Kingdom of Romania

The Kingdom of Romania was an Allied nation that joined the war in 1916. After the collapse of The Russian Empire, they were swiftly invaded and annexed by

### Inhabitants

7,900,000

Austria-Hungary and the Tsardom of Bulgaria in 1917.

## History

On the night of August 27, 1916, three Romanian armies (First, Second and Northern Army [ro]), deployed according to the Romanian campaign plan (Hypothesis Z), launched the Battle of Transylvania through the Carpathians. On that same night, the torpedo boats NMS *Rândunica*, *Bujorescu* and *Catinca* attacked the Austro-Hungarian Danube Flotilla at the Bulgarian port of Ruse, sinking one barge loaded with fuel and damaging the port's quay. Initially, the only opposing force was the Austro-Hungarian First Army, which was steadily pushed back toward Hungary. In a short time, the towns of Brașov, Făgăraș, and Miercurea Ciuc were captured, and the outskirts of Sibiu were reached. In areas populated with Romanians, the Romanian troops were warmly welcomed, and the locals provided them considerable assistance in terms of provisions, billeting and guiding. However, the rapid Romanian advance alarmed the Central Powers, and within weeks sizable reinforcements began arriving at the scene. The Entente incorrectly assumed that Germany would be unable to respond to the invasion, as the Battle of the Somme and the Brusilov Offensive were at their height around this time and tied down significant German forces. Nevertheless, eight divisions and an Alpine Corps were deployed under the command of Erich von Falkenhayn. The Austro-Hungarians also sent four divisions to reinforce their lines, and by the middle of September, the Romanian offensive was halted. A separate Romanian offensive, carried out by the 1st Infantry Division, was much more limited in its aims and it succeeded: capturing the west bank of the Cerna River within the Banat region. The Romanian occupation of the area lasted for over two months, until mid-November.

While the Romanian Army was advancing in Transylvania, the first counterattack came from Field Marshal August von Mackensen in command of a multi-national force composed of the Bulgarian Third Army, a German brigade and two divisions of the Ottoman VI Army Corps, whose units began arriving on the Dobrudja front after the initial battles. This army attacked north from Bulgaria, starting on September 1. It stayed on the south side of the Danube river and headed towards Constanța. Bulgarian troops (aided by the German-Bulgarian Detachment) surrounded and stormed the fortress of Turtucaia. The Romanian garrison surrendered on September 6 at the conclusion of the Battle of Turtucaia. At the same time, the Bulgarian Third Army with the 75th Turkish regiment, defeated a Romanian-Russian force including the First Serbian Volunteer Division at the Battle of Bazargic, despite the almost double superiority of the Entente. The Romanian Third Army made further attempts to withstand the enemy offensive at Silistra, Dobrich, Amzacea, and Topraisar, but had to withdraw under the pressure of the enemy forces. Mackensen's success was favoured by the failure of the Allies to fulfill the obligation they had assumed through the military convention, by virtue of which they had to mount an offensive on the Macedonian front and the conditions in which the Russians deployed insufficient troops on the battlefront in the south-east of Romania. These factors meant that the Romanian forces became too strained to put up effective resistance against the enemy advance. Romania had to fight on two 1,600 km-long battlefronts, the longest front in Europe, with a varied configuration and diverse geographical elements (by comparison, the Russian front, stretching from the Baltic Sea to Bukovina, was only 1,000 km long).
On September 15, the Romanian War Council decided to suspend the Transylvania offensive and concentrate on the Mackensen army group instead. The plan (the so-called *Flămânda Offensive*) was to attack the Central Powers forces from the rear by crossing the Danube at Flămânda, while the front-line Romanian and Russian forces were supposed to launch an offensive southwards towards Cobadin and Kurtbunar. Russian reinforcements under General Andrei Zaionchkovsky arrived to halt Mackensen's army before it cut the rail line that linked Constanța with Bucharest. Fighting was furious, with attacks and counterattacks until September 23. The Central Powers suffered a tactical defeat in the First Battle of Cobadin on September 19, forcing them to halt their advance until mid-October. On 30 September, near the Romanian port of Sulina, the German submarine *UB-42* launched a torpedo at the Romanian torpedo boat NMS *Smeul*, but missed. The Romanian warship counterattacked, damaging the submarine's periscope and conning tower and forcing her to retreat. On October 1, two Romanian divisions crossed the Danube at Flămânda and created a bridgehead 14 kilometer-wide and 4 kilometer-deep. On the next day, this area was expanded, with 8 Bulgarian settlements ending up in Romanian hands. However, due to the deteriorating situation in Transylvania, the offensive was cancelled on 3 October. The Austro-Hungarian river monitors *Bodrog*, *Körös* and *Szamos*, together with the patrol boat *Barsch* and one coal barge were damaged by Romanian coastal batteries and one large barge loaded with explosives was sunk. *Körös* took 12 hits and was disabled for the rest of the Romanian Campaign.
Particular heed was paid to the actions carried on for the defense of the Carpathians' alignment, the fights on the Jiu River. There, the Germans had massed large forces to beat their way south of the mountains. Faced with the enemy threat, the troops of the Romanian First Army, under command of General Ion Dragalina, offered strong resistance. The Romanian soldiers were supported everywhere by the civil population; during the Battle of Târgu Jiu, the town was defended by its inhabitants, men, women and children, young and old. There, a conspicuous figure was cut by Ecaterina Teodoroiu, who was to enter the consciousness of all Romanians as the "Heroine of the Jiu". The operation for the defense of the Carpathians holds a prominent place in Romanian military history not only because it was one of the most difficult operations waged by the Romanian army until then, but also because it was one of the most important as regards the complexity of the actions carried on and the highly valuable lessons derived from their evolution.
After the Romanian troops were initially able to stop the German advance on the Jiu Valley, the German army regrouped on 29 October 1916. The German High Command created the Army Group Kühne, headquartered in Petroșani, under the command of General Viktor Kühne (de). This Army Group included the 11th and 301st Bavarian infantry divisions, which had previously fought the Romanians on the Jiu, the 41st Prussian and the 109th infantry divisions which were transferred from the Riga front as well as the newly formed 58th Cavalry Corps (z.b.V) under the command of General Egon von Schmettow, which included the 6th and 7th cavalry divisions. The German reserves consisted of the 115th infantry division and two brigades of cyclists. The total manpower of the Army Group amounted to 80,000 troops with 30,000 horses. The Romanian forces could not withstand the new German attack which started on 1 November 1916. The Romanians retreated and on 21 November 1916 the German cavalry entered Craiova. The Romanian army continued its retreat towards the Olt River while the cavalry tried to slow the German advance in order to give it time to organize a defensive line along the Olt. Although the Romanian army made attempts to stop the advance of the German forces, such as in the Battle of Robănești, these were largely unsuccessful.
Back on the coast, Field Marshal Mackensen and Bulgarian General Stefan Toshev launched a new offensive on 19 October, after a month of careful preparations, and achieved a decisive victory in the Second Battle of Cobadin. The Romanians and Russians were forced to withdraw out of Constanța (occupied by the Central Powers on 22 October). After the fall of Cernavodă, the defense of the unoccupied Dobruja was left only to the Russians, who were gradually pushed back towards the marshy Danube Delta. The Russian Army was now both demoralized and nearly out of supplies. Mackensen felt free to secretly pull a large number of troops back to the town of Svishtov in Bulgaria with an eye towards crossing the Danube river.

In mid-November, after several tactical defeats in the Southern Carpathians (Bran-Câmpulung, Prahova Valley, Jiu Valley), Falkenhayn concentrated his best troops (the elite *Alpenkorps*) in the south for an attack on the Vulcan Pass. The Battle of Vulcan Pass was launched on 10 November. One of the young officers was the future Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. On 11 November, then-Lieutenant Rommel led the Württemberg Mountain Company in the capture of Mount Lescului. The offensive pushed the Romanian defenders back through the mountains and into the plains by 26 November. There was already snow covering the mountains and soon operations would have to halt for the winter. Advances by other parts of Falkenhayn's Ninth Army also pushed through the mountains; the Romanian army was being ground down by the constant battle and their supply situation was becoming critical.

After conquering the main Romanian sea port of Constanța during the Second Battle of Cobadin, the Central Powers set up a naval base which was used by German seaplanes for raids against Sulina, the last Romanian-held sea port. On 7 November, Romanian anti-aircraft defenses at Sulina (including the old protected cruiser NMS *Elisabeta*) shot down into the sea one of the seaplanes, killing the commander of the German squadron. This reduced the German seaplane force at Constanța by a quarter, which only consisted of four aircraft in November 1916. The shot down seaplane was of the Friedrichshafen FF.33 type, as these were the only German naval bombers on the Romanian front. In total, from 1916 to 1918, German seaplanes serving on the Romanian front were of three types: Friedrichshafen FF.33, Hansa-Brandenburg W.12 and Rumpler 6B. In November, the German submarine *UC-15* was sent on a minelaying mission off Sulina and never returned, being sunk by her own mines. This was probably caused by an encounter with the Romanian torpedo boat NMS *Smeul*, whose captain surprised a German submarine near Sulina in November 1916, the latter reportedly never returning to her base at Varna. This could only be *UC-15*, whose systems most likely malfunctioned after being forced to submerge in the shallow waters, upon encountering the Romanian torpedo boat. Her Flotilla briefly remained without a minelaying submarine, until *UC-23* was commissioned in early December.
On 23 November, Mackensen's best troops crossed the Danube at two locations near Svishtov. This attack caught the Romanians by surprise and Mackensen's army was able to advance rapidly towards Bucharest against very weak resistance. Mackensen's attack threatened to cut off half the Romanian army. In response, the Romanian Command prepared a counter-offensive known under the name of the Battle of the Argeş (part of the Battle of Bucharest) and designated the recently promoted General Constantin Prezan to lead it. The plan envisaged the checking of the advance of the German Ninth Army from the north and north-west, as well as the encirclement and annihilation of the German-Bulgarian-Turkish units deployed south-east of Bucharest. It was a bold undertaking, using the entire reserves of the Romanian army, but it needed the cooperation of Russian divisions to contain Mackensen's offensive while the Romanian reserve struck the gap between Mackensen and Falkenhayn. However, the Russian army would not endorse the plan and did not support the attack.

On 1 December, the Romanian army went ahead with the offensive along the Argeș and Neajlov rivers. Initially, the Romanians experienced success, taking a large number of prisoners, however Mackensen was able to shift forces to deal with the sudden assault and Falkenhayn's forces responded with attacks at every point. Faced with the overwhelming superiority of the invading forces, the Romanian army, its ranks thinned from the previous actions, inferior in equipment and lacking Russian support, failed to check the enemy advance. Although it recorded numerous daring actions (among these the Prunaru Charge, in which the 2nd Roşiori Cavalry Regiment was almost wiped out), the Battle of Argeş ended unfavourably for the Romanian army. Within three days, the attack had been shattered and the Romanians were retreating everywhere. Bucharest was captured on 6 December by Falkenhayn's cavalry. The Romanian Second Army made a fighting retreat to the Siret river, which had originally been fortified against the Russians and was facing the wrong direction, but nevertheless would end up proving invaluable, protected as it was by the impassable Danube Delta to the southeast and a flank in the Carpathians in the northwest. Fierce fighting took place in the Battle of Râmnicu Sărat between 22 and 26 December, with Mackensen's forces entering the town on 27 December. Around this time, the Russians began sending numerous reinforcements to Moldavia to prevent an invasion of southern Russia. Southern Romania, including Oltenia, Muntenia, Dobruja and southern Moldavia, was now in the hands of the Central Powers. While retreating, the Romanians burnt stores of grain and destroyed oil wells to prevent them from being used by the Germans.

On 3 December, the Romanian river torpedo boat *Căpitan Valter Mărăcineanu* was sunk on the Danube by a mine, 1 sailor was killed.

The remaining Russo-Romanian forces in Dobruja abandoned Măcin on 4 January 1917 and Brăila on 5 January 1917. Toward the end of the month, extreme frost gave the Bulgarians an opportunity to enter the Danube Delta. On 23 January, they attempted to cross the marshes at Tulcea, but suffered heavy casualties to Romanian defenders on the northern bank and stopped. The Romanian Land Forces, supported by the Danube Division of the Romanian Navy and by the actions of the Romanian cruiser NMS *Elisabeta* at the mouths of the Danube, managed to prevent the Central Powers from advancing into the Danube Delta, keeping it under Romanian control until the end of the war. Fighting also ceased in the Carpathian passes, also owing to unfavorable weather. Mackensen's troops were able to capture Focșani on 8 January, but an attempt to break the Siret River line on 19 January failed. Thus, the front stabilized and allowed for the Romanian army to be refitted and rebuilt.

Romania entered the war at a time of strong crisis for the Entente, drawing upon itself numerous enemy forces, fighting on a very long battlefront and having to change its initial campaign plan permanently. But in spite of the human, material and military efforts made by the Central Powers throughout this period, they failed to achieve their fundamental political and strategic goal to defeat Romania and knock it out of the war. Despite heavy casualties, some 250,000 men (almost one third of the manpower mobilized in August 1916) compared to 105,000 Central Power casualties (including 60,000 Germans), and losses of combat material, the Romanian army was still a force taken into consideration by allies and enemies alike and capable of offering resistance to further attacks. Part of the population moved to the free territory, together with the Romanian government, royal court and public authorities, which relocated to Iași. Therefore, the Kingdom of Romania continued to exercise the attributes of an independent and sovereign state, allied to the Entente powers.

In 1917, when both belligerent sides were making huge efforts to win the final victory, for Romania it was vitally important for Romanians to expel the occupying forces, since the existence of the Romanian state depended on it. After the Romanian troops had managed to bring the enemy to a halt at Moldavia's Gates, on the Eastern Carpathians, the Siret River and the Danube Delta alignment in cooperation with Russian military forces, Romania embarked on the reconstruction and strengthening of its combat capability during the first half of 1917 through multiple national efforts under highly complex international circumstances. Considerable measures were taken in all economic branches to rebuild the evacuated factories and workshops, increase the production destined for the national defense and the productivity yielded by the exploitation of the few petroleum and coal resources in the free zones. Agriculture received special attention to help meet basic nutritional needs and ensure a minimal living standard to the population in the free part of the country, and also to assist the refugees who had left their houses in front of the enemy invasion, the Romanian army and the Russian troops (who numbered about one million by early 1917).

With a view to achieving the unity of action of internal political forces that was indispensable to safeguarding the nation's interests, a government of national union was set up in Iaşi on 24 December 1916, led by Ion I. C. Brătianu. The political life in unoccupied territory adopted a fundamental goal to achieve national consensus to find the means to conclude a successful liberation war. Within this framework, debates on some laws envisaging structural transformations (primarily the agrarian reform to re-allocate land to peasants and the introduction of universal suffrage) responded to popular demands of the citizenry and contributed to the morale of the soldiers in the front lines.

The Romanian army's reconstruction involved both re-organization and modernization. While the forces that had taken part in the big Battle of Bucharest (Army Group Prezan) were reshuffled inland, the Romanian Second Army, which had preserved its combat structures and force to a great extent, remained on the front in southern Moldavia, where, alongside Russian forces, it checked the enemy advance. The reorganization was initiated by King Ferdinand and the Romanian government. It was carried on under their leadership and control in the free national territory, in spite of Russian attempts to shift the Romanian army beyond the Dniester, inside Ukraine. The re-organization pursued the reduction of the effectives of the "Operations Army" to parameters that suited the country's resources for waging a long campaign. The infantry divisions were ensured identical structure to make replacements and maneuvers easier on the battlefront and to have a fire power comparable with that of the enemy. The army corps became only a command body for tactical coordination. The cavalry divisions received more machine guns. The artillery material underwent a homogenization process, with two regiments (one cannon, the other howitzer) for each division, while the heavy artillery was organized as a distinct group.

The re-organization also involved the other troops (combat engineers, air force, navy) and services, which underwent notable improvements. The directions, organization and methodology of the training of the command staff and the troops were considerably improved and special training centers were set up. Priority was given to trench warfare, the assimilation of new military technology and night combat.

Considerable progress was achieved with the technical-material equipment of the army by means of its provisioning with armament, ammunition and other combat resources from inside the country, but even more importantly from abroad. The Allies supported the maintenance of the Romanian front by continuing to deliver and supplement previously placed orders. 150,000 French 8 mm rifles, 1,760 Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns, 197 Vickers machine guns, 2,628 Chauchats, 108 Lewis guns, 1,3 million F1 grenades, 84 Puteaux 75mm guns, 72 long and 20 short de Bange 120 mm guns, 28 Coventry 127 mm howitzers, 14 St. Chamond 155 mm and seven Schneider-Putilov 152,4 mm howitzers and 130 French 58mm trench mortars arrived from Western Europe. In parallel, efforts were made to meet the food and health care needs and special heed was paid to strengthening the soldiers' morale. A notable contribution to the reconstruction of the Romanian army was made by the 1,600-strong French military mission led by General Henri Mathias Berthelot, which supervised the process and helped retrain Romanian troops. In early June 1917, the Romanian army's strength grew to about 700,000 men, organized in 207 infantry battalions plus 60 march battalions, 110 cavalry squadrons and 245 artillery batteries, divided among two armies and five corps. The results obtained in terms of re-organization and recovery impressed public opinion both at home and abroad and were to be confirmed in the great battles of the ensuing months.

In January 1917, the Romanian river gunboat *Smârdan* was sunk by German shore artillery, three sailors were killed. On April 16th, Easter Monday, the Romanian torpedo boat NMS *Smeul* capsized in rough seas off the mouth of the Danube with the loss of 18 of her crew, including 3 French naval officers present on board. This incident has been incorrectly attributed to Ottoman mines in several English language sources, possibly as a result of wartime propaganda by the Central Powers.

Aware of the complex strategic situation, the Romanian Command lent its military policy a clear, realistic orientation of committing the entire population to battle, trying to act efficiently in keeping with the national goals and in harmony with the large-scale operations worked out at the coalition level. Its final form ready in late May 1917, the operations plan for the Romanian front called for the mounting of a general offensive in the Focșani-Nămoloasa sector with a view to completely pin down all enemy forces there, annihilate the main enemy groups operating there (the German Ninth Army) and support the Kerensky Offensive. The decisive effort was to be made by the Romanian First Army. In order to increase the effect of the offensive and draw as many enemy troops as possible northwest of the town of Focșani, the actions of the Romanian Second and Russian Fourth Armies had to precede those of the Romanian First Army. The German High Command, which had moved the center of gravity of its military operations to the Eastern Front in hopes of winning a victory there through the defeat of Romania and the conclusion of a peace with Russia, decided in June 1917 to mount a wide-scope offensive in the north and south of Moldavia, to which end it brought over reinforcements from the other fronts.

In early July 1917, on the Romanian front, one of the largest concentrations of combat forces and war material assembled during World War I: nine armies, 80 infantry divisions with 974 battalions, 19 cavalry divisions with 550 squadrons and 923 artillery batteries, whose effectives amounted to some 800,000 men, with about one million in their immediate reserve. The three great battles, decisive for the Romanian nation's destiny, delivered at Mărăști, Mărășești and Oituz, represented a turning point in the war on the Eastern front. These battles were fought approximately on the front alignment stabilized in early 1917, which the conflicting sides had thoroughly consolidated for half a year.
The Battle of Mărăști began on 24 July 1917 at dawn, and took place in Vrancea County in the sector of the Romanian Second and Russian Fourth Armies. Initiated by surprise with three divisions, the offensive succeeded in disrupting the well-organized enemy defenses and compelling the Austro-Hungarians and Germans to retreat. By the evening, the Romanian divisions had conquered the first defenses, the strongest and deepest of the defensive system of the Gerok Group of the Austro-Hungarian First Army) in the Mărăști area. The next day, pursuing the offensive, the Romanian troops forced the enemy into an ever more disorderly retreat. This created favorable conditions for a deep penetration into the defensive disposition and the annihilation of the enemy group. However, under the circumstances in which the Russian High Command decided unilaterally to stall any offensive as a result of the grave situation created on the front in Galicia and Bukovina following the failure of the Kerensky Offensive and the counter-attack of the Central Powers, the Romanian General Headquarters saw itself compelled to discontinue the offensive throughout the entire territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Black Sea. In the Mărăști zone, however, the Romanian units continued the offensive until July 30 upon the request of their commander, General Alexandru Averescu. This marked the end of the Battle of Mărăști. It inflicted important losses upon the Austro-Hungarians and Germans, who relinquished a 35 km-wide and 20 km-deep area and sustained heavy casualties and losses in combat resources. The offensive potential of the Romanian army was confirmed through this victory.

The salient created by the Romanian troops in the enemy lines at the junction between the Austro-Hungarian First Army and the German Ninth Army made the High Command of the Central Powers bring forces from other sectors on the Moldavian front and change the main direction of the offensive initially planned for the Focșani-Nămoloasa region. After the Mărăști operation had been discontinued, the Central Powers tried to implement their offensive plan in the summer of 1917. They pursued to encircle and smash the Romanian and Russian forces through a blow dealt to the northwest in the direction of Focșani, Mărășești and Adjud, conjugated with another blow that had to start from the mountains through the Oituz and Trotuș valleys towards Târgu Ocna and Adjud (the Third Battle of Oituz). Pursuing the offensive, the German troops aimed at occupying the whole of Moldavia, thereby knocking Romania out of the war, and, together with an in-depth penetration of the Austro-Hungarian troops on the front in Bukovina, to push the Russian forces eastwards, beyond Odessa. The offensive of the German Ninth Army, from the Army Group Mackensen, started on 6 August 1917, when the units of the Russian Fourth Army on the Siret River were expected to leave their positions to reinforce the front in the north of Moldavia and be replaced by the divisions of the Romanian First Army (commanded by General Constantin Cristescu until 12 August, then by General Eremia Grigorescu).
For 29 days, until 3 September, this sector was the scene of the most important battle fought by the Romanian army during the 1917 campaign. The Battle of Mărășești had three distinct stages. During the first stage (6-12 August), the troops of the Romanian First Army, together with Russian forces, managed to arrest the enemy advance and forced the Germans to change the direction of their attack toward the northwest gradually. In the second stage (13-19 August), the Romanian Command completely took over the command of the battle from the Russians. The confrontation reached its climax on August 19, with the result that enemy's attempts to advance were completely thwarted. The third stage (20 August - 3 September) actually saw the last German attempt at least to improve their positions in view of a new offensive, this one also confounded by the Romanian response.

Starting on 8 August 1917, the fighting on the Mărășești front combined with an Austro-Hungarian-German offensive at Oituz. Holding out against superior enemy forces, the Romanian troops by 30 August stemmed the advance of the Gerok Group. The definitive cessation of the general offensive on the Romanian front by the Central Powers on 3 September 1917 marked a strategic defeat and a considerable weakening of their forces on the South-Eastern front. The response of the Romanian army in fact created the strongest blow to the Central Powers that was dealt in Eastern Europe in 1917.

As a result of these operations, the remaining Romanian territories remained unoccupied. Nearly 1,000,000 Central Powers troops were tied down, and *The Times* was prompted to describe the Romanian front as "The only point of light in the East".

On 22 September, Romania achieved its greatest naval success of the war, when the Austro-Hungarian river monitor SMS *Inn* struck a Romanian mine and sank near Brăila, the explosion killing the chief of staff of the Austro-Hungarian Danube Flotilla and a telegraphist and wounding 8 more sailors.

The situation, however, once again took a turn for the worse for the Entente in November 1917 with the October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Russian Civil War. These events effectively ended Russian involvement in the war and left Romania isolated and surrounded by the Central Powers. It had little choice but to negotiate the Focșani Armistice, signed by the combatants on 9 December 1917.

On 7 May 1918, in light of the existing politico-military situation, Romania was forced to conclude the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers. It imposed harsh conditions on the country, but recognized its union with Bessarabia. Alexandru Marghiloman became the new German-sponsored prime minister. King Ferdinand, however, refused to sign the treaty. The Germans were able to repair the oil fields around Ploiești and by the end of the war had pumped a million tons of oil. They also requisitioned two million tons of grain from Romanian farmers. These materials were vital in keeping Germany in the war to the end of 1918.
After the successful Vardar Offensive on the Macedonian front that knocked Bulgaria out of World War I in the autumn of 1918, Romania re-entered the war, again on the side of the Allies, on 10 November 1918, the day before it ended in Western Europe, which marked the start of the Hungarian-Romanian War.

On 28 November 1918, the Romanian representatives of Bukovina voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania, followed by the proclamation of a Union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918 by the National Assembly of Romanians of Transylvania and Hungary, gathered at Alba Iulia, while the representatives of the Transylvanian Saxons approved the act on 9 January 1919 at an assembly in Mediaș (Medgyes). A similar gathering was held by the minority Hungarians in Cluj (Kolozsvár), on 22 December, where they reaffirmed their allegiance to Hungary.

Germany agreed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles (Article 259) to renounce the benefits provided by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1918.

The Romanian occupation of Transylvania was widely resented by Hungarians, the war ended with the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Romanian army entered Budapest. They departed large parts of the country back to the demarcation lines only in early 1920.