Romania does not switch sides in WWII

What if King Michae,s coup fails and Romania does not switch sides? Of course axis defeat is certain but how long does it delay the Soviets 3 months 6 9? and how does this influence postwar conditions? No eastgermany? maybe a democratic czech republic vs communist slovakia?
 
Romania was folding like a house of cards, so it probably delay the war three weeks. A puppet government would be put in (being that the coup had supporters it is doable) and the USSR would forcefully conscript people, so the manpower issues I do not think change much. Plus, it ensures stronger Bulgarian cooperation and their 14 divisions were less mangled than the Romanians, who had lost something like 10% of all their men of any age thus far from the war.
 
Just to clarify its not the romanian army the russians need to worry about its the carpathians which were being preped by the germans romanians and hungarians for defence , when the romanians switched they pushed back other axis forces all the way to their western border(hungarian plain) mostly without soviet help the soviets drove there in about a week. That defense is what could delay them as they had litle mountain warfare experience think italy montecasino etc. As for the bulgarians they did not contribute anything anyway they switched sides before the russians even got to their border and than their divisions sat there whereas the romanians went all the way to viena and bratislava with the russians.
 
Just to clarify its not the romanian army the russians need to worry about its the carpathians which were being preped by the germans romanians and hungarians for defence , when the romanians switched they pushed back other axis forces all the way to their western border(hungarian plain) mostly without soviet help the soviets drove there in about a week. That defense is what could delay them as they had litle mountain warfare experience think italy montecasino etc.

clearly after the Battle of Kursk they needed to plan for switch by Romania? there was the earlier (WWI?) defensive line between Carpathians and Danube?

they just need to get there before the Romanians?
 

Deleted member 1487

Just to clarify its not the romanian army the russians need to worry about its the carpathians which were being preped by the germans romanians and hungarians for defence , when the romanians switched they pushed back other axis forces all the way to their western border(hungarian plain) mostly without soviet help the soviets drove there in about a week. That defense is what could delay them as they had litle mountain warfare experience think italy montecasino etc. As for the bulgarians they did not contribute anything anyway they switched sides before the russians even got to their border and than their divisions sat there whereas the romanians went all the way to viena and bratislava with the russians.
The Soviets did fight in the Caucasus and had specialized mountain troops.
 
If Antonescu took seriously the threat that the opposition represented, he could have stabilized the situation in time, especially after what happened to Mussolini. But to have a chance at resisting the Soviet onslaught, the German and Romanian forces must evacuate all of Moldavia after Operation Bagration destroyed AGC, and most of the panzer divisions where sent to fill the gaps there. With those forces intact, reinforced with the Ploiesti FLAK batteries, it was possible to resist a very long time on the FNB line, between the Carpathians and the Danube Delta.
 
Just to clarify its not the romanian army the russians need to worry about its the carpathians which were being preped by the germans romanians and hungarians for defence , when the romanians switched they pushed back other axis forces all the way to their western border(hungarian plain) mostly without soviet help the soviets drove there in about a week. That defense is what could delay them as they had litle mountain warfare experience think italy montecasino etc. As for the bulgarians they did not contribute anything anyway they switched sides before the russians even got to their border and than their divisions sat there whereas the romanians went all the way to viena and bratislava with the russians.
No Romanians at Vienna. The following Bulgarians disagree with you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Offensive

1st Bulgarian Army
  • III Corps
    • 10th Infantry Division
    • 12th Infantry Division
    • 16th Infantry Division
  • IV Corps
    • 3rd Infantry Division
    • 8th Infantry Division
    • 11th Infantry Division
  • 6th Infantry Division
 
Just to clarify its not the romanian army the russians need to worry about its the carpathians which were being preped by the germans romanians and hungarians for defence , when the romanians switched they pushed back other axis forces all the way to their western border(hungarian plain) mostly without soviet help the soviets drove there in about a week. That defense is what could delay them as they had litle mountain warfare experience think italy montecasino etc. As for the bulgarians they did not contribute anything anyway they switched sides before the russians even got to their border and than their divisions sat there whereas the romanians went all the way to viena and bratislava with the russians.

The Bulgarians when they switched sides provided 450,000 soldiers that went with the Soviets into Yugoslavia (Nis, Skopje, parts of Kosovo - to block off a German retreat from Greece) and their First Army (130,000 men) campaigned into southern Hungary and Austria with the Soviets.

The Romanians never went to Vienna. The Bulgarians did. The Romanians went into Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
 
The Bulgarians when they switched sides provided 450,000 soldiers that went with the Soviets into Yugoslavia (Nis, Skopje, parts of Kosovo - to block off a German retreat from Greece) and their First Army (130,000 men) campaigned into southern Hungary and Austria with the Soviets.

The Romanians never went to Vienna. The Bulgarians did. The Romanians went into Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Actually the Romanian 2nd tank regiment fought in Austria in the vicinity of Vienna.
 
Actually the Romanian 2nd tank regiment fought in Austria in the vicinity of Vienna.

Sure. They went to Austria. Just not Vienna. But I never said the Romanians didn't go into bits of Austria. The primary battleground for the bulk of Romanian forces attached the Soviets though was Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
 
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Ok i was wrong about the bulgarians , and apologize if i offended anybody. I wished for the discussion to be more about the postwar makeup, say wallies reach berlin first with a 2 month soviet delay or prague with one etc, and how this affects the post wwii world.
 
western Allies reaching Berlin won't make that much of a difference to the post war world (except you have more dead Americans and Brits) since your POD is in August 1944 which is definitely after Normandy and definitely after the UK, US and USSR had already agreed on the boundaries of the occupation zones and that the USSR would occupy the eastern zone (what was left in dispute was which zone the UK would occupy and which the US would occupy - Roosevelt wanted the northwestern zone as did the British and it was only later he conceded to the logic of it based on the position of the US and British armies relative to each other). In August 1944 Roosevelt was still not looking for a long term occupation of Germany (hence one of the reasons he wanted the northwestern zone as it controlled the ports from which he envisioned that the US Army would embark from on their way back home after the term of occupation was over - he didn't want to get tied down in Europe). Additionally Roosevelt and as far as I can tell the Chiefs were not aiming to take on most of the occupation costs for Germany by themselves (which is why originally there were going to be 3 zones of more or less equal population and area - parts of the Soviet zone got carved off for Poland and parts of the British and American zones got handed over to the French to give them their own zone.

It might make a difference in Czechoslovakia if they reach Prague as it might give the Soviets marginally less influence.....the fact that the USSR opposed the Munich awards and supported Czechoslovakia throughout while France and the UK basically sold the Czechoslovaks down the river was still going to resonate in 1945; just that liberation by the Americans who had nothing to do with Munich might give the communists less influence as it wasn't the Soviets who liberated Prague and who opposed Munich. But in OTL the Soviets and Americans withdrew all their troops from Czechoslovakia in mid-to-late 1945 as it was anyway. Someone who knows more about the period would probably be better positioned to say if the lack of Soviet liberation of Prague would have any meaningful effect on the popularity of the communists in local elections and their subsequent control of internal security forces.

EDIT: As wiking noted though, another one of the assumptions (that the Soviets wouldn't be able to do mountain warfare) is erroneous given that the Soviets did have specialized mountain troops and had fought the Germans in the Caucasus (remember at one point the Germans planted the Nazi flag on Mount Elbrus which is the highest peak in Europe and of course the highest peak in the Caucasus).

So a 2 month delay might be on the extreme end. Perhaps a few weeks to be honest. And there might be more of a push into Serbia and then north in Hungary and Transylvania, because Bulgaria is still likely to switch sides with the writing on the wall and an unwillingness to fight the Soviets (so the Soviets now move through Bulgaria into Serbia and thence into Hungary and Romania).
 
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