 Treaty of Bucharest (1916) | |
| Signed | 4/17 August 1916 |
|---|---|
| Location | Bucharest |
| Condition | Ratification by Romania and theEntente Powers |
| Signatories | |
| Languages | French |
TheTreaty of Bucharest of 1916 was signed betweenRomania and theEntente Powers on 4 (Old Style)/17 (New Style) August 1916 inBucharest.[1] The treaty stipulated the conditions under which Romania agreed to join the war on the side of the Entente, particularly territorial promises inAustria-Hungary. The signatories bound themselves tokeep secret the contents of the treaty until a general peace was concluded.
In 1915 Lieutenant-ColonelChristopher Thomson, a fluent French speaker, was sent to Bucharest as British military attaché onKitchener's initiative to bring Romania into the war. But when there he quickly formed the view that an unprepared and ill-armed Romania facing a war on three fronts against Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria would be a liability not an asset to the allies. This view was brushed aside by Whitehall and he signed a Military Convention with Romania on 13 August 1916.[2] Thompson became head of the British Military Mission.
The treaty had two parts: a political treaty (seven articles) and a military convention (seventeen articles).[1] The Romanian government was to declare war onAustria-Hungary, in accordance with the stipulations in the military convention, on August 28 (new style) the latest, according to the political treaty. In exchange, it was to receive the following territories:
The exact borders stipulated by the treaty were those of prewar Romania (Article I) and those it was allowed to annex fromAustria-Hungary, up to a line of demarcation described in Article IV:[5]
The line of delimitation will start on thePruth at a point of the present frontier between Roumania and Russia nearNovoselitza and will ascend this river as far as the frontier ofGalicia at the confluence of the Pruth and theCeremos. From there, it will follow the frontier of Galicia and Bucovina, and that of Galicia and Hungary, up the point Stog (hill 1655). From that point it will follow the line of separation of theTheiss and theViso until it reaches the Theiss at the village ofTrebusa up-stream from the spot where it unites with the Viso. Starting from that point it will go down along thethalweg of the Theiss to a distance of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) downstream from its confluence with theSzamos, leaving the village ofVásárosnamény to Roumania. It will then continue in an SSW direction to a point 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) east of the town ofDebrecen. From that point, it will reach the Crish (Körös) 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) downstream from the union of its two affluents (theWhite Crish and theSwift Crish). It will then join the Theiss on a line with the village ofAlgyő, north ofSzeged, passing to the west of the villages ofOrosháza andBékéssámson; 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from the latter it will make a slight curve. From Algyő the line will descend the thalweg of the Theiss down to its confluence with the Danube, and will finally follow the thalweg of the Danube down to the present frontier of Roumania.
In Article IV Romania also bound itself not to construct fortifications opposite Belgrade and to indemnify Serbs from Banat for their properties if they emigrated from Romania in the two years following the conclusion of peace.[6]
In Article V of the political convention, the signatories promised not to make separate peace and also bound Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia to let Romania annex the territories from Article IV at an eventual Peace Treaty.[6] The Entente also guaranteed Romania equal rights with its allies at the Peace Conference in Article VI of the political treaty.[6] Article VII bound the signatories to maintaining secrecy of the convention until a general peace was signed.[7]
The military convention stated that Romania was to attackAustria-Hungary from the south while Russia committed itself to start an offensive on the Austrian front to support the Romanian advance into Transylvania. Also, the Russian High Command promised to send two infantry divisions and one cavalry division intoDobruja to protect the rear of the front from a Bulgarian attack.[8] The French and the British pledged to start an offensive on theThessaloniki front in order to force Bulgaria out of the war.[1]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In the morning of 27 August 1916 (14 August O.S.), a Crown Council was held at theCotroceni Palace, convened byKing Ferdinand,[8] which decided to honor the treaty with the Entente Powers. On that day, Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary, andlaunched three armies of 440,000 men the same night across the passes of theSouthern andEastern Carpathians.[citation needed]
The advance of the Romanian Army was initially unopposed, as Austria-Hungary had not stationed considerable forces along the Romanian border. By mid-September, however, the attack was halted, withGerman,Bulgarian andTurkish troops advancing intoDobruja and threatening to outflank the Romanian Army from the south-east.[citation needed]
By October, the Romanian Army was pushed out of Transylvania with the help of German reinforcements, and by the end of 1916 the capitalBucharest had fallen, along withWallachia and Dobruja, under the control of theCentral Powers, while the Romanian government retreated toIași. Thompson, now head of the British Military Mission, had to alleviate the consequences of Romania's capitulation, and he personally supervised the destruction of the Romanian oil wells to deny them to Germany.[9]
In 1917, the Romanian Armyrecovered and succeeded in stopping German attempts to break the front, in spite of the disintegration of the Russian Army after theFebruary Revolution. The exit of Russia from the war in March 1918 with theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk left Romania alone in Eastern Europe, and a peace treaty between Romania and the Central Powers (Treaty of Bucharest (1918)) was negotiated in May 1918, but was not ratified by Romania, allowing them to re-declare war on the Central Powers on November 10, 1918, and thus participate as a victorious power in subsequent peace negotiations. The toll of the campaign was approximately 220,000 dead for Romania, but in the end it gained Transylvania, two-thirds of theBanat,Bukovina, andBessarabia in theTreaty of Trianon.
| Background |
|  | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Figures | |||||||||||||
| Accomplishment |
| ||||||||||||
| Disestablishment | |||||||||||||
| Aftermath |
| ||||||||||||
