Transylvania in 1916 - VERITAS Történetkutató Intézet

At 6 PM on January 3rd, 2017, we will host the twenty-second debate of the VERITAS Debate Nights series at the Budapest Business School. The title of the debate is Transylvania in 1916. VERITAS Research Fellow Dávid Ligeti and military historian / retired Army lieutenant colonel János Jakus will familiarize the audience with the topic, while professor emeritus / VERITAS Advisory Board member András Gergely will lead the discussion.

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On August 17th, 1916, in the Romanian capital Bucharest, the Entente Powers signed a treaty with Romania, which although neutral had been in defensive alliance with the Central Powers since 1883, whereby the Balkan country would switch sides in exchange for 110 thousand km²territory.

On August 27th, 1916, at the treaty-imposed final deadline, Romanian troops crossed the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s eastern border, which was followed by the delivery of the official Romanian declaration of war against Austria-Hungary to Vienna. Romanian aggression only added to the Dual Monarchy’s desperation, which over the course of summer during the Brusilov Offensive alone had lost more than 600 thousand troops. The Kingdom of Romania, with three armies consisting of 450 thousand troops, attacked Transylvania, which the k. u. k. First Army could defend with a total of only 34 thousand men. Over the next two weeks, nearly 10 thousand km²territory – including a sizable part of Szeklerland – came under Romanian control. This aggression led to a major exodus of Transylvanian Hungarians: for the first time during the war, the majority-Hungarian lands had been transformed into battlefields.

Neither the pace of the Romanian attack nor the overwhelming advantage in numbers, however, was up to preliminary expectations, and the Central Powers took advantage of the Romanians’ vacillation. Significant German and k. u. k. reinforcements began arriving in Transylvania, and Field Marshal August von Mackensen initiated an attack from the direction of Bulgaria. The Romanians suffered decisive defeats at Nagyszeben (Sibiu) and then Brassó (Brașov). Six weeks after initiating the invasion, not a single Romanian soldier remained in Transylvania. Continuing their counterattack, over the course of November and December the Central Powers overran Wallachia and marched victoriously into Bucharest on December 6th. At the start of 1917, the frontline stabilized along the banks of the Siret River. By the end of 1917 Romania was forced into an armistice, which was followed by a peace treaty in May 1918.

The purpose of the evening is to examine the military, political and social backgrounds of these events, while also sharing with the audience some lesser-known historical episodes, such as, for example, the atrocities committed by the Romanians.