General Elia Stifflier, new Romanian chief of the general staff since early 1942, organized the mobilization and deployment of a contingent that reached its peak in November 1942.

464,000 soldiers at the front, including 83,300 stationed in Transnistria.

It was a colossal effort for a country of approximately 16 million inhabitants.

The third Romanian army under general command of Petra Dumitrescu was deployed on the northern flank of the Stalingrad front along the Dawn River.

The fourth Romanian army partially reorganized covered the southern flank.

Both formations occupied extremely long positions with scarce anti-tank artillery, obsolete armored vehicles, and divisions that in some cases defended fronts up to 40 km wide with forces designed to hold onethird of that extension.

Romanian officers repeatedly warned their German counterparts that their positions were unsustainable if the Red Army launched a massive offensive.

General Dumatrescu sent reports detailing Soviet troop concentrations north of the dawn.

General Stephier presented his concerns directly to the German command.

The warnings were ignored or minimized.

The high command of the German Southern Army underestimated Soviet offensive capability and believed the Romanians were exaggerating their difficulties.

On November 19th, 1942, at 7:30 in the morning, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus.

After several days of artillery preparation described by witnesses as a continuous roar, audible dozens of kilometers away, Soviet tanks broke through the Third Romanian army lines on the northern flank.

The frozen ground facilitated armored movement.

Romanian positions dug into frozen soil atus20° C collapsed within hours in the sectors where Soviet concentration was greatest.

The following day, November 20th, a second Soviet force attacked the southern flank where the fourth Romanian army was stationed.

In less than 72 hours, the two Soviet pins closed at Kak on the Dawn River, completing the encirclement of the sixth German army of Field Marshal Friedrich Pus inside Stalingrad.

The two Romanian armies had been the entry point of the largest encirclement of the war.

Romanian casualties at Stalingrad and its surroundings were catastrophic.

It is estimated that the third army lost about 75% of its combat strength.

Tens of thousands of Romanian soldiers were taken prisoner.

Others died during the retreat across the snowy step.

Survivors returned to Romania with accounts of abandonment.

Promised German reinforcements did not arrive in time.

anti-tank weapons were insufficient and when the front collapsed, retreating German units occupied trains and trucks, leaving Romanian soldiers on foot in the cold.

The relationship between the allies deteriorated after Stalingrad.

The Germans blamed the Romanians for failing to hold.

The Romanians blamed the Germans for not equipping or reinforcing them.

Retreating German soldiers were photographed pushing Romanians off trains and ejecting them from shelters.

General Stefleer submitted his resignation in August 1942 after being insulted by Antonescu over the performance of the general staff.

Although he did not carry it out, he would submit it again in April 1944, also without definitive result.

The Stalingrad episode had another consequence that took months to become visible but proved decisive.

King Mihi I who in 1941 had openly supported the anti-communist crusade and even complained that Antonescu prevented him from visiting the front more frequently began distancing himself from the conjucator.

The massive defeat, the treatment Romanian soldiers received from their German allies and the growing perception that Germany could not win the war planted in the young monarch the seeds of the betrayal that would germinate 2 years later.

Despite the disaster, Romania continued fighting.

In 1943, it maintained 110,000 soldiers in the Caucuses and Crimea.

Its warships escorted Axis convoys in the Black Sea.

Its ports handled Turkish chromium required by German factories to manufacture highquality steel, and the oil from Pyestee continued flowing toward the Reich.

Germany’s dependence on Romania had not diminished.

It had become more urgent as the overall military situation deteriorated.

Blood in the Pova Valley, the oil that fuels the war.

Before the war, the oil fields of the Proo Valley produced about 3% of world oil.

That modest figure concealed a geopolitical reality of first magnitude.

For Nazi Germany, which had no significant domestic hydrocarbon sources, Romanian oil was the literal fuel of its war capability.

The Pyesti refineries processed most of that production.

The city with about 100,000 inhabitants in 1940 was dominated by distillation towers and chimneys burning day and night.

The smell of crude oil permeated the air for kilometers around the refineries.

Colombia, Aquila, Astra, Romana, Standard Petrol, Concordia, Vega were industrial complexes several kilometers wide each with storage tanks, pipelines, railway tracks, and thousands of workers in continuous shifts.

Along the Danube River, barges loaded with refined oil sailed north toward the heart of the Reich.

The Allied high command understood early the strategic importance of Pyesti.

In June 1942, the 15th Air Force of the United States carried out a first bombing raid that proved ineffective.

On August 1st, 1943, the Americans attempted their boldest attack up to that point, Operation Tidal Wave, in which 178 Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers flew at low altitude, some below 30 m above rooftops, toward the refineries.

The operation was a disaster for the attackers.

54 aircraft were shot down.

532 crew members were killed or captured and five pilots earned the Medal of Honor that day.

The refineries were damaged, but not destroyed.

The systematic air campaign began in earnest in the spring of 1944.

Starting on April 4th of that year, when the United States 15th Air Force under the command of General Major Nathan Fining began sustained attacks, Romania entered a new phase of the war.

American bombers attacked by day.

British and Soviet bombers mined the Danube at night to hinder river transport of oil toward Germany.

The Royal Air Force focused on the iron gates pass near the Serbian border, the bottleneck every barge had to cross.

The Soviet air force attacked the Danube Delta branches.

The first major attack on Bucharest on April 4th, 1944 caught the capital unprepared.

The railway station was crowded with refugees fleeing the northeastern front.

The bombs killed 2,942 civilians and left 2,126 wounded in a single day.

That was only the beginning.

Between April and August 1944, American bombers destroyed 157 locomotives, 619 passenger cars, 310 freight wagons, and 1,525 tanker cars.

Civilian material damage was enormous.

7,600 dead, 7,600 wounded, and 46,523 houses destroyed.

By June 1944, aerial coordination between Soviets and Western allies had reached a notable level.

A bombing line dividing Romanian airspace was established.

Everything west of the Budapest Pyesti Bucharest Constant line was assigned to the US 15th Air Force and the Royal Air Force.

Everything east was assigned to the Soviet Air Force.

The combined objective was simple.

Deprive German Panza forces of fuel before summer ended.

Romanian anti-air defenses strengthened by years of preparation came under increasing pressure.

The Romanian Air Force lost so many pilots and aircraft in battles against American bombers that in August 1944, it decided to suspend fighter operations, reserving remaining aircraft for the expected Soviet offensive.

On August 18th, 1944, in the last combined German Romanian air effort, the defenders managed to shoot down several bombers, but suffered unsustainable losses.

Oil was also the central argument that Adolf Hitler used in his final meeting with Antonescu held between August 5th and 6th, 1944 at the Wolf Shanza, the Furer’s headquarters in East Prussia.

Surrounded by his general staff, the two dictators debated the strategy to defend Romania.

Antonescu argued for an immediate withdrawal to the so-called FNB line, Fakani Namaloasa Brya, a defensive position 90 km wide crossing the Foxani pass.

the natural gate toward the Wakian plane.

Hitler refused.

The Furer knew that losing control of the terrain meant losing the oil, and without oil, the war was lost.

He ordered the advanced positions in Mulavia and Bessarabia to be held.

It was the last time the two leaders met.

On March 4th, 1944, the Soviet high command, Stavka, launched a spring offensive from Ukraine that surprised the command of the German Southern Army Group both in speed and scope.

In less than 2 weeks, tanks of the second Ukrainian front captured Vapniaka, a railway junction in Transnistria barely 50 km from the Dnista River.

On March 15th, the German Army Group A, soon renamed Army Group South Ukraine, took control of Transnistria, the territory Romanians had administered for nearly 3 years.

On March 18th, Soviet troops crossed the Nista into northern Basarabia.

Eight days later they crossed the Prut into northern Mulavia without the Romanians being able to organize coherent defense.

Forces of the first Ukrainian front pressed simultaneously from the north.

On March 26th, the city of Chernipi, regional capital of Bukavina fell without combat.

For Army Group South Ukraine, the situation was critical.

The advanced front had disintegrated and the road into the Romanian interior seemed open.

The Romanian general staff ordered on March 15th the remobilization of the fourth army to defend national territory.

But with most of its troops still in Crimea, the Romanians initially could commit only one army corps and an improvised armored group.

The Soviets advanced faster than the Romanians could organize a defense.

Joseph Stalin and Stavka identified Yasi, regional capital of Mulavia, and Chisinau, capital of Bessarabia, as the main targets of the new offensive.

The logic was clear.

Capturing these two cities would prevent Axis forces from organizing a solid defensive line blocking the Foxani pass, the gateway to the Wakian plane where Bucharest and the Pyesti refineries were located.

If both cities fell, the Antonescu regime could collapse even before the Soviets reached the country’s heart.

Soviet and Romanian diplomats began meeting secretly in Stockholm to explore the terms of a possible armistice.

But Antonescu refused to allow those conversations to reach any result.

He still believed Germany could stabilize the front and that yielding to the Soviets meant the destruction of everything he had built.

On April 8th, 1944, the second Ukrainian front under General Rodian Malininovski, born in Odessa in 1898, an illegitimate child who had fought in the First World War, the Russian civil war, the Spanish war, and on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War, attacked southward into Mulavia, targeting YC.

At the same time, Soviet forces launched a separate offensive to recover Crimea.

On April 10th, Odisa fell, finally convincing Hitler to order the evacuation of Crimea.

Evacuated troops arrived in Constant on the Black Sea, disoriented and demoralized, unable to contribute effectively to the defense of Mulavia.

The army group South Ukraine reorganized with the German 8th Army, the German 6th Army, the Romanian Fourth Army, and the Romanian Third Army managed to stabilize the front around April 17th.

The hilly terrain of Mulavia and Bess Arabia, very different from the flat Ukrainian steps, favored the defenders.

The Romanian railway network, called in official propaganda the second army, still functioned with remarkable efficiency, allowing rapid troop and supply movement.

Roads turned into mud by spring rains slowed Soviet advance as much as German and Romanian resistance.

The Soviets tried to retake Targuumos on May 2nd, but German Panza units and Romanian infantry stopped the attack after a week of fighting.

It was a tactical axis victory that bought time to reorganize defenses and build three lines.

The Dicia line at the front, the Trajan line as the main position, and the Desabal line as a fallback position.

Tens of thousands of Romanian civilians, including Jewish labor detachments, organized in segregated work groups by order of the Romanian general staff, dug trenches, anti-tank ditches, and concrete bunkers during the summer of 1944.

On May 26th, Stafka ordered the indefinite suspension of the Romanian offensive and transferred a tank army to Bellarus for Operation Operation Bration, which would begin on June 22nd.

But the pause in Romania was only that, a pause.

Stalin was already planning the decisive blow for the summer.

The collapse, the second Aasi Chisinau offensive, August 1944.

On August 19th, 1944, the two Soviet fronts began probing Axis defenses along the Aasi front and the Dista River.

These were not casual reconnaissance attacks.

They were the prelude to what Stavka had prepared for weeks.

The largest Soviet offensive in the southern sector of the front during all of 1944.

The army group South Ukraine commanded by General Obururst Johannes Friesner recently transferred from the Baltic where he had commanded Army Group North knew the attack was imminent.

Fner himself wrote to the Furer expressing alarm over the political situation in Romania and requesting centralized command of all German forces in the country.

The request was rejected.

Adolf Hitler ordered the advanced positions to be held.

Fner had little room for maneuver.

His armored forces had been reduced to a minimum after transfers to Bellarus and other front sectors.

Where there had once been nine Panza and Panza Grenadier divisions, in August 1944, only three remained, all far below their theoretical strength.

On August 20th at 5:15 in the morning, artillery of the second Ukrainian front opened fire on Axis positions north of Podu Ilo and northwest of Aasi.

The bombardment lasted almost 2 hours.

Telephone lines connecting frontline units with their headquarters were cut within minutes.

The Romanian Fifth Infantry Division, which had launched its own counterattack 45 minutes before the Soviet bombardment, was caught in the open and practically annihilated.

The air was burning, recalled years later a Romanian second left tenant who survived the first day of the offensive.

The tanks of the Soviet Sixth Tank Army advanced behind a rolling artillery fire curtain under the cover of 1,952 aircraft concentrated by the Soviets over the breakthrough sectors.

The roughly 300 German and Romanian aircraft available could not match such superiority.

By 12:30 p.

m.

, elements of the 27th Soviet Army had crossed the Bahalooi River, one of the Axis defensive axes in the Yasi area.

By 1 p.

m.

, the road to Yasi was open.

The Romanian 7th Infantry Division collapsed.

The German 76th Infantry Division, threatened with encirclement, had to retreat.

By about 300 p.

m.

, soldiers of the 52nd Soviet Army entered Yasi from the northwest.

Antonescu flew from Bucharest to Bako to meet General Guyorga Avamescu, acting commander of the fourth army and general Ottover Vera, commanding the German Ver Army Group.

The meeting lasted 4 hours.

Aramscu and his officers advocated immediate withdrawal to the FNB line.

Antonescu and General Elis Deflair were not yet ready for such a drastic decision.

Verer opposed any retreat and demanded counterattacks.

While the generals debated, the front continued collapsing.

The third Ukrainian front under General Fodor Tolbukin attacked simultaneously from the Chitkani bridge head on the Denista.

The Romanian Fourth Mountain Division disintegrated within hours.

The German 306th Infantry Division suffered losses of up to 1/3 of its infantry before the 37th Soviet Army crossed from the bridge head.

With no reserves available in the area, the right flank of the German 6th Army was exposed.

On August 21st, Axis counterattacks failed one after another.

The Romanian first armored division, organized into two battle groups reinforced with German assault guns, fought desperately, but could not close the gaps opened.

The Soviet 18th Tank Corps stopped the counterattack of the German 10th Panza Grenadier Division and destroyed the forward elements of the Romanian Third Infantry Division.

By midday, the Romanian Sixth Corps had practically ceased to exist as a combat unit.

The front collapse was complete.

In the afternoon of August 22nd, the Soviet Sixth Tank Army had reached as far south as Barlad, halfway toward the FNB line.

The German 6th Army in Besser Arabia was desperately trying to reach the bridges over the Prut before the Soviets cut them.

The German 13th Panza Division lost the remainder of its tanks in futile attempts to block the Soviet armored columns.

On the night of August 22nd, the crossing over the Prut at Uneni fell into Soviet hands.

In Bau, General Aramescu, fed up with contradictory orders and convinced that Antonescu might again be dissuaded by the Germans from ordering withdrawal, submitted his resignation at 8:45 p.

m.

He did not wait for a response.

Without transmitting German orders to his subordinates, he left them to continue the nighttime retreat.

On August 23rd, when the sun rose over Mulavia, Army Group South Ukraine had largely disintegrated.

Mixed German and Romanian units with soldiers on bicycles, on horseback, in horsedrawn carts, and on foot, desperately searched for escape routes westward across the Cirate River or south toward the FNB line.

Panic was written on everyone’s faces and gestures.

The fear of not reaching the bridge in time, recalled a Romanian anti-aircraft second left tenant trapped in the route near Tuchi.

The palace coup August 23rd 1944 While the front was collapsing a 22-year-old king in Bucharest was setting in motion the most audacious plan of his life.

Michael I of Romania had begun distancing himself from Antonescu after Stalinrad.

During 1943 and the early months of 1944, the monarch strengthened his contacts with leaders of the banned historical parties, the National Peasants Party of Yulio Manu and the National Liberal Party of Guj Bratanu, and built a small circle of military conspirators loyal to him, mostly officers of the royal household or generals removed from active service by Antonescu.

In parallel, Manu had maintained contact since 1940 with the British Special Operations Executive, trying unsuccessfully to convince the Western Allies to negotiate directly with the Romanian opposition.

The response from Washington and London was always the same.

They had to deal with Moscow.

This restriction deeply shaped the king’s calculations.

If the Western Allies would not intervene in the Balkans, and the Allied deception operations designed to make Hitler believe in a possible landing in the region were exactly that, a deception, then Romania could not expect Americans or British troops to arrive before the Soviets.

What Michael I of Romania could do was try to extract the best possible armistice terms from negotiations inevitably conducted with Moscow and do so before Romanian territory was completely occupied by the Red Army while still having something to bargain with.

The military core of the plan was Colonel Dumitru Damasanu, Chief of Staff of the Capital Military Command, which controlled about 7,000 soldiers, police officers, and support units in Bucharest and its surroundings.

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