The Treaty of Bucharest, signed on August 10, 1913, between Bulgaria on one hand and Greece, Montenegro, Romania, and Serbia on the other, ended the Second Balkan War. By June 1913, the Balkan League of 1912 had fractured because of a dispute between Bulgaria, and Greece and Serbia over the disposition of territories
seized from the Ottomans during the First Balkan War, especially Macedonia. On the night of 29-30 June 29–30, Bulgarian troops undertook preemptive attacks on Greek and Serbian positions in southeastern Macedo- nia. The Second Balkan War ensued, and Ottoman and Romanian forces joined in the attacks on Bulgaria.
With most of its army committed in Mac- edonia, Bulgaria could not oppose the Otto- man and Romanian invasions. The new Bulgarian government of Vasil Radoslavov (1854–1929) sought a way out of this catastro- phe. On July 20, 1913, the Bulgarians began talks in Nisˇ, Serbia. These continued until July 24, when they shifted to Bucharest. At Bucharest, the Bulgarians had to cede southern Dobrudzha to Romania, southeastern Macedonia to Greece, and Macedonia west of the Vardar River watershed to Serbia. The Montenegrin delegation was present in Bucharest mainly to support the Serbs. In doing so, the Montenegrins sought a favorable division with Serbia of the sanjak of Novi Pazar. The Treaty of Bucharest left Romania as the largest and strongest power in the Bal- kans. It also greatly increased the territories of Greece and Serbia. For Bulgaria, the Treaty of Bucharest was a disaster. The Treaty of Bucharest superseded the ephemeral Treaty of London. Bulgaria went to war two years later on the side of the Central Powers largely to reverse the Bucharest decision.
Richard C. Hall
See also: Balkan War, Second, 1913; Bulgaria in the Balkan Wars; Constantinople, Treaty of, 1913; Greece in the Balkan Wars; Montenegro in the Balkan Wars; Romania in the Balkan Wars; Serbia in the Balkan Wars
Further Reading
Hall, Richard C. The Balkan Wars, 1912– 1913: Prelude to the First World War. London: Routledge, 2000.
Helmreich, E. C. The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars, 1912–1913. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.
Rossos, Andrew. Russia and the Balkans: Inter-Balkan Rivalries and Russian Foreign Policy 1908–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
Bucharest, Treaty of, 1918
The Treaty of Bucharest temporarily ended Romanian participation in World War I. Romania entered the war in August 1916, after the success of the Russian Brusilov offensives weakened the Austro-Hungarian army. France and Russia guaranteed Roma- nia territorial compensation in Transylvania, Bukovina, and the Banat.
In response to Romanian entry, former German chief of staff General Erich von Falkenhayn (1861–1922) organized a com- bined German, Austrian, and Bulgarian force that struck Romania on three fronts and seized the capital of Bucharest on December 5. The loss of 310,000 men in four months impelled Romania to sign the Armistice of Foc¸sani in December 1916. Hostilities resumed the following year, and Austrian and German armies defeated most of the remaining Romanian units in a summer offensive. In March 1918, Romania agreed to a second armistice.
The Treaty of Bucharest was signed in the Romanian capital on May 7, 1918, just three months after Russia signed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. As with that treaty, the Treaty of Bucharest imposed ruthless terms on the loser. It stipulated that Romania cede passes in the Carpathian Mountains to Austria- Hungary, leaving Romania’s northern bor- der practically indefensible. Romania also had to cede the Dobrudja (Dobrudzha) region on the Black Sea to Bulgaria, leaving eastern Romania open to invasion from the
sea. The northern half of Dobrudja, north of the city of Constanta, was to be ruled as a German-Austria-Bulgarian mandate, while Bulgaria annexed outright the southern half. (Bulgaria had lost southern Dobrudja to Romania through the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest that concluded the Second Balkan War.) Strategically, the loss of the northern half hurt Romania more, as it meant the loss of all three mouths of the Danube River. In compensation, the treaty author- ized Romania to annex Bessarabia, which had become a Soviet republic in Decem- ber 1917, then an independent republic in March 1918.
The Treaty of Bucharest also imposed harsh economic terms. Germany received a 90-year lease on Romanian oil fields and nearly unlimited rights to export Romanian grain and raw materials. In the span of 18 months, the Germans seized 1 million tons of oil and 2 million tons of grain. These resources helped make possible the Ludendorff offensives and sustained the German war economy.
The one-sided terms of the treaties of Bucharest and Brest Litovsk eroded any lin- gering Allied sentiment for a lenient peace toward the Central Powers. But even these terms were not enough for the German mili- tary. Generals Erich Ludendorff (1865– 1937) and Paul von Hindenburg (1847– 1934) demanded outright annexation of Romania. German diplomat Richard von Kuhlmann (1873–1948) objected, believing that it was important to respect the ambi- tions of Germany’s allies. Furthermore, Ger- many had promised southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria early in the war, and Kuhlmann argued that it was important to honor that pledge. Ludendorff and Hindenburg had already lost a similar battle with Kuhlmann over annexing Lithuania. The generals began a media campaign, supported by
German industrialists, to discredit Kuhl- mann, but the campaign was unsuccessful.
An intimidated Romanian parliament signed the Treaty of Bucharest, but King Ferdinand I (of the Hohenzollern dynasty) delayed affixing his signature to it. The change in Germany’s military fortunes in the summer of 1918 made it easier for Romania to postpone ratification, and it never actually completed the process. In October, Romania officially renounced the treaty and reentered the war.
Despite its poor performance in the war, Romania benefited greatly from the Allied victory. The subsequent Treaty of Trianon with Hungary and the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria not only reversed the Treaty of Bucharest, but brought Romania signifi- cant territorial gains.
Michael S. Neiberg
See also: Bessarabia; Dobrudja; Romania in World War I
Further Reading
Hitchins, Keith. Rumania, 1866–1947. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
Kitchen, Martin, “Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Rumania.” Slavonic and East European Review 54 (1976): 214–30.
Torrey, Glenn E. Romania and World War I: A Collection of Studies. Portland, OR: Center for Romanian Studies, 1998.
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region in Central Europe that has been divided between Roma- nia and Ukraine since 1944. From the 500s until the mid-1300s, the region was part of several successive states until it became the nucleus of the Principality of Moldavia. The Treaty of Ku¨c¸u¨k Kaynarca, ending the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–1774, awarded
Bukovina to the Hapsburgs, who annexed the province in January 1775 and first officially used the name “Bukovina.” During the 1800s, the province experienced several administrative arrangements until it became a separate province in February 1861, a status that lasted until October 1918. By 1900, Ukrainians composed the majority in the northern part of the province, and Romanians in the southern half. The province also had substantial German and Jewish minorities and small numbers of Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks, and Slovenes.
During World War I, the Austro- Hungarian and German armies fought sev- eral battles in Bukovina against the Russians and drove them out in 1917. With the col- lapse of Austria-Hungary in October 1918, both the Romanian National Council and the Ukrainian National Council claimed the region. In late 1918, Romanian troops occupied Bukovina, despite Ukrainian protests, and the 1919 Treaty of Saint Germain awarded the province to Romania. During the interwar years, the Romanian government attempted to “Romanize” the Ukrainians but relented somewhat in the 1930s to improve relations with the Soviet Union.
On June 26, 1940, the Soviet Union demanded that Romania cede to it northern Bukovina and, two days later, occupied this region, which it then incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). Following the 1940 Soviet occupation, about 250,000 Romanians fled northern Bukovina to Romania, and the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, killed or deported to Siberia most of those who did not. In 1940–1941, about 170,000 Germans were resettled to German-occupied western Poland (Warthegau).
In late June 1941, the Romanian army reoccupied northern Bukovina. Between
June 1941 and August 1944, Romanian and German authorities murdered or caused the death of about 60,000 Bukovinian Jews, approximately 50 percent of the prewar Jewish population. The Soviet army returned in late August 1944. The 1947 Paris Peace Treaty formally awarded northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, which again became a part of the Ukrainian SSR (Ukraine after 1991), and southern Bukovina to Romania, confirming the permanent division of the historical region.
Robert B. Kane
See also: Bessarabia; Romania in World War II
Further Reading
DeLuca, Anthony R., and Paul D. Quinlan. Romania, Culture, and Nationalism: A Tribute to Radu Florescu. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1998.
Dima, Nicholas. From Moldavia to Moldova: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1991.
Georgescu, Vlad, and Matei Calinescu. The Romanians: A History. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1991.
Gold, Hugo, ed. History of the Jews in Buko- vina. Tel Aviv: “Olamenyu,” 1958–1962. Originally published in German. English translation on the Internet.