Romania and the Vienna Award (continuation)

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 12 Mar 2002 19:36

Cezarprimo,
I'm sorry I couldn't reply you in time on the old forum, but I will do it here
Before I start this I would like to clarify some aspects of the 15th century, in Hungary. The ethnic factor, as we know it today, didn't exist until the 18th or 19th century. The most important factor was the religion. Also Hungary was the nobility. The catholic nobles were the "nation". The Hungarian serfs were no better then the Romanian ones, maybe except for the fact that they were catholic and not eastern orthodox.
When Transylvania was annexed (to avoid the "conquest" term) by the Hungarians, many Romanian nobles converted to Catholicism, in order to keep their status. From then on they started to mix among them. It didn't matter if they were Hungarian , Romanian, Szeklers or Germans. They were catholic nobles.

Iancu de Hunedoara/ Janos Huniady

His father, Voicu, was a small Wallachian nobleman, who together with his brothers took refuge to Transylvania, because of the situation south of the Carpathians between 1396-1398. In this period Wallachia was a theatre of battle between Turkish, Romanian and Hungarian forces.
Voicu and his brothers, Mogos and Radu, entered the Hungarian king's (Sigismund of Luxemburg) service. However, he distinguished himself under the command of Pippo Spano (Filippo Scolari). He was rewarded the Hunedoara castle and he married a noble of Hungarian origin (most likely), Clara. From this marriage, resulted three boys (two Johns and one Voicu) and two girls. The young Voicu died as a child, but the other John accompanied Iancu de Hunedoara/Janos Huniady in his battles until his death in 1441 in the battles around Belgrade.

In 1430, Iancu/Janos entered, like his father, in the service of Sigismund of Luxemburg. He also married that year with Elisabeth of Szilagy, who gave him two sons: Ladislau (1431) and Mattia (in 1443; here I would like to make a short comment: Mattia isn't Mathew, it was the name of another saint; Romanian sometimes mistranslate the name as "Matei", which is Mathew).
The rest of the story is well known.
I would kine to end by saying that he was not a Hungarian or a Romanian or a Slav hero, but a CHRISTIAN hero!!!

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » 12 Mar 2002 21:05

Victor,

Please do me a great favor: do not try to convince anymore any Magyar member about some aspects of our history. It's a waste of time, energy and disk space.

I agree you did wish to inform Cezarprimo. Good thing.

As for the Magyar members, they will:

- either dismiss the whole story as "Romanian propaganda";

- or they will say that Hunyadi was Magyar because of his mother Clara, and the ethnicity is derived from mother;

I just wait to see what approach they will take.

~Regards,

Ovidius

Geppistoly Katona · Post by **Geppistoly Katona** » 13 Mar 2002 04:00

Ovidius, your curiosity will end here...

You will find my approach amuzing i believe...

Victor, you are both right and wrong, first YES he was a Christian hero fighting to hoards of Muslim Turks...YES he was not Rumanian, Magyar, or Slavic, but a mix of all three races, and you are wrong about whom his father is as that IS Rumanian propaganda, as there is no proofof it, and not even written proof of the time to prove that...Many historians now believe that he was the illegitamate son of a Hungarian Regent to a Slavic maid adopted into the family you speak of...Many claim your story..It's a highly controvercial issue. If it cannot be solved among the Professors i highly doubt it will be solved here in this forum by the likes of us...Therefore this issue is dead...No point in discussing this matter further as it does not matter!

Cezarprimo · Post by **Cezarprimo** » 13 Mar 2002 18:06

Thank you all for your opinions about Hunyadi. I've posted in the old forum some research of mine on this thema.

Now, getting back to WWII, do you have any infos about armed incidents between the hungarian and romanian armies when they were on the Axis side ?

Regards

DenesBernad · Post by **DenesBernad** » 13 Mar 2002 18:22

First, I think anyone who posts in this thread should stick more or less to the topic of discussion, i.e. Rumania and the Vienna Award.

Cezarprimo asked: "does any one know of armed conflicts between the romanian and the hungarian armies in WWII when they were on the same side ?"
AFAIK, there were no open armed conflict between Rumanian and Hungarian troops during W.W. II on East. The Germans made sure the two armies do not get in contact while fighting on the Eastern Front.
The first notable armed conflict occured on August 30, 1944, when Rumanian troops attacked and occupied several Hungarian border posts on the Transylvanian border between Hungary and Rumania.
However, skirmishes and minor clashes on the aforementioned border did occur regularly in the 1940-1944 period. I have no details at hand, but if anyone is interested, I can try to locate them.

Dénes

Geppistoly Katona · Post by **Geppistoly Katona** » 13 Mar 2002 23:46

And supposedly there were some small "isolated" skirmishes between Hungarian troops and Rumanian troops at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Cezarprimo · Post by **Cezarprimo** » 15 Mar 2002 16:35

I've read somewhere that Marshall Antonescu was determined not to let North Transylvania under hungarian rule, so he always maintained some fully armed divisions at home in order to be able to quickly speculate a favorable moment.

Does any one knows if he tried to speculate 25 Marach 1944 (the german occupation of Hungary) ?

And second, to what I've understood between 23 and 27 august 1944 (after the romanian armistice with SU) the russians took a large number of romanian prisoners. The romanian soldaires obeyed the armistice and did not fight the russian troops and those russian troops imprisoned them. This is why Romania entered the war against Germnany with a majority of troops with few or no combat experience (the resreve divisions of Antonescu) as most of its veteran soldiers were on their way to Siberia...Is there any truth here ?

Regards

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 15 Mar 2002 21:23

You are right Cezarprimo. Most of the experienced troops were captured by the Soviets and were not available for action against the Axis.

IAR80 · Post by **IAR80** » 15 Mar 2002 22:33

This is very interesting, seeing how the reds used romanian troops for cannon fodder and the romanians were arrogant enough to stay alive, thus romanian elements made it as far as Vienna. The soviets realised that we weren't gonna die and did not let us advance any furhter.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 15 Mar 2002 23:19

It was only the 2nd tank Regiment that fought in Austria. However, the bulk of the Romanian forces were in Czechoslovakia, prepairing for the "Prague" Operation when the war ended.

Geppistoly Katona · Post by **Geppistoly Katona** » 16 Mar 2002 03:09

IAR80, you make your it sound like the Rumanians were just little fighting demons that were invincible and did not die even if they got a direct hit to the head by a German 88!!! This is entirely untrue by 1944 they were about as motivated as the Italians in 1942...Even Victor could tell you that...They had nothing to win, and the only reason that the Hungarians were so motivated is because their asses were on the Line...The Rumanians asses were not on the line, the soviets were not "holding" them back, they would just aswell like to go home than keep fighting...

Geppistoly Katona · Post by **Geppistoly Katona** » 16 Mar 2002 03:11

Cezarprimo,

You are right, i imagine that it happened because the Russians were still sore about them fighting for the Germans...

IAR80 · Post by **IAR80** » 16 Mar 2002 06:44

But Geppistoly, that ruins your case: if the rumanians did not fight at full strenght then you might just as well forget the bravery of the defenders, say , at Budapest, since the romanians weren't even trying, but that ruins my case too and that leaves no direct serious clash between romanian and hungarian forces in modern history.

Victor · Post by **Victor** » 16 Mar 2002 15:10

You are partially right about the motivation. The year was 1945, however, not 1944. After Transylvania, the major psychological motivation, was retaken the only thing that remained was the sense of duty and allegiance to the king the simple Romanian peasant-soldier had. The news that were coming from back home about the behavior of "allied" Soviet troops (read Soviet occupation forces) were in no position to help boost morale, but lower it. Also the fact that few supplies were reaching Romanian troops because many Romanian transport means were used by the Soviets wasn't very encouraging.

Cezarprimo · Post by **Cezarprimo** » 19 Mar 2002 17:42

Thank you for your replies about my second question, but what about the first one. Or is it pure fantasy ?

Best regards

Axis History Forum

Romania and the Vienna Award (continuation)

Romania and the Vienna Award (continuation)

Rumania and the Vienna Award

Antonescu

POWs in Russia

Re:

Romanians in Vienna

IAR80

Motivation

The first question