In September 1940, the newly created Iron Guard regime (the National Legionary State) offered the PNL places in the government, upon the pressures of Ion Antonescu (who had become "Conducător", sharing power with the Guard) and of his assistant, the former Georgist Mihai Antonescu; talks failed due to Brătianu's excessive ambitions, amounting to virtual Liberal control over the executive (according to Z. Ornea, his demand was merely a procedure through which he intended to politely avoid all association with the Guard). When Antonescu's regime joined Germany in its invasion of the Soviet Union (1941), Brătianu was drafted in the Romanian Army, serving as an officer for several months under General Nicolae Mazarini. Supportive of the Bessarabian expedition, he expressed criticism of Romania's Transnistrian conquests.