Romania was a more helpful ally to Nazi Germany than Italy during WWII.

I am sure that he and I will make this both a fun and informative debate. For my opening argument I would like to present two subdivisions before handing the floor over to my opponent. These will be: D1: Positive Impact of Romania During WWII. D2: Detrimental/Neutral Influence of Italy During WWII. Keep note, in order for me to win this debate, I must show that Romania made the German war effort easier than Italy did, and vice versa for my opponent. Anyways lets begin! D1: Positive Impact of Romania During WWII. D1.1. Romanian Military RoleIt is often forgotten that Romania played a crucial role in Operation Barbarrossa (the Invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941). Generally it is assumed that Germany managed this invasion solely with the use of the Wermacht, however this is not the case. They heavily utilized their allies militaries to make the invasion possible, most particularly Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Out of these four allies, Romania provided the most help during the entire span of Barbarrossa. In 1941 at the beginning of the invasion, Romania had 700,000 men in their army, most of which entered Russia that year since they had no other military obligations in their previously secluded part of Europe. By the Summer of 1944 Romania had about 1.25 million men in the Soviet Union, albeit mostly were forced to retreat [1]. In that span, Romania provided the Wermacht enomromous amounts of support which his other allies, namely Italy and Hungary, simply could not provide. To put this in perspective, Romania had more troops in Russia than any of the Axis powers outside of Germany combined. Had Romania not provided this military support, Barbarossa would have been made nearly impossible while Operation Blue, the Summer offensive in 1942 would have been completely impossible. Let's give some context to these claims, shall we? In 1941, the Wermacht along with its allies were pounding through Russia with surprising speed. Romania especially helped down in Southern Russia. For example, in the Summer of 1941, 160,000 Romanian troops under Ion Antonescu besieged the crucial port of Odessa for 73 days, eventually taking the city in October of that year [2]. This allowed the German and Romanian armies to cross the Dneister River and continue on to Crimea. Speaking of Crimea, Romania played a crucial role in this theatre as well. Large portions of the Romanian 3rd and 4th Armies were sent under the command of the brilliant German General Erich von Manstein. These troops under Manstein fought brilliantly and played an essential role in the Battle for Sevastopol, another essential Russian port. Von Manstein reported after the siege: "To Marshal Antonescu, I report the fall of Sevastopol. The Romanian divisions , which I had the honor to command, had fulfilled their duty. They had an essential contribution through the conquest of Bastion II, the attack through rough, wooded terrain against the Sapun Heights. Another Romanian division entered Sevastopol together with the German units. I think with profound gratitude to the sacrifices the Romanian Mountain Corps made for the final victory in Crimea. Marshal von Manstein. " [3]. The following map displays the Invasion of Crimea with Romanian help. This displays that without the Romanian soldiers, the Crimean campaign would have been made much more difficult, even with the help of von Manstein. This also implies that the battle would have lasted longer, and given that the Germans were desperate to reach Moscow before the dreaded Russian winter struck, this would have been a huge blow. Also in 1941, the Romanian troops proved essential once again in the conquests of Anapa and Novorossiyk as the Axis marched on towards Stalingrad in the east. In 1942, Romania continued to provide Germany with much needed troops. In Operation Blue, the Romanian's deployed two full armies (the 3rd and the 4th). To put this into context, the Germans only used four armies (the 6th, 4th Panzer, 1st Panzer, and 17th) for the crucial summer offensive. The Romanian role, however, had changed from that from the 1941 offensive. Now the armies were spread out thinly throughout the entire front line, because the Wermacht was to low on soldiers to mantain these lines. Once again, had the Romanian's not provided their armies for this task, the Soviet counter-offensives would have succeeded and the Axis would have been forced out of Russia that very same year, as opposed to in 1945. D1. 2. Romanian Industrial Role I remain adamant in the belief that military victory does not come from battles, yet from the industry. In order to build a powerful military, one must mantain a powerful and efficient industry. In order to mantain a powerful and efficient industry, one must have the essential resources. For Germany, their major flaw was lack of oil reserves. Given that Germany did not have any natural oil supplies, and that they did not have any African or Middle Eastern colonies at the time, it is understandable that this is the case. However, in order for the Reich to achieve its highly ambitious goals, they would need to acquire a significant amount of oil to supply their Mechanized and Panzer divisions. Luckily for Germany, and unfortunately for everyone else, Romania was there to provide Germany with this much needed oil. In 1937, before Romania joined the Axis, Romania produced 7.2 million tons of oil, ranking second in Europe and seventh in the world in this category [4]. Keep note that this is an incredible statistic given that many of the European powers had multiple colonies all over the world to provide their oil. Since Romania had no colonies, this shows how oil rich the Eastern European nation was. During Operation Barbarrossa, Germany realized how essential these Romanian oil fields were to the Axis. In fact, 35% of all oil used by the entire Axis originated from Romania. Also, by 1942 75% of the oil found in German tanks was from Romania as well [5]. In fact, Romania was so important that the US sent 177 B-24 bombers to strategically bomb the Romanian oil fields. While operation was not fully succesful, it does show how defeating Romania was the key to beating Germany. D2: Detrimental/Neutral Influence of Italy During WWII. D2.1 Invasion of FranceItaly refrained from declaring war on the Allies until the 10th of June, 1940 [5]. By then the Germans had already crossed the Maginot Line and advanced into France. Therefore the Italian influence was absolutely useless. Despite this, however, Italy occuppied a large portion of Vichy France from the Germans, as shown in the following map [6]. D2.2 North African Campaign In the summer of 1940, Italy invaded British Egypt. On paper it seems that Italy should have steamed through Egypt, as they had 14 divisions (170,000) in North Africa and 280,000 in Ethiopia while the British only had 50,000. In fact, Marshal Graziani's offensive in Africa originally seemed like it was going to be a success (as it should have) given that they had already defeated the army in British Somalia and succesfully invaded Sudan and Egypt proper [7]. However, the Italian government failed the army as they were unable to provide their armies with enough supplies to win a Desert campaign. The following map displays Graziani's failed invasion. Therefore, Mussolini pleaded to Hitler to supply him with a German expiditionary force. Out of Hitler's odd sympathy towards Mussolini, he ordered the Wermacht to construct the Africa Korps, headed by the famous German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and send them to Africa. This was detrimental to the Germans on many regards. For one, the Italians took away Germany's arguably greatest General. Second, the Italians still were unable to defeat now British and US troops. D2.3 Invasion of GreeceIn an attempt to emmulate his favorite Fascist Dictator, Mussolini ordered his army based in Albania to invade the neutral Greece. This should have been a fairly easy invasion, given that the Greeks were literally armed with rifles from the beginning of the 20th century, however once again the Italians fell short. In 1941 their was a stalemate in the war, and again the Germans had to send in their own troops to finish the job. D2.4 Invasions of Sicily and ItalyFollowing the Allied surprising victory in North Africa, they made the move to invade Italy proper. They started with an invasion of Sicily, which was enormously easy given that the Italians didn't have the help of the far superior German army. Then the Allies moved on from Messina onto the main body (or boot) of Italy. Desperate, Mussolini once again asked for German help and once again Hitler complied. He again sent his best and favorite General Erwin Rommel under the command of Army Group B in Northern Italy while Albert Kesserling commanded Army Command South in Southern Italy [8]. The Axis was doomed to fail, yet Italy continued to pull German resources for their own cause while the German war effor overall suffered. ConclusionRomanian military and industrial efforts provided Germany with a highly effective ally which was essential in the Invasion of the Soviet Unionl. On the contrary, Italy provided Germany a largely incompetent army who constantly required Germany's help. Since I'm out of characters, back over to you, Con! Sources: [1] . http://www.historynet.com...[2] . http://en.wikipedia.org...(1941)[3] . http://www.feldgrau.com...[4] . http://www.aneir-cpce.ro...[5] . http://www.historynet.com...[6] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[7] . http://us.macmillan.com... (BOOK)[8] . http://en.wikipedia.org...