And here it goes:
Romania decides to sit ww1 out like usual, leading to the aging King Carol I (of Hohenzollern stock) dying shortly after. The new king and government are even more commited to squeeze everything they can out of both side through trade, which gets more and more advantageous as the months and years go by. They also wisely decide not to accept paper money after a while, instead opting for either gold/silver or investments such as the building of german factories with german know-how and german machines in the major Romanian cities.
Come 1916 and Bucharest still cant come to an agreement with the Entente regarding territorial concessions, so they continues staying neutral, a stance reinforced later by Russia's abysmal performance and later drop-out.
By late 1918 however it's obvious the CP are on their last legs, though a clear brakethrough has yet to be made. The Entente offer Romania all the concessions they got OTL, and Romania enters the war with an invasion of Bulgaria heading straight for Sofia, just like 5 years earlier during the second balkan war. Bulgarian morale, already stressed to braking point by years of war and hardship, finally breaks, and the country sues for peace.
The chain reaction caused by this leads to Germany throwing in the towel. Meanwhile, in Bulgaria, the Romanian army is busy shamefully looting the place bare (just like OTL in Hungary in 1919).
With the war over, Austria-Hungary breaks apart. Transilvania decides to join Romania, though Hungary will have none of that and refuse, this leading to war with both Romania and Czechoslovakia . The Honved manages to retake Slovakia, though fares poorly against the Romanian army, and, soon enough, Romanian soldiers are seen parading through Budapest while Horthy comes to power backed by Romanian arms (all just like OTL).
Romania thus gains Transilvania from Hungary, as well as at the subsequent peace table, a small bit of land called Serbian Banat (located north of the Danube, south of the Romanian border) that OTL went to Serbia. Other areas joinig Romania, just like OTL, are Bukovina from the now deceased A-H, and the former tsarist province of Basarabia bordering Romania (which had been occupied by A-H following brest-litovsk).
Other concessions gained by Romania at alt-Versailles is a promise by France to buy romanian grain (instead of investing in colonies like indochina and then buying it from there).
Thus, at the end of ww1, Romania stands far better than OTL. It has a bit more land (serbian banat), a lot more stuff gained via trade (CP direct investments, Russian and CP gold and silver) or plunder (Bulgaria and Hungary instead of just Hungary) as well as lot more stuff that isn't lost (things destroyed during the war OTL, taken during the occupation or traded for nothing following defeat to the CP, or the gold reserve lost in Russia during the revolution - and thus no post-war hyperinflation). Also, there is no awful harvest of 1919 thanks to there being enough seeds (that OTL went to feed the CP), and, as said, no hyper-inflation
In the interwar period, the economy develops somewhat better than OTL thanks to a better head-start and favorable trade with France. There is some industrialisation, with factories for agricultural machines being built more than OTL. Land reform is carried out, though it institutes and encourages private collectives capable of investing in their land and succesfully selling their produce instead of subsistence farmers. Education is just like OTL, with lots of people, particularly in the growing cities, learing how to read and write. Universities are built and expanded.
Also, as part of gov. policy, lots of Russian emmigrants (particulrly middle-class capitalists) fleeing the bolsheviks are encouraged to settle in Romania, provided they bring with them what capital they had and invest it locally. Germans and Austrians with critical skills (engineering, chemistry, etc) are also given substantial incentives to settle in Romania as their own countries seem to collapse.
In the late 30', a fascistic resurgent Germany begins to pressure the allies for territorial concessions. Czechoslovakia is broken up. Carpathian Ruthenia, instead of allowing itself to be eaten up by Hungary, opts for a personal union with Romania, with the Romanian king being head of state and military and foreign policy being decided mainly by Bucharest. Also a customs union is agreed upon in the hasty negotiations. This however sparks war between a revanchist Hungary and Romania, which drags in both Germany and the Entente.
One year later, the German war effort colllapses after it failed to make any breakthrough in France, and the allies are once again victorious. Romania gets some reparations from Germany (including more factories), and once again loots Hungary.
With things in Europe apparently settled, the Britain and France grow ever more worried of the rising communist beheamonth in the east. Thus, although war never comes, London and Paris continue to invest and support the "cordon sanitaire" meant to isolate Moscow from the capitalist world. One of the main beneficiaries of this policy is Romania.
By 2012, Romania has a standart of living and an infrastructure somewhat similar to the one in northern Italy today, as well as a lot more land.
So, what do you guys think ? Plausible ? Wank-ish enough ?
