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The Romanian campaign was part of the Balkan theatre of World War I, with Romania and Russia allied against the armies of the Central Powers. Fighting took place from August 1916 to December 1917, across most of present-day Romania, including Transylvania, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time, as well as southern Dobruja, which is currently part of Bulgaria. Romania entered the war in an attempt to seize Transylvania, region with significant Romanian population, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Despite initial successes, the combined Russo-Romanian forces suffered several setbacks, and by the end of 1916 only Moldavia remained under Allied control. After several defensive victories in 1917, with different groups competing for authority over the Russian troops in Romania in the aftermath of the October Revolution, Romania signed an armistice at Focșani. On November 10, 1918, just one day before the German armistice and when all the other Central Powers had already capitulated, Romania re-entered the war. By then, about 220,000 Romanian soldiers had been killed, representing about 6% of total Entente military deaths. ==Before the war== The Kingdom of Romania was ruled by kings of the House of Hohenzollern from 1866. The King of Romania, Carol I of Hohenzollern, had signed a secret treaty with the Triple Alliance in 1883 which stipulated that Romania would be obliged to go to war only in the event Austro-Hungarian Empire was attacked. While Carol wanted to enter World War I as an ally of the Central Powers, the Romanian public and the political parties were in favor of joining the Triple Entente. Romania remained neutral when the war started, arguing that Austria-Hungary itself had started the war and, consequently, Romania was under no formal obligation to join it. In return for entering the war on Allied side, the Kingdom of Romania demanded support for its territorial claims over Transylvania, an Austro-Hungarian territory with a Romanian majority. The Romanians' greatest concerns in negotiations were to avoid being left to herself fighting on two fronts (one in Dobruja with Bulgaria and one in Transylvania), and to obtain written guarantees of Romania’s territorial gains after the war. To do this there were to be the following guarantees: a no-separate peace clause, equal status at the future peace conference, Russian military assistance against Bulgaria, an Allied offensive in the direction of Bulgaria, and the regular shipment of Allied war supplies. The military convention signed stipulated that France and Britain should start an offensive against Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire no later than August, that Russia would send troops into Dobruja, and that the Romanian Army would not be subordinated to Russian command. The Allies were to send 300 tons of provisions on a daily basis. According to the Romanian account, most of these clauses, with the exception of those imposed on Romania, failed to be respected.〔Marcel Mitrasca, ''Moldova: A Romanian Province under Russian Rule. Diplomatic History from the Archives of the Great Powers'', pg. 56〕 The Allies accepted the terms late in the summer of 1916 (''see Treaty of Bucharest, 1916''); Cyril Falls attributes the late decision to Romania's historical hostility towards the Russian Empire, and purports an earlier entry into the war, such as before the Brusilov Offensive, would have provided better chance for victory.〔Cyril Falls, ''The Great War'' p. 228〕 According to some American military historians, Russia delayed approval of Romanian demands out of worries about Romanian territorial designs on Bessarabia, claimed by nationalist circles as a Romanian land.〔Vincent Esposito, ''Atlas of American Wars, Vol 2'', text for map 37〕 According to British military historian John Keegan, before Romania entered the war the Allies had secretly agreed not to honour the territorial expansion of Romania when the war ended.〔John Keegan, ''The First World War'', pg. 306〕 In 1915 Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Thomson, a fluent French speaker, was sent to Bucharest as British military attaché on Lord Kitchener's initiative to bring Romania into the war. Once there he quickly formed the view that an unprepared and ill-armed Romania facing a war on two fronts 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. Within a few months he had to alleviate the consequences of Romania’s setbacks, and supervised the destruction of the Romanian oil wells to deny them to Germany (later Thomson was a Labour peer and Secretary of State for Air).〔''To Ride the Storm: The Story of the Airship R.101'' by Sir Peter G. Masefield, pages 16-17 (1982, William Kimber, London) ISBN 0-7183-0068-8〕 The Romanian government signed a treaty with the Allies (France, Britain, Italy and Russia) on 17 August 1916, pledging to declare war on Austria-Hungary by 28 August. The Romanian ambassador in Vienna actually transmitted the declaration of war on 27 August. Germany, caught by surprise, responded with a declaration of war on Romania the next day (28 August). The dates of the Bulgarian and Ottoman declarations of war are disputed. Ian Beckett says that Bulgaria did not issue a declaration of war prior to its attack of 31 August.〔Ian F. W. Beckett, ''The Great War: 1914–1918'', 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 109.〕 Other sources place the declaration on 30 August〔Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger, ''Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries, From World War I to Iraq'' (Doubleday Canada, 2006), 29, quoting German soldier Piete Kuhr's diary entry for 1 September 1916.〕 or 1 September.〔Laurențiu-Cristian Dumitru, ("Preliminaries of Romania's Entering the World War I" ) ''Bulletin of the'Carol I National Defence University'' (Universitatii Nationale de Aparare Carol I ) 1 (2012): 168.〕〔Bernd Langensiepen, Ahmet Güleryüz and James Cooper, ''The Ottoman Steam Navy, 1828–1923'' (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 51.〕 The Ottoman declaration took place either on 29 August,〔 30 August〔 or 1 September.〔 Within two days of her own declaration, according to one source, Romania found herself at war with all the Central Powers.〔Vinogradov, "The Years of Neutrality", 460.〕 The Romanian Army was quite large, with over 650,000 men in 23 divisions, but it suffered from poor training and equipment, particularly when compared to its German counterparts. Meanwhile, the German Chief of Staff, General Erich von Falkenhayn, had correctly reasoned that Romania would side with the Allies, and had made plans accordingly. Thanks to the earlier conquest of the Kingdom of Serbia and the ineffective Allied operations on the Kingdom of Greece border, and having a territorial interest in Dobruja, the Bulgarian Army and the Ottoman Army were willing to help fight the Romanians. The German high command was seriously worried about the prospect of Romania entering the war, Hindenburg writing: It is certain that so relatively small a state as Rumania had never before been given a role so important, and, indeed, so decisive for the history of the world at so favorable a moment. Never before had two great Powers like Germany and Austria found themselves so much at the mercy of the military resources of a country which had scarcely one twentieth of the population of the two great states. Judging by the military situation, it was to be expected that Rumania had only to advance where she wished to decide the world war in favor of those Powers which had been hurling themselves at us in vain for years. Thus everything seemed to depend on whether Rumania was ready to make any sort of use of her momentary advantage.〔Paul von Hindenburg, Out of My Life, Vol. I, trans. F.A. Holt (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1927), 243.〕 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 during World War I」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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