What were Romania's objectives in fighting Russia?

That was a sufficient reason in itself.
It can be argued that Romania would get back anyway Bassarabia and Bukovina just for economic and logistic cooperation with Germany. It is more than arguing: most people here know what do I mean.

However, two reasons required the direct military action in taking back the lost teritory:

1. Psychologic: Most Romanians were very frustrated that the government accepted in 3 consecutive situations to lose almost a half of teritory without trying to use the army to stop it. Yes, those with military skills knew that you could not stand alone against Germany or Soviet Union, but most people lived until then under an invincibility mentality, after a streak of 4 successful wars: 1877, 1913, 1918 and 1919.

2. Practical: The Romanian civilians, from the lowest ranks to the government, enjoyed a much better daily life than most of the countries of the Axis controlled Europe, for the simple fact that the Romanian armed forces proved to be a reliable and useful factor on the Eastern Front. We had economic contracts with Germany in much better terms than the looting occuring in Poland, France etc. That meant that eventually the food available to the average Romanian citizen was better and in bigger quantities than the one available in Germany to the average German citizen.

I am not reducing this complex matter to the daily available food. Our military forces could not stop at Nister River while Soviet Union did not surrender or at least did not sign a document to accept the Romanian conquest of Bassarabia and Bukovina.

An old well known truth: It is very easy to start a war, but it is very hard to stop it.

This post has been edited by Florin on July 15, 2010 10:32 pm

The Germans supported Romania's claim to retake the lost territories from the soviets, hence RO engaged in a war in which could not exit when it wished. Keep in mind Romania was hugely important to the Reich (natural and human resources) and it wouldnt have been accepted by the Germans to just... stop.
The situation was very complex, Marshal Antonescu had to hold off a lot of political unrest inside RO, also the right wing Iron Guard movement was a factor not to be neglected, even if in early 1941 it was silenced a little. What I am trying to say is that I dont believe any second that Antonescu really had the option to stop after retaking the lost ground. I am speculating that in such a case, he would have been removed from office by the Germans and RO could have been ruled by a "more" sympathetic government, say led by Sima.
Also the soviets were hugely hated by the Romanians, because over the ages, Russia has always claimed lands which traditionally belonged to Romania. Their behavior in June 1940 was of course another example, taking lands as the Herta region...

Someone said that Finland did stop - I take that argument as a joke. Finland did extremely well to respond to Soviet threat in 1939, but it never had the capacity to do more than just defend. They had a very long border line with the USSR, very few resources to wage a conventional war (natural or human resources), hence their strategical importance was way lower, in the big picture.

Do you have any references to support this claim? From my sources, both testimonies and written, the economic situation was not very fortunate, by contrary: rations had to be imposed in country, the army was foraging, the Soviet prisoners in Romanian custody were starving etc.

Do you have any references to support this claim? From my sources, both testimonies and written, the economic situation was not very fortunate, by contrary: rations had to be imposed in country, the army was foraging, the Soviet prisoners in Romanian custody were starving etc.

From my source, testimony only, the German soldiers in transit toward Eastern Front were buying (not looting) food while passing through the Romanian countryside, then mail it in parcels toward their families in Germany. That was in 1941.
As an example, they bought eggs, crashed them, put the yolks in bottles together with some substance added to prevent getting rotten, then they sent the bottles to their families in Germany.
They bought whatever they could to send home - not only eggs.
In that moment the eggs were under rationalization in Germany.
Also, as another testimony from the same person, when German soldiers were invited at lunch by German nationals living in Transylvania, they made to the locals the impression of long term hungry persons. The guests, the German soldiers, mentioned that in Transylvania the food was more plentiful than in Germany. These soldiers had the unconcious habit to pinch, grab and eat any "firimitura" fallen beyond the plate. ("Firimitura" means very, very small piece of bread.)
I gave these examples to justify "...the food available to the average Romanian citizen was better and in bigger quantities than the one available in Germany to the average German citizen."

I also wrote: "The Romanian civilians ....... enjoyed a much better daily life than most of the countries of the Axis controlled Europe". This does not mean that the Romanians were with a silver spoon on a bed of roses. But meanwhile others had a worse life. If we wouldn't be in alliance with Germany, we would be looted into starvation like in Poland, Greece, Yugoslavia or France. And as a bonus, some hundreds of thousands of Romanians could end into the German factories.

When I mentioned the Romanian government, I am reminding that the Germans could mendle and mess into the Romanian internal affairs, but only up to a line not to be passed. We had much less independence when we started the partnership with the other big friend, the Soviet Union.

P.S.: I will not be able to reply to any message in the following days.

This post has been edited by Florin on July 16, 2010 03:47 am

The English translation is breadcrumb.

This food situation sounds interresting...one thing to prove it right is, that the Third Reich started to "deliever" 'Lebensmittelkarten' (I don't know how this subject is called in English) to the citizens in Germany in August even before WWII had begun...another thing to prove this food situation not so right are some 'Feldpostbriefe' from my grandfather to my grandmother written just before 'Unternehmen Margarita' (Balkanfeldzug/War against the Balkans) which says, out of my remembering (but I will have a look after again, for sure) that the food situation was in Bulgaria better than in Romania...Just to say this for the moment, too bad that I can't ask my grandfather anymore, but the letters still exist in a box down in the cellar or underneath the roof (Dachboden...I can't remember the English word for it...and it's 3-to 4 years ago I read some of them)...

At least I can imagine there were surely big problems with the rations ('Nachschub' at all...and that less important units could be short of something), eating breadcrumbs could have been or could not have been, for the beginning of 'Barbarossa', for my, and just for my opinion I'm not really sure to believe that in this case...

The story of the eggs sounds more believeable, but what could they have put into the bottle filled with eggs to prevent them for getting rottening? I also believe that the German soldiers send very much of unrottenable food from Romania to Germany...

But I'm also sure, Romania saved its way to be an important ally to Germany (some people are used to count the Third Reichs Allied Nations by numbers, but this is more then difficult because it depends first on the War efforts importness or maybe equal on the Economic-[(War-)difficult to explain this in English for me] efforts importness in the change of the forthcoming War at least, to prevent to get beeing looted out into starvation and that its (Romanian) people were lost in 'der Rüstungsindustrie' (e.g. the German Industrial War Machine!!) or get even lost in some or most even worser places that peoples of German NON-ALLIES/Oponents of German 'Blitzkrieg' could have being lost...

To summarize it to an easy simplified way...Partner or No Partner of Germany was not easy to survive, and with Germany loosing or even winning the War wouldn't have changed the things easier...

oh, sorry for Off Topic!

Kamerad, you're talking here about Romania in 1944; while still better than German supplying (for the civilians, I mean) in 1944, the big difference was seen in the autumn of 1940, once the first German units entered Romania. In that moment, they begun buying (and some of them "requisitoning", but on a much smaller scale than the Soviets four years later...) all sorts of goods and food which were hard to find in the Fatherland.
And this fact is proven by documents, as the Romanian officials were worried that a lot of our small production went to Germany and also that too much monetary surplus was on the market, causing inflation. However, given the statute of the Military Mission - which allowed the Germans to be controlled at the customs only by their comrades - there was little to be done by Romanian authorities...

This post has been edited by MMM on July 17, 2010 03:54 pm

Contras,

Sorry for answering this so late
I just read it and it makes sense.

I'm trying to convince some Germans that most countries who joined them in that war had a problem with the Russians and were "traditional enemies of Russia" or feared Russia.

They on the other hand keep telling me that it was a "European Crusade against the Bolshevist Ideology that was a danger to mankind".

(Thats why I made this thread...


To "Liberate Russia from Bolshevist Ideology" I believe was the last of Romania''s objectives in that war.

[COLOR=green] i am new here but i have interesting informations

the vv-s don t stand a change against luftwaffe or against farr