Romanian Army Area of Operations HELP!

Hello,

I have designed a wargame about the Russian Front 1941-44, that will be published soon, and I am trying to find some historical facts about the deployments areas of the Rumanian troops in that campaign.

- What I wonder about is WHY the Rumanian armies were exclusively deployed to the southern part of the USSR: was there some kind of agreement that the Rumanians would stay south of a specific line? Could they have been deployed more to the north if the need had arisen?

- If anyone has actual historical information about this it would be most appreciated, I am looking for the same info about the Italian and Hungarian armies.

Many Thanks!

Lot's of hits (more than 50), but absolutely no replies???

This does help too, in a weird kind of way --> it just confirms that there exists no real sources on this subject and that nobody can explain why the Rumanian/Hungarians/Italian Armies kept to the South Russian Front, but for the fact that they started South to begin with!

This post has been edited by Licinius on September 19, 2008 06:14 pm

Marshal Antonescu was decided to fight along the Germans until victory. I'm not aware of any limit they could fight, but they were not on their own in this war, they followed the war plans of the allied countries.

At the end, Romania would have gained, at most, Transnistria.

This post has been edited by bansaraba on September 20, 2008 12:35 am

Thanks for the input.

I was just wondering on how far north thr Rumanians would have agreed to go.

What about Moscow (the French went there)? Or even Leningrad (the Spanish went there)?

I cannot answer as to why the Italians and Hungarians "kept to the South", as you expressed it, but in the case of Romania things are relatively simple.

There was no treaty of military cooperation between Germany and Romania. The engagement of forces beyond the pre-1940 Eastern frontier was done at the written request of Hitler to Antonescu. These requests usually contained the future area of operations of the committed troops, which was in the Southern sector, for more than obvious reasons.

You are trying to compare apples with oranges. The LVF and the Azul Division were units formed, trained, equipped by the Wehrmacht and were practically part of it. They could be sent everywhere the Germans wanted to. The Romanian Army was the army of a different state and the OKW did not have complete authority over it.

To cut it short, there was no chance that the Romanian army would venture more to the North.

Thanks Victor! Very useful information.