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Romanian troops during World War I
On August 27, 1916, the Kingdom of Romania entered the imperialist First World War on the side of the Allied powers, including Britain, France and Russia. The Romanian government declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire and immediately launched a surprise assault against positions of the Central Powers in Transylvania, then under Hungarian rule, now part of in modern-day Romania.
Romania’s military intervention followed two years of formal neutrality in the global conflagration that had erupted in August 1914, despite the fact that the Kingdom had longstanding ties to the Central Powers. In 1883 it had established a defensive military alliance with Germany, which had been renewed by King Carol I in 1913. The Romanian ruling line also had familial ties to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and German ruler, Kaiser Wilhelm II.
At the outbreak of the war, King Ferdinand II, Romania’s new monarch, declared that the country was only obliged to fight alongside Germany in the event of a defensive conflict. Like the bulk of his governing cabinet, Ferdinand initially favored remaining outside the war. The Romanian government, however, came under increasing pressure from Russia and the other Allied powers to enter the conflict, and to cut off rail supply lines that ran between Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Divisions emerged within the ruling elite, and the Allies appealed to Romanian aspirations to seize Transylvania, long part of Austro-Hungary but with a majority ethnic Romanian population.
Announcing their entrance into the war, Ferdinand appealed to Romanian nationalism, declaring, “Today we are able to complete the task of our forefathers and to establish forever that which Michael the Great was only able to establish for a moment, namely, a Romanian union on both slopes of the Carpathians.”
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