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Following the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the Kingdom of Romania under King Carol II officially adopted a position of neutrality. However, the rapidly changing situation in Europe during 1940, as well as domestic political upheaval, undermined this stance. Fascist political forces such as the Iron Guard rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies. As the military fortunes of Romania's two main guarantors of territorial integrity — France and Britain — crumbled in the Fall of France, the government of Romania turned to Germany in hopes of a similar guarantee, unaware that the then dominant European power had already granted its consent to Soviet territorial claims in a secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed back in 1939. In summer 1940, a series of territorial disputes were resolved unfavorably to Romania, resulting in the loss of most of the territory gained in the wake of World War I. This caused the popularity of Romania's government to plummet, further reinforcing the fascist and military factions, who eventually staged a coup that turned the country into a fascist dictatorship under ''Mareșal'' Ion Antonescu. The new regime firmly set the country on a course towards the Axis camp, officially joining the Axis powers on 23 November 1940. "When it's a question of action against the Slavs, you can always count on Romania," Antonescu stated ten days before the start of ''Operation Barbarossa''.〔Beevor, Antony (1998). ''Stalingrad'', page 20.〕 As a member of the Axis, Romania joined the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, providing equipment and oil to Nazi Germany as well as committing more troops to the Eastern Front than all the other allies of Germany combined. Romanian forces played a large role during the fighting in Ukraine, Bessarabia, Stalingrad, and elsewhere. Romanian troops were responsible for the persecution and massacre of up to 260,000 Jews on Romanian-controlled territories, though most Jews living within Romania survived the harsh conditions.〔U.S. government (Country study: Romania ), c. 1990.〕 After the tide of war turned against the Axis, Romania was bombed by the Allies from 1943 onwards and invaded by advancing Soviet armies in 1944.〔 With popular support for Romania's participation in the war faltering and German-Romanian fronts collapsing under Soviet onslaught, King Michael of Romania led a ''coup d'état'', which deposed the Antonescu regime and put Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war. Despite the Red Army's presence in Romania, Stalin not only left the king on his throne, but awarded him Russia's highest military order for his part in the coup. Further showing his intent following Yalta, to abet the restoration of the powers of the ancien regimes probellum, Stalin and local Communist leaders officially honored the clerical-nationalist official churches. Despite this late association with the winning side, Greater Romania was largely dismantled, losing territory to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, but regaining Northern Transylvania from Hungary. Approximately 370,000 Romanian soldiers died during the war, most of them while in Soviet captivity.〔http://www.worldwar-2.net: (World War II casualties list ). Source: J. Lee Ready ''World War Two Nation by Nation''. Arms and Armour, ISBN 1-85409-290-1〕 ==Background== In the aftermath of World War I, Romania, which fought with the Entente against the Central Powers, had greatly expanded its territory, incorporating the regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina, largely as a result of the vacuum created by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. This led to the achievement of the long-standing nationalist goal of creating a Greater Romania, a national state that would incorporate all ethnic Romanians. However, the newly gained territories also included significant Hungarian, German, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Russian minorities, which put Romania at odds with several of her neighbors.〔Axworthy, p. 12〕 This occasionally led to violent conflict, as exemplified by the Hungarian-Romanian War and the Tatarbunary uprising. To contain Hungarian irredentism, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia established the Little Entente in 1921. That same year, Romania and Poland concluded a defensive alliance against the emergent Soviet Union, and in 1934 the Balkan Entente was formed with Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey, who were suspicious of Bulgaria.〔Axworthy, p. 13〕 Since the late 19th century, Romania had been a relatively democratic constitutional monarchy with a pro-Western outlook, but the country faced increasing turmoil in the 1930s as a result of the Great Depression and the rise of fascist and other far-right movements such as the Iron Guard, which advocated revolutionary terrorism against the state. Under the pretext of stabilizing the country, the increasingly autocratic King Carol II proclaimed a "royal dictatorship" in 1938. The new regime featured corporatist policies that often resembled those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.〔Axworthy, p. 22〕 In parallel with these internal developments, economic pressures and a weak Franco-British response to Hitler's aggressive foreign policy caused Romania to start drifting away from the Western Allies and closer to the Axis.〔 On 13 April 1939, France and the United Kingdom had pledged to guarantee the independence of the Kingdom of Romania. Negotiations with the Soviet Union concerning a similar guarantee collapsed when Romania refused to allow the Red Army to cross its frontiers. On 23 August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Among other things, this pact recognized the Soviet "interest" in Bessarabia (which had been ruled by the Russian Empire from 1812–1918). This Soviet interest was combined with a clear indication that there was an explicit lack of any German interest in the area. Eight days later, Nazi Germany invaded the Second Polish Republic. Expecting military aid from Britain and France, Poland chose not to execute its alliance with Romania in order to be able to use the Romanian Bridgehead. Romania officially remained neutral and, under pressure from the Soviet Union and Germany, interned the fleeing Polish government after its members had crossed the Polish-Romanian border on 17 September, forcing them to relegate their authority to what became the Polish government-in-exile.〔Michael Alfred Peszke. (The Polish underground army, the Western allies, and the failure of strategic unity in World War II ), McFarland, 2005, ISBN 0-7864-2009-X〕 After the assassination of Prime Minister Armand Călinescu on 21 September King Carol II tried to maintain neutrality for several months longer, but the surrender of the Third French Republic and the retreat of British forces from continental Europe rendered the assurances that both countries had made to Romania meaningless. In 1940, Romania's territorial gains made following World War I were largely undone. In July, after a Soviet ultimatum, Romania agreed to give up Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. Two thirds of Bessarabia were combined with a small part of the Soviet Union to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The rest (Northern Bukovina, northern half of the Hotin county and Budjak) was apportioned to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Shortly thereafter, on 30 August, under the Second Vienna Award, Germany and Italy mediated a compromise between Romania and the Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary received a region referred to as "Northern Transylvania", while "Southern Transylvania" remained part of Romania. Hungary had lost Transylvania after World War I in the Treaty of Trianon. On 7 September, under the Treaty of Craiova, Southern Dobruja (which Bulgaria had lost after the Romanian invasion during the Second Balkan War in 1913), was ceded to Bulgaria under pressure from Germany. Despite the relatively recent acquisition of these territories, they were inhabited by a majority of Romanian speaking people (except Southern Dobruja), so the Romanians had seen them as historically belonging to Romania, and the fact that so much land was lost without a fight shattered the underpinnings of King Carol's power. On 4 July Ion Gigurtu formed the first Romanian government to include an Iron Guardist minister, Horia Sima. Sima was a particularly virulent anti-Semite who had become the nominal leader of the movement after the death of Corneliu Codreanu. He was one of the few prominent far-right leaders to survive the bloody infighting and government suppression of the preceding years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Romania in World War II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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