Radio România Internațional

Tag: WW1

August 6, 2023 UPDATE

WAR President Klaus Iohannis Sunday released a message occasioned by
the centennial of the War Heroes Mausoleum in Mărăşeşti (east). The president
points out in the message that in the most important battle of the 1917 campaign
in World War I, in Mărăşeşti, the Romanian Army with support from the Allies
managed to stop the offensive of the Central Powers and stabilised the front
line for the rest of the war. Construction works on the Mausoleum, erected in
memory of the over 5,000 officers and soldiers who died then, started on August
6, 1923, at the initiative of the Romanian Orthodox Women Society, and ended in
1938. The president’s message also says that the current military conflict in
Ukraine is a reminder of the horrors of war and of the duty to strengthen
Romania’s resilience and defence capacity. A NATO and EU member state, Romania is
at present a pillar of regional stability, a major security provider in
South-Eastern Europe, and it benefits from the most reliable security
guarantees in its history, Klaus Iohannis also says in his message.

HEALTHCARE The task group entrusted with drawing up Romania’s
healthcare digitisation strategy had a first meeting in Bucharest on Sunday. According
to the line minister, Alexandru Rafila, electronic and information technologies
will improve Romanians’ access to healthcare services, will help reduce errors
and optimise management and resource planning in the sector. Calls for
proposals have already been opened for the introduction of electronic
technologies in 200 hospitals and the National Health Insurance Agency, and in
mid-August further calls will be opened for the development of the national
telemedicine system. Romania can spend EUR 400 mln for the digitisation of the public
healthcare sector, under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

FIRES The Romanian
fire-fighters deployed to Greece worked on Saturday and Sunday together with
their Greek colleagues to put out a fire in the Aragonitis area, around 55 km
from the village of Vilia, in the region of Attica, the General Inspectorate
for Emergencies announced. According to the institution, at the request of the
Greek liaison officers, the Romanian unit supported the Greek fire-fighters
with 4 fire engines, personnel rotating every 4 hours, and additional lighting
equipment. Scores of Romanian fire-fighters have already taken part, over the
past few weeks, in similar missions to support the Greek authorities manage
extensive wildfires.

CATHOLICS The South
Korean capital city Seoul will host the next edition of World Youth Day, in
2027, Pope Francis announced on Sunday during a religious service in Lisbon
held at the end of the 16th edition of the event. Initiated in 1986 by
Pope John Paul II, World Youth Day, the largest international gathering of
Catholic youth, is organised every 2 or 3 years and comprises cultural and
religious events. The 2023 edition, postponed by a year because of the Covid-19
pandemic, brought 1.5 million worshippers to Lisbon, where Pope Francis, 86, Sunday
concluded a 5-day visit to Portugal, his 42nd international trip since his election in 2013.
The World Youth Day editions with the largest numbers of participants were in Manila
in 1995 (5 million people), Rio de Janeiro (3.7 million) and Krakow (3 million).
Around 11% of South Korea’s 52-million population are Catholic.

GAMES Romania came
out 2nd in the Francophonie Games hosted by Kinshasa (Congo), after
Morocco, with a total 17 gold, 9 silver and 12 bronze medals. Third came
Cameroon. On Saturday, the Romanian athletes won 2 medals, a silver and a
bronze, in African wrestling. Romania participated in the Games with 57
athletes, competing in athletics, women’s basketball, freestyle and African
wrestling, road cycling, table tennis and judo. The 9th Francophonie
Games were held between July 28 and August 6. (AMP)

6 August 2023
Romania’s occupation during WW1, in postcards

The main role of propaganda is to mobilize citizens during difficult times for a state and its population. The amount of literature written about propaganda, war propaganda in particular, is impressive. Propaganda largely relies on image. Any type of propaganda uses image to glorify its achievements and also to ridicule or diminish the opponents strength. During WW1, propaganda centered on image was used extensively. Romania entered the Great War in August 1916 on the side of the French-English-Russian alliance, following territorial promises after two years of neutrality. But in December 1916, its southern part, or the provinces of Wallachia, Oltenia and Dobruja, as well as the capital Bucharest were occupied by the German, Austrian-Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish armies, after four months of terrible fight which claimed the lives of 300,000 Romanian soldiers. Having taken refuge in the east of the country, in Moldova, the Romanian authorities were preparing, with the support of the French military mission and the Russian army, the victorious campaign of 1917 with the battles of Marasti, Marasesti and Oituz.

Occupied in the south, Romania was forced to endure a drastic economic regime of requisitions and restrictions and the propaganda took full advantage of the situation to present the Romanian realities. Behind the realities, however, there was also an everyday life that had resumed under occupation and was caught on camera. Mihail Macri is a postcard collector and expert who has seen thousands of postcards, some of them of Romania during 1916-1918: “Postcards of the occupation armies have appeared. For instance, there was the famous Bulgarian post office in Romania. When the Bulgarians arrived in Bucharest they found some postcards on which they put some stamps of their own. They formed a kind of pseudo-philatelic cards which can now finally be collected, after such a long time. Then, when the German army came, each regiment or battalion had a photographer for its own soldiers, so that they could send letters at home, something which they were allowed to do. The German soldiers did not have any postcards so they would have a photo taken, of themselves together with a peasant woman from Titus for instance. They would send that photo home, if they were not married. If they were married, they would not be photographed in the company of a woman, obviously.”

In 1916, Romania was a country that had come out of the Ottoman sphere of influence for more than a century. During the reign of King Carol I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Romania had made notable economic progress such as building a railway network that covered the entire national territory, had a high quality oil industry, had built its capital Bucharest and other important cities such as Iasi, Craiova, Ploiesti, the port cities on the Danube and the port of Constanța on the Black Sea. However, most of the country’s population remained rural, poor and dependent on farming, and the propaganda did not hesitate to capture especially these Romanian realities.

Mihail Macri: “Propaganda postcards were made by the Germans in Romania and they were the ugliest postcards about Romanians that have ever existed. The Germans would not photograph any building in Bucharest, but pick a tavern in Colentina, a district that was not even part of Bucharest at that time, whose damaged roof was supported not by a pillar but by a stick, and had a few tables on the terrace. In the middle of the street, on the way to the tavern, there was a pig in a puddle. The Germans were supposedly showing the state the country was in when they occupied us. There was not one single beautiful and elegant woman in the German photographs and postcards, no national theater or royal palace, nothing. ”

But German propaganda also captured, intentionally or not, parts of the daily life of ordinary Romanians. Mihail Macri: “The only beautiful things they photographed were the fairs, two or three of them being close-ups, which Romania could not do at the time. They were beautiful because they showed all kinds of sellers from that era, including some who were doing their work at home. They had tools in their hands, so as to be recognized by the customers who needed their services. Our postcards were also propaganda, anti-Bulgarian propaganda, and they were the most beautiful such postcards. Paradoxically, the most beautiful Bulgarian books were the anti-Romanian propaganda books. King Carol had the face of a mouse and ears bigger than a mouse, meaning he looked a little like a donkey. Not to mention what the famous Tsar Ferdinand looked like in Romanian postcards, with a huge nose, and usually with a kick in the back. There was no need for text, the message was obvious. The aftermath of the war was also presented in postcards, less in our country than in France, for instance, where many postcards showed what the war meant.”

Seen through the eyes of German propaganda, Romania was, between 1916 and 1918, an underdeveloped territory, a wild land. That was, of course, a gross simplification, an important aspect of propaganda.

9 November 2020
The Treaty of Bucharest

Romanias military campaign of 1916-1917 ended with the Treaty of Bucharest signed in Buftea in May 1918. Following the installation of the Soviet regime in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, the new power in Saint Petersburg denounced the war as an imperialist act and decided to end its involvement in the war.

Left on its own on the entire eastern front, Romania was forced to request a peace deal as well, which translated into very harsh conditions. Russias leaving the war was a heavy blow to Romania, and was felt like a betrayal. The Romanian army was unable to face the German offensive on its own, due to the loss of human lives caused by typhus fever. This was made worse by the anarchy caused by the 1 million Russian soldiers supporting the Bolshevik revolution. Peace was therefore seen as the only means of salvaging what could still be salvaged.

Historian Sorin Cristescu tells us more about the context in Europe in which Russia left the war and in which the two successive peace deals were signed:

Sorin Cristescu: “Russias exiting the war following the Bolshevik coup of November 7th 1917 led to the start of peace talks. Lenin was brought from Switzerland by the Germans, via Sweden and Finland, for this very purpose: to stage a coup that would take over power and sign a separate peace deal so the Germans troops could move from Russia to France and win the war. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on the 3rd of March 1918, followed by the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest with Romania on the 7th of May 1918. This was a bad deal for Romania, which lost control of its mountain borders to Austria-Hungary. Also, Dobrogea became a German-Bulgarian condominium, with Romania only maintaining an access path. Its oil wells were leased for 90 years, so indeed, this was an enslaving peace deal.

Under the Treaty of Bucharest, Romania had to cede southern Dobrogea to Bulgaria and even part of northern Dobrogea, a region that had never belonged to Bulgaria. Also, Romania ceded control of the passes in the Carpathian Mountains to Austria-Hungary. In compensation, although this was not stated in the Treaty, the Central Powers agreed to the union of Bessarabia with Romania. The reason behind it was that the Central Powers did not want to spark too much hostility among the Romanian population over the territorial losses and the leasing of its resources.

The Treaty was ratified by the Romanian Parliament in the summer of 1918, but it has never been promulgated by King Ferdinand I of Romania. Fortunately, the provisions of the Treaty were valid for six months alone, because at the end of October 1918, the government led by Alexandru Marghiloman declared them null, and Romania resumed hostilities. In spite of all appearances, Sorin Cristescu believes, the Treaty of Bucharest was a good one for Romania.

Sorin Cristescu: No matter how enslaving the conditions were for Romania, the peace treaty signed in Buftea-Bucharest was a huge diplomatic victory for the Triple Entente, also acknowledged as such by the German Parliament. Some German MPs said that, “from this moment onwards, no one can sit at the negotiating table with us. It became obvious that the Central Powers, their leaders, more specifically, were a gang of thieves, criminals looting the countries they defeated, and never again could the diplomats of the Central Powers engage in negotiations with anyone else. The US had already entered the war and introduced a policy whereby “my enemy will never be my negotiation partner, my enemy is a petty criminal and if I lay hands on him, Ill bring him to justice. The idea that Central Power leaders could ever hold negotiations with anyone again was abandoned for good. Of course, posters were printed in France, reading “Look what a peace made by the Central Powers looks like! and “Do they want peace? Yes, but let us defeat them first! The more disastrous the peace conditions were for us, the bigger the diplomatic defeat and the blow on the credibility of the German diplomacy.

Sorin Cristescu says the Germans had started losing credibility much earlier, even before 1918:

Sorin Cristescu: This happened in 1918. But back in 1914, when newspapers quoted Bethmann-Hollweg, the German chancellor, as responding to Englands declaration of war with the words, “will you go to war over a scrap of paper? everyone said that the German diplomacy sees treaties as useless pieces of paper. The treaty that guaranteed Belgiums neutrality was signed in 1831 by the representatives of England, France and Prussia. After Bucharest was seized on December 6, 1916, on December 12 a rather vague peace offer was sent to the Entente by the Central Powers. The answer came several days later. The Entente said that peace was out of the question, that the offer had been made by people who first thought they would win the war in three months time but after 2 years of fighting realised they would never reach their goals. The final act was the signing of the two peace treaties, in Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest, respectively, which simply ruled out German diplomats as possible negotiation partners.

Although the end of the war found Romania on the winners side, the peace treaty of Buftea-Bucharest remained a bad memory which has never been completely erased.

(translated by: Cristina Mateescu, Diana Vijeu)

6 March 2017
August 29, 2016

EARTHQUAKE – A Romanian citizen is still missing, after last weeks earthquake in Italy. According to data made public by the Romanian Foreign Ministry, a total of 11 Romanians died, and 6 were injured. The Minister delegate for relations with the Romanian diaspora, Maria Ligor, had talks with officials of the Italian Civil Protection Department and with Romanian nationals currently living in tents in Amatrice, the village the most severely affected by the quake. PM Dacian Cioloş has convened a special Cabinet meeting today, to look at ways to assist the Romanian citizens affected by the earthquake in Italy and their families.

DIPLOMACY – PM Dacian Cioloş said on Monday, at the Annual Meeting of Romanian Diplomats, that Bucharest has been denied access to the visa-free Schengen area for political reasons for more than 5 years. Romania, Ciolos added, believes in the revival capacity of the European project and is determined to invest its diplomatic and political resources to that end. According to Dacian Ciolos, a crisis-management approach has used up political energy and time this past year. The meeting in Bucharest focuses on security developments, the dynamics of EU internal processes and preparations for Romanias first turn at the EU Council presidency in the first half of 2019. The participants will also discuss means to strengthen the capacity to provide professional consular assistance, in order to protect the interests and rights of the Romanians traveling or living abroad.

KING MICHAEL – Romanias former sovereign, King Michael I, currently in a stable medical state, is grieving, but is supported by the love and respect of his family and looked after with flawless professionalism by his physicians, His Majestys Press Office reported. The news release comes after media speculated that, according to a representative of the Bishopric Palace in Curtea de Argeş, where Romanian royalty are buried, Prince Radu had said King Michaels health was worsening and signals were not positive. According to the Royal House of Romania, Prince Radu said the King was in a frail state, which, given his age and diagnosis, was declining. Any other speculations, assumptions or allegations are untrue, the Press Office added. Poor health recently prevented the former sovereign from attending the funeral of his wife, Queen Anne.

ANTI-CORRUPTION – The head of the Intelligence and Internal Protection Department of the Romanian Interior Ministry, Rareş Văduva, has been indicted by the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. According to judicial sources, charges include abuse of office and obstruction of justice, as well as favouring an offender. The same sources said the charges are related to proceedings that had been disjoinded from the case in which the former Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea was sent to court. According to the Anti-Corruption Directorate, during his term in office Gabriel Oprea increased the budget of the Interior Ministrys secret service in order to buy a limousine for his personal use.

WORLD WAR 1 – Bucharest is hosting today a roundtable, a military exercise and a military music concert devoted to the commemoration of 100 years since Romania joined the First World War. On Sunday, in his address given at the opening of commemoration ceremonies, the President of Romania Klaus Iohannis paid tribute to the heroes who sacrificed their lives and called for the construction of a strong and dignified Romanian state. The commemoration of World War One is the strongest argument in favour of the European project, Iohannis added, defining it as the most comprehensive political and cultural project aimed at building the dialogue and understanding among Europeans.

DEFENCE – The Romanian Defence Minister, Mihnea Motoc, is on an official visit to Slovakia today, where he is taking part in the commemoration of the anti-Nazi insurrection during World War 2. He will also visit the Romanian military cemetery in Zvolen, where a ceremony will be held to commemorate the Romanian troops who died in battles to free Slovakia from Nazi occupation. Motoc will have a meeting with his Slovakian counterpart, Peter Gajdos, to discuss means to strengthen the bilateral military cooperation and cooperation within NATO and the EU.

US OPEN – Four Romanians are today playing their first matches at the US Open, the final grand slam of the season. Irina Begu (22 WTA) will take on Ukraines Lesia Tsurenko (80 WTA), Monica Niculescu (57 WTA) will play against the Czech Barbora Strycova (19 WTA), and Ana Bogdan, 117 WTA, will play against another Romanian, Sorana Cirstea, 88 WTA. Two other Romanians will enter the competition on Tuesday. Simona Halep (no. 5 in the world), will face Belgiums Kirsten Flipkens (68 WTA), and Patricia Maria Tig (129 WTA) will play against Laura Siegemund, from Germany, 28 WTA.

(translated by: Ana-Maria Popescu)

29 August 2016