Why did Romania refuse to participate in the negotiations of Brest Litovsk?
Immediately after gaining power in Petrograd, following the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government demanded the start of peace negotiations with the Central Powers. On December 15, 1917, the armistice was closed on the Eastern Front, and on December 22, 1917,...
The mechanism of a decision: Why did Romania enter the First World War in the summer of 1916?
The entry of Romania into the First World War was not a reaction to the military situation in the summer of 1916, not even to the offensive of the Tsarist troops led by General Brusilov. It was the result of a political decision calculated to take a decisive step in...
The budget of the Romanian Ministry of War during the First World War
The endowment of the Romanian army at the beginning of the 20th century was quite precarious, with numerous deficiencies in infantry weapons, heavy artillery, machine guns, grenades, equipment, ambulances, and so on. During the Second Balkan War (1913), shortages...
Romania in the geo-strategic architecture after the First World War
Romania after the First World War was a profoundly changed country. The scars of the war were still felt, healed only by the fulfilment of its war objectives, namely the incorporation of the territories inhabited by Romanians from Austria-Hungary (with the notable...
Queen Marie, the victim of the Spanish flu: “I was a changed being, miserable and weak, brought to the brink of despair”
At the end of the First World War, the world lived through another tragedy: the Spanish flu. It seems that the first case was recorded in March 1918, in the United States, and from there the virus spread rapidly throughout the world. Statistics show that at the end of...
General Grigorescu, the hero of Mărășești, slain not by bullets, but by the Spanish flu
General Eremia Grigorescu is to this day one of the greatest commanders of the Romanian army. For his crucial role in the victories on the Romanian Front in the summer of 1917 he was decorated, towards the end of the war (October-November 1918), with the “Order of...
Spanish flu in the Romanian press of 1918
Even though the whole world had suffered since the spring of 1918 of the ravages caused by the Spanish flu it barely made headlines in the issue of October 9, 1918 of the “Epoca” newspaper. Penned under a pseudonym and included in the popular section “Moments and...
Memories of the German occupation: “To imprison innocent, sick or old people- to destroy their wealth- is an act of pure barbarism”
On the onset of the First World War, Lupu Kostaki was a member of the Superior Administrative Council. He was part of the pro-German camp, led by Petre P. Carp. When the authorities and the royal family evacuated to Moldavia, Lupu Kostaki remained in Bucharest, with...
Misleading appearances: The military context in which Romania entered the First World War
Romania entered the First World War on August 27, 1916, after two years of hard negotiations with the Entente. Romanian Prime Minister Ionel Brătianu considered that the time had come for action for several reasons: the Entente had transmitted an ultimatum, it was now...
1917- The Bulgarians rob the Romanian Academy
In 1917, the whole of Muntenia was forced to go into exile, in Iași, leaving behind many assets and valuable goods. Among them were many important documents of the Romanian Academy. This time, however, the Germans were not guilty of theft, but the Bulgarians and it...