Austria's WWI Chances without the Italian Front

[dead-cat]

i read your history thread and disagree. romania didn't hold onto "half" of it's country in ww1. it lost bucharest in a few months, the romanian governemt fleeing to jassy. the russian army( the 4th army is what i read about) fled before the major forces of the germany army could be brought to bear. and by the spring of 1917, the russian army was facing serious discipline problems and revolution. the russians pulled out, a the rmanians couldn't survive fighting the germans and austrians alone and signed the "peace of buchrest" which gave away alot of territory to bulgaria and control of part of the daube to the central powers. romania was knocked out of the war. gone. in the last 3 weeks of ww1, with the germans and ayustrians losing, romaina renounced the treaty, re-entered the war, but by then the war was already over. romania WAS over run, i don't agree with your version of history at all. it sounds like the history books in your country are attempting to revise history to save face for the humiliating defeat the romanians suffered in ww1. we studied the romanian front at my university and what we were taught was not what you were taught.

hmmm you sure you were paying attention?
besides there is plenty of information on this issue on the net, as well as there are eyewitness acounts (Rommel's "Infantry attacks" for example).
if something is taught at university it doesn't make it automatically correct (assuming you reproduced the lessons properly).

let's define overrun first:
for me an army counts as overrun when the bespoken army is virtually taken out of battle, cut of or retrating in disorder, shortly unable to resume organized combat. while certain elements of the romanian army were destroyed 1916, it cannot be said about the entire army. the rest managed to extract themselves and retreatet over the Sereth river a line which they held until armistice. it is true that they recived russian reinforcements but those were late to arrive.
now if you use a map (also available online, for example at mapquest.com) and take a look at the Sereth river and the eastern carpathians, you will notice that around 45-50% (visual estimation) of the country was stil under control of romanian forces.
now if you go a bit further with your research and read Rommel's book, you will find the description of a romanian counteroffensive in 1917 which broke through austr-hungarian lines. while this action was limited compared to say, the brussilov offensive, verdun or mind you, 3rd ypres, it shows that the army was still in position (late 1917 that is!) to perform a successfull combat operation. all this during a period in which, as you said, the russian army faced several discipline problems (nothing new by 1917). but the peace of bucharest (may 7th 1918) was signed after the treaty of brest litovsk (march 3rd 1918). the romanian government gave in after the russians pulled out, because it is obvious that any further resistence would have been useless.

with the germans and ayustrians losing, romaina renounced the treaty, re-entered the war, but by then the war was already over.

one of the terms of the 11.11.1918 armistice was, that the treaty of brest-litovsk and all other treaties signed by the central powers were void.

it sounds like the history books in your country are attempting to revise history to save face for the humiliating defeat the romanians suffered in ww1. we studied the romanian front at my university and what we were taught was not what you were taught.

it's not "his" version of the history, it is what various sources (non romanian) confirm. you might want to double check your sources, information on this issue is abundantly available now (thank God!)

[Balrog]

i did check more sources. the romanians still surrendered. may 1918. if it was after the treaty of brest-litosk, well, so what? the romanian army was defeated. there are soucres that do confirm that. yes, the treaty of versailles did cancel out the peace of bucharest, yes, i agree, i never disputed that either. overun, defeated. ok, whatever you want to call it. france was defeated in ww2, but vichy france emained unoccupied for several years, does that still not count as a french defeat by the germans in the beginning of ww2? because your country surenders before the last remants of its army can be pushed into the sea does not mean it was not defeated. i guess we will just have to agree to disagree. i still can't see any romanian army as not being knocked out of the war. romania was lucky in that the side it was fighting with won the overall war.

[dead-cat]

the germans were still a minority of the overall population of the empire.

maybe it's my lack of skill in mastering the english language, but as far i know, if you are the largest group relative to other groups it's called a "majority" while having above 50% is called an "absolute majority".

and sat out most of 1918 peacefully, only restarting the war in the last 3 or weeks of ww1. so, any "victory" by romania at the treaty of versailles was a gift form the allies, not won on the battle field.

see my other post. but regarding your view of the treaty of versailles, your claim is not untrue. they did not win transsylvania on the battlefield.
but, as i said, the armistice rendered the peace of bucharest void, and germany agreed.

austria was dismemebered by the treaty of versailles.

the dissolution of the austro-hungarian empire was a consequence of the treaty of versailles. it might be debatable, if most ethnic groups would've voted for preserving the empire instead independence, that the other powers would've respected the outcome. but they did not (although you are partially right, some ethnic groups were disfavoured while others were made gifts (sudetenland for example)). but the fact that, most component nations voted against staying with the empire it only proves my point that most people didn't care about austro-hungary and preferred to live in their own country.

don't agree with victors history thread. romania lost 25,000 pows on the 5 sept 1916(the 3 rd day of the german offensive) at tutracia.

tutrakan was a fortress which surrendered after a siege. it is normal that there would be relativley large numbers of defenders (25000 max aprox 2 divisions. Mackensen attacked with 1 german, 1 turkish and 4 bulgarian divisions, if i remember the numbers well). just look at the example of Przemysl which surrendered to the russians with 120 000 austro-hungarian soldiers.

the captiol bucharest fell apparently without much of a fight at all.

if you look at the campaign of 1916 you will see that there was no point in trying to defend Bucharest since the enemy advanced from 3 directions and would've cut the defending army off. it was actually a good idea to abandon bucharest with no more than a token resistence.
1758, during the 7 years war, the russians briefly occupied Berlin. Frederik the Great still won the war.

[dead-cat]

"the romanians still surrendered."

a surrender is when the army in question is taken prisoner. Tanneberg was a surrender. 11.11.1918 was an armistice and not a surrender. the german army was, at that time, retreating in order and still capable of organized and effective resistence. for how long, is another question. same for the romanian army. how long would they manage to hold out if they wouldn't have agreed to the treaty? i don't know. maybe 2 months, maybe more, maybe less. to what extent would the central powers jeopardize the spring offensive by tying up forces badly needed in the west for defeating and occupying the romanian army? no idea. but that's speculation. although we're fighting over semantics here, we still should make sure we're speaking about the same thing.

[Balrog]

well, that last post clarified my points too, i guess...

[Balrog]

i still don't agree with your view on the A-H army, or romania's performance in the war.

[Victor]

i read your history thread and disagree. romania didn't hold onto "half" of it's country in ww1. it lost bucharest in a few months, the romanian governemt fleeing to jassy.

If you take a look at the map and read where the front line was, you will see that about one half of 1914 Romania remained in Romanian hands in 1917. It is reality, whether you like it or not. Just because Bucharest was lost it does not mean that the country was completely overrun in 1916 "in a few months", as you said. The Central Powers tried to knock Romania out of the war in the summer of 1917 and failed. It is a reality. Look it up.

and by the spring of 1917, the russian army was facing serious discipline problems and revolution. the russians pulled out, a the rmanians couldn't survive fighting the germans and austrians alone and signed the "peace of buchrest" which gave away alot of territory to bulgaria and control of part of the daube to the central powers. romania was knocked out of the war. gone.

Is this your way of saying you were wrong?
So you read some and found about the peace treaty (which by the way was never signed by the king). When was that? In 1918. When did you say that Romania capitulated? In 1916.

romania WAS over run, i don't agree with your version of history at all. it sounds like the history books in your country are attempting to revise history to save face for the humiliating defeat the romanians suffered in ww1. we studied the romanian front at my university and what we were taught was not what you were taught.

It is not a version of history, it is history. Feel free to prove that I am wrong and that there was no fighting in 1917 on the Romanian front. Did your university ever heard of Erwin Rommel? :roll:

romania lost 25,000 pows on the 5 sept 1916(the 3 rd day of the german offensive) at tutracia. the captiol bucharest fell apparently without much of a fight at all. by the 7th of may,1918,"peace of bucharest" ended fighting in romania altogether. romania surrendered. that seems like a romanian defeat to me.

Take a look at those dates: 1916 and 1918. Notice the difference?

france was defeated in ww2, but vichy france emained unoccupied for several years, does that still not count as a french defeat by the germans in the beginning of ww2? because your country surenders before the last remants of its army can be pushed into the sea does not mean it was not defeated.

You still do not understand the difference. After France was defeated in 1940, there was and armistice. In the summer of 1917, Romania was still fighting, even though half of it was occupied. And the army was not pushed back to the sea. No German or Austrian troops made it to Jassy. Romania was even able to annex territory in early 1918 and Romanian troops clashed with Red troops in Bessarabia.

i still can't see any romanian army as not being knocked out of the war.

That is true, but it happened in 1918. At least acknowledge that you were wrong when you said a few months.

[Balrog]

yes, when i first wrote the first post, i was speaking from memory of a course i studied 10 years ago. i looked it up in a book, and corrected it in the next posts. i admit that. but still, bucharest fell in 1916(november). the peace of bucherst might not have been ratified , but there was a halt in fighting, a loss of territory(reversed by the treaty of versailles) and ther romanins were knocked out of the war. that romania re-entered the war in october of 1918, when germany and austria were lost, does not mean it was a victorious army. romania won ww1 like france won ww2! the first post i wrote i said "i think", meaning i did not remeber for sure. of course i have heard of rommel, but so what. romania still surrendered, signed an armistice, whatever words you wish to use to describe defeat, a halt in fighting, no more active romanian front, etc. your thread makes it seems as if the romanians did well against the germans and austrians,and bulgarians, which they did not. romania suffered military disasters everywhere and was force to "stop fighting", "armistice", whatever word you chose. romania was knocked out of the war after a short time.

[Balrog]

one more point i need to make about your history version. the thread that vicor sent me, that he started, his statement ended that the "war continued until the november armitisce but on a much smaller scale" something like that. well, that is not true. no where in the thread do you mention the peace of bucharest, which did stop the fighting, and lose land for rumania. iassumed that since you seemed so knowledable about the battles,etc, and made that last statement, you might not have been taught about the "armitisce", surrender, peace of bucharest, whatever you want to call it. but seeing as your laster posts to me do mention the peace of bucharest, it seems i should not have given you the benefit of the doubt. that is what my comment about "your version" of history was suppossed to mean. i won't give you that beefit of the doubt again...

[Victor]

of course i have heard of rommel, but so what.

He fought in Romania during 1917, that is why. I did not suspect that you would qualify his testimony as "Romanian propaganda", as you qualified the rest of the information provided to you.

your thread makes it seems as if the romanians did well against the germans and austrians,and bulgarians, which they did not. romania suffered military disasters everywhere and was force to "stop fighting", "armistice", whatever word you chose. romania was knocked out of the war after a short time.

In 1917, Romania did very well against the Central Powers. Both major German and Austrian offensives were stopped after a few kilometers in two very brutal battles with many casualties on both sides. The Romanian army carried out its own small-scale offensive, pushing back German forces and alarming the German high command enough to change its plans and reinforce the Romanian front. Again you prove that you actually did not read that thread or you simply do not want to comprehend it. Or at least this is what your second phrase says.

For your information that thread was meant to educate people like you, who did not know what happened on the Romanian front in 1917 and who thought that it all ended in 1916. Some people, who are not as biased as you are, welcomed the information.

one more point i need to make about your history version. the thread that vicor sent me, that he started, his statement ended that the "war continued until the november armitisce but on a much smaller scale" something like that. well, that is not true.

Now you claim that there was no fighting on the Romanian front until November 1917? I wonder how are you going to prove that.

no where in the thread do you mention the peace of bucharest, which did stop the fighting, and lose land for rumania.

Well, that was in 1918. If you would have bothered to read the title it says: Romanian Front – 1917. As I said, the purpose of the thread was to tell a few words about the battles that took place in the summer of 1917 in Romania. It is mentioned at the very beginning of the thread.

[Balrog]

you wrotein your first post on the thread you sent me, that small scale fighting continued up until the armistice november 1918! 1918! even if it did say 1917 front, you wrote 1918 yourself, on your thread. that you sent me. as for rommel, one person described in his book how rommels first encounter with romanian troops, all 75 of them wwere fast asleep at there fighting position, hardly speaking well of the romanian soldiers. as for me claiming there was no fighting in 1917, i never said that. the peace of buchsreast was in march 1918. so, there must have been fighting before that. so, you are misquoting me. even the box quotes you made of me didn't say what you claimed. the rumanian army in 1917, by your own account, and rommels account, was propped up/heavily supported by russian troops. when the russian troops left, romania started to lose again. therefore, rumanian, on it's own, llost 25,000 men the 3rd day of the german offensive, lost it's capital bucharest with barely a rifleeshot of resistence, and and only managed to survive in the jassy and the north with a massive influx of ruusian troops. whenever rumania stood on its own, it was not minor losses, they were huge. rumania entered the war 2 years in, when other armies were starting to be exhausted, as russia teetered on the brink of revolution, which was less than a year away. so, my point, once again. the rumanians did poorly. even in the rommel book descriptions left on the 1917 thread, rommel desrcibes the russian army encircling him, attacking, and being defeated. he took the romainans that day without a shot. they were asleep. i never claimed anything about no fighting in 1917 in the later posts, even the post of my you boxed in never said that. the post you gave said that fighting continued until armistice novenmber 1918, and that is misleading. for most of 1918, the rumanian army was not fighting AT ALL. i assume that the posts put on these forums are all giving with honest intent, not to be misleading or dishonest. when you wrote that the fighting had continued until 1918 november armistice on the romanian front, i assume youmade an honest mistake, and that perhaps your rumanian history just didn't teach that. my history professor did teach us about the rumanian defeat(or "armistice/halt war). you took that comment as some kind of vicious attack on the rumanian school system, it was not. i know that many countries publish their version of history, i've read a trabslation of a soviet history of the civil war(usa), and it was wildly inaccurate. that you DID know the details of the peace of bucharest makes me think that the post you made on the 1917 thread was deliberatley misleading.

[Balrog]

oh, and while one website claimed that romaina declared war on germany(for the second time ) in late october, the library of congress web site put the date of rumania's second declaration of war at november 8,1918, 3 days before the ww1 ended. and that the fighting effectively stopped months before even the "peace of bucharest" went into effect. but virtually every web site i've read gives different dates for everything. that is why i prefer to research from library books than the web...

[dead-cat]

it looks to me like 1917/1918 was a typo.
should've been 1916/1917. Victor?

especially since he's talking about the spring and summer 1917 afterwards.
the action describer there took place in 1917.

when the russian troops left, romania started to lose again.

maybe Victor can correct me on this but there was no larger combat activity on the romanian front after the treaty of brest-litovsk.

lost it's capital bucharest with barely a rifleeshot of resistence

from when does combat activity count as defence of Bucharest?
you can hardly claim there was no defensive action from the romanian side (although unsucessfull and ill advised) during 1916. as for making a stand and defending the capital with everything available, it would have been stupid at best to do that. why should the army be destroyed instead living to fight another day under more favourable conditions?
actually abandoning bucharest without considerable resistence was one of the few good ideas of the 1916 campaign.

whenever rumania stood on its own, it was not minor losses, they were huge.

if that's your main criteria on army competence, then, after looking at this numbers (http://www.geocities.com/~worldwar1/casualty.html ,although Victor might question some of the figures):

Austria-Hungary
total mobilized: 7,800,000
dead: 1,200,000
wounded: 3,620,000
prisoners: 2,200,000
total casualties:7,020,000
casualties % of mobilized: 90.0

Romania
total mobilized: 750,000
dead: 335,706
wounded: 120,000
prisoners: 80,000
total casualties: 535,706
casualties % of mobilized: 71.4

90% vs 71.4%. doesn't quite support your claim.

as for the rest of your post, can we please go on without personal attacks? it was possible so far having a discussion on an inssue without accusing each others of dishonestity and such and i'm sure we can keep it that way for quite some time from here too. after all we've all seen a university from inside and learned to discuss (and even disagree) without accusations.

while it is true that romanian schoolbooks used to, and sometimes still do, provide inaccurate (and sometimes even false) informations, so do german schoolbooks and various publications in other languages as well. what has been contributed so far by Victor regarding ww1 is neither propagandistic nor misleading.

[sLOVEne]

Firstly, I have to disagree with dead-cat, and mention that Slovenians soldiers were effective during the war, and were especially well skilled and trained because guess what? Where is the Isonzo front? Yep, s-l-o-v-e-n-i-a, thus we were very aware of the terrain.

i still disagree with you about the austrian empire. many of its people "did give a hoot". croatia and slovenian did not want to become part of yugoslavia(controlled by the serbs)

However I also disagree with this. Slovenians at the time, did want to unite with fellow Slavs, because they finally believed they would be able to be treated fairly in a kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (it seemed promising at the time). But this over time proved to be wrong, as in the case of Serbs wanted to dominate it in all aspects.

[Daniel S.]

even in the rommel book descriptions left on the 1917 thread, rommel desrcibes the russian army encircling him, attacking, and being defeated. he took the romainans that day without a shot. they were asleep

Come on,do you think that a single clash can be relevant for the whole performance in war?In my view,Romanians performance was really bad in 1916 when they lost half of their country but in 1917 they performed very well.So,I recomand you to be more rightfull in your statements,even if you learned something at university,that doesn't mean your teaching is perfect.The truth maybe very relative.Have you ever recongnized in your life that you are wrong?