Page 12 - Romania 100

November 18, 1916) led to a huge loss on the West front, when it became obvious that the exports of Romanian
raw materials - wheat and
oil - sabotaged the economic blockade imposed by the Entente to the Central Powers, the leaders of the Entente understood a lesson standing true to this day and that can be formulated in a few words: not only that a war could not be won without Romania, but no European construction, no matter who builds it, can be achieved without Romania.
Looking into the details, for Romania, the two years of neutrality meant a period of colossal financial gains, due to the exports we talked about (because of its geo-strategic position, the only trading partners of Romania could be the Central Powers), exports that in that period of time doubled the National Bank's gold reserves from 47 tons of gold to 93 tons, perhaps even more, because those 93 tons are the ones that arrived and remained in Moscow with the rest of the treasury, but it is known that many payments were made in gold for weapons and ammunition that came to Romania after its entry into the war.
In those circumstances, the only possibility for the Entente to put an end to such exports - about which the German general Ludendorff, the real leader of Germany in the last two years of war, would say that only the raw materials looted from the occupied territory of Romania, " kept
12
the Central Powers with their nose above the water in
the years 1917 -1918 "- and
to emerge from a military deadlock that was hard to conceive before was to require Romania to enter the war, from June 1916, under the ultimate formula "now or never" in the sense that you will either enter the war now, or Romania’s territorial claims will never be discussed. But
as Ion IC Brătianu, and any other Romanian politician, knew from the history of 1877
- from the Russo-Turkish war, where Russia had asked just
as much for the participation
of Romania, in order to save
its troops, threatened with defeat at the siege of Plevna
– how unreliable the territorial promises of a great power were, he conditioned Romania's entry into war on the part
of the Entente's powers on
the conclusion of an initially secret political agreement enumerating the localities where Romania’s western boarder was supposed to be and of a military convention which specified the military aid that Romania was supposed to receive in order be able to keep up with the efforts that only the highly industrialized states could afford.
The failure of the Brusilov offensive, which was clear
by the beginning of August, was an additional factor that determined the acceptance of the Romanian claims by the powers of the Entente, but only after the main powers - Russia and France - concluded a secret agreement, around August 9, 1916, establishing that none of
the promises made to Romania would be materialized, until the respective powers would subject the political agreement concluded with the Romania to a revision. Today we can ask ourselves: Why review it? To give Romania more or perhaps less than promised?
Romania entered a war
that it could not handle, and we know what disaster the first four months of the war meant, when until January 1917 it had to abandon to
the occupants Muntenia, the Romanian province between the Carpathians and the Danube, while the royal family, government and monarchy fled to Iasi, the former capital of Moldova, which became
the last resistance zone of the Romanians.
The front between the Moldavian Carpathians to the Danube Delta, passing north of Focsani, was covered 80% by Russian troops and only 20% by Romanian troops. What is also known is the huge role played by the French military mission led by General Berthelot, which rebuilt the Romanian army after the defeats suffered. It is less well known that the French general, as the representative of his country's government, was a determining factor that prevented Russia from fulfilling its wish to transfer what was left of the Romanian state to Russian territory, by stating that the front we talked about could resists an offensive by the Central Powers.
Berthelot's predictions and the conviction of the Romanian