Romania-Allies Relationship During the First World War and the Treaty of Bucharest: French and Romanian Archives Perspectives

Abstract

This article analyses Romania’s situation after the armistice of Focsani (signed on December 9, 1917) and at the beginning of the year 1918. It valorises mainly documentary evidence from both French and Romanian diplomatic and military archives. The necessary documentation for the elaboration of the article consisted mainly of telegrams and military reports. The most significant and important documents were selected. So the paper makes a critical analysis of the sources, resorting to a comparison between documents. The study also used a few concepts belonging to the theory of international relations. For a better understanding, the paper highlighted and analysed briefly the premise, namely the period of Romanian neutrality. The research paper explained as well why the Romanian Kingdom could not remain neutral in the First World War, why its situation in the international system was completely different from that of Switzerland. At the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918, Romania’s situation worsened very quickly due to the unfavourable external circumstances. Under the influence of Bolshevik ideology, Russian soldiers had refused to fight since the fall of 1917. The armistice of Brest Litovsk, signed by Soviet Russia in early December 1917 placed Romania in a critical situation. On January 13/26th, 1918, Russia broke all diplomatic relations with the Romanian government from Iasi. The Romanian Kingdom would be surrounded only by hostile forces. Ukraine, which had served as a buffer zone for the Romanian state, concluded, in turn, a separate peace with the Central Empires, on February 9, 1918. Although the Romanian army needed military aid, war material, and ammunition, and faced pressures of the Central Powers, the Allies asked for resistance. Among the four powers of the Entente, France was the most intransigent. In fact, all these states strongly rejected the separate peace but the French attitude was more clearly defined than the English attitude for instance.