2).
My so-called theory in the thesis should be (and would be, for that matter) that Romanian army was NOT prepared for WW2 and neither for a classical conflict w/ a bigger power (SU, Germany). And I'll proove this with facts and figures!

I wish you a sincere good luck, MMM!

To me though the fact that Romania wasn't prepared for a world war or a war with a bigger power is a truism. A simple comparison of manpower, industrial production and military expenditures would be enough to prove that. I don't think you could bring counter-arguments against that so your thesis doesn't even need much defending and argumentative intricacies. But maybe I'm judging this from the perspective of how graduate degree papers have to be built and PhD papers are different, though I expected them to be much more demanding.

re: imperialist
You are so right! However, things are much more complicated AND I did not intend to fully present here all my plans - it is not the place for this. Thanks for your appreciations, though!

Daft!
When you look at things on paper, cold facts and numbers, you can very easily draw the wrong conclusions. History is riddled with examples of small forces winning against all odds. Take the Battle of Britain for example. Boy, were they unready!

The question of "preparedness" is irrelevant. What is relevant is what you do with what you have. Ready or not, the Romanian army got as far as Odessa, sieged it and won it. Read Denes's book (and you will also discover that you are a bit too late ).

This idea of "bigger is better" works only for those idiots who click on the links in emails promising enlargement. What is the point in having a 2 euro coin when the slot machine takes only 50 cent coins?

Good luck!
Radu

You're - again! - right;

Radub, regarding the battle of Britain: which side was "more" unready? Those who lost eventually, or the English (note: not the RAF) who were really crippled to the point of declaring that if the Luftwaffe would NOT have switched to bombing London, they wouldn't have anymore pilots?
Still, nobody told me if they read Suvorov, with his theories... Are we ignoring him or just disagreeing so much?

To Imperialist:

Not necessarily true: only the bright ones understand and adapt themselves! How many Romanian generals understood after september 1939 or at least after may 1940 how important is to motorize army, not to say to have the binome tank-plane...

I've read him - not the entire book, Icebreaker, but long excerpts. I don't believe he's right.

Here is my take on this thorny issue (taken from my thesis I referred to earlier):

The Road to the German-Soviet War
- By Dénes Bernád, 2007

Most historical studies – published both in the East and West – still regard the German-Soviet confrontation during World War Two – the largest armed conflict in the history of mankind – as an aggression committed by the belligerent Germany against a militarily unprepared Soviet Union, which was first surprised, then overwhelmed by the unexpected and unwarranted onslaught of the German Army. However, in view of new information that has surfaced in the past two decades, from previously inaccessible sources, for example, the uncensored version of the Zhukov Plan of 15 May 1941 (1) addressed to Stalin, and mentioned below, or in published works, such as M. I. Meltyukhov, Stalin’s Missed Chance &#8211 (2); it appears that this outdated view of the origins of the giant armed clash on the Eastern Front cannot be sustained realistically any longer in a scholarly and apolitical contemporary study.

It now appears that the opening act of the Eastern Front was neither clear aggression by the pugnacious Nazi Germany against the undoubtedly defensive USSR– the common view currently hold by most historians – nor a pre-emptive strike of a ‘clever’ Hitler in order to beat Stalin’s plans – as alleged, for example, by Russian author V. Suvorov in his controversial book, Icebreaker (3). Rather, it was the outcome of a parallel gear-up for a total war by two totalitarian regimes led by similarly thinking and planning dictators, who acted quasi-independently of the other, with the final scope of annihilating the other side by force.

Despite the non-aggression and mutual assistance pact, which was proposed by the signing parties to be valid for ten years, and signed on 23 August 1939 (4) – a pact that surprised many – as well as producing divergent diplomatic moves, both sides actually prepared fervently to attack the other.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 07, 2008 06:11 pm