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August 1944.

The Allies have broken out of the hedgerows of Normandy and are in the suburbs of Paris. In the east, the Soviet 'Bagration' offensive has smashed Army Group Center. Now twenty Red Army divisions have opened a secondary offensive in the south, out of Bessarabia into Bukovina and Moldavia. Jassy, the ancient capital of the Romanians, has fallen; the Soviets are across the River Pruth, the northeast boundary of inner Romania, in force.

Marshal Antonescu, military dictator of Romania, understands the desperation of the situation. He has been trying to cut a deal with the Allies since 1943. (1) Antonescu has a backup plan: to hand over power to a government of liberal politicians, by means of a faked coup. The civilians will then take Romania out of the war. (2) But for one reason or another, he can't bring himself to pull the trigger. So Romania has stayed in the Axis.

Until August 23, 1944. Then young King Mihai -- the anomalously decent son of the loathsome Carol II -- leads a coup against Romania's "Conducator". Antonescu ends up locked in a vault in the Royal Palace for several crucial hours, while an odd coalition of Royalists, civilian politicians, and Communists seizes power. Romania switches sides and joins the Allies.

But what if they hadn't?

POD: Hitler is just a wee bit more alert. OTL he knew that the Romanians were getting increasingly squish, but doesn't seem to have realized how close they were to the brink. TTL he decides to take out some insurance. For the drama of the thing, let's say he sends Otto Skorzeny to Bucharest in July, with instructions to stick close to the King and take him off the board if necessary. (3)

So the August 23 coup fails. Antonescu is still in charge. King Mihai is placed in 'protective custody' and packed off to genteel confinement in an isolated monastery.

Now what?

Well, the Romanian army is still a force to be reckoned with. There are 300,000 of them, interspersed with several German divisions. They're distinctly lacking in heavy armor and artillery, and they've been rather badly chewed up by the defeats at Stalingrad and in the Crimea. On the other hand, the survivors are veterans, and defending their homeland.

OTL the Romanian performance on the Eastern Front was erratic but not horrible -- they were consistently better than either the Italians or the Hungarians, and when the stars were right they could be surprisingly good. (4) Furthermore, the Soviet advance is about to come up against some very ugly territory. Northwest Romania is an intimidating mixture of mountains and swamp, cut by river valleys running across the Soviet line of advance. And the Romanian rail network is still pretty much intact, as is the industrial base; the Ploesti oilfields have been battered, along with some major manufacturing centers, but the country is still entirely able to fight.
(5)

My tentative conclusion is that the Soviets will break through, but it won't be fast or easy. Several weeks of vicious fighting, with heavy casualties all around.

So we're up to, mm, sometime in October '44. The Russians, having lost 50,000 or so men in Moldavia, are closing in on Bucharest from the north and east. Antonescu is still trying to cut deals, but he continues to be a step or two behind. And the Germans are still sticking very close to him.

If we follow the Hungarian model, then at some point Antonescu should simply collapse, as Admiral Horthy did. Real power would then passed off to a German-dominated government of local fascists.

But I'm not sure this works in a Romanian context. For one thing, Antonescu seems to have been made of sterner stuff than Horthy. For another, while there were plenty of local fascists even after Antonescu purged the Iron Guard, there were never too many delirious fanatic Naziphile fantasists comparable to Hungary's Imredists or Arrow Cross.

So at some point I think Antonescu bucks. Either he tries to evade German supervision and declare a ceasefire, or he tries to activate some version of the Maniu Plan (letting liberals/Communists/royalists take over to get Romania out). (2) Let's say he fails. Unlike Horthy, I don't think he's going to break down weeping. I think he hangs tough, and the Germans end up having to kill him. (6)

What happens after that is likely to be disintegration. Romanians don't love Russians, and were entirely willing to fight the USSR, but I don't see them fighting with much enthusiasm for obvious German puppets.

On the other hand, very few will ever turn out to fight /for/ the Soviets. Very different from OTL, where they eventually fielded 27 divisions under Soviet command.

I think we get a siege of Bucharest rather like that of OTL Budapest -- lasting a 2-3 of weeks, with a lot of dead civilians and rubble. Followed by a Red Army advance to the west in November '44.

Short-term knock-on effects: the Soviet advance into the Balkans is delayed by about two months. Belgrade falls in December instead of October; Budapest, in February instead of December. The Red Army never does reach Vienna or Prague. The final scene in the bunker happens a week or ten days later than iOTL.

Slightly bloodier WWII overall, with perhaps 60 to 80,000 more dead Russians and about twice that number of Romanians. Romania much more devastated than iOTL. Other hand, there's a small possibility that some of Transylvania might be given back to Hungary... OTL this seems to have been considered, but dismissed because Romania switched sides and Hungary didn't. Not sure about this one.

Obviously there'll be longer-term effects, but pause for now.

Thoughts?


Doug M.

(1) Without success, for reasons that remain somewhat disputed to this day. The best interpretation seems to be that the western Allies kept referring him to the Soviets, and then Antonescu was always one step behind what the Soviets were willing to accept... demanding to keep Bessarabia and Bukovina until the Red Army was already in there, for instance.

(2) See http://tinyurl.com/4ex3e for some discussion of this.

(3) If this seems improbable, consider that it's almost exactly what Skorzeny did in Hungary OTL, just a couple of months later. As there, we can assume that Skorzeny is backed up by German intelligence operating out of the embassy. OTL the Germans seem to have been weirdly sluggish in Romania, but exceedingly alert in Hungary.

(4) For instance, in the initial invasion of Bessarabia in '41; in the Caucasus in '42; and then again in the defense of the Crimea. That was a disaster, but they acquitted themselves honorably. On the other hand, their performance in the first part of the attack on Odessa, and later in the Stalingrad campaign left much to be desired.

(5) The Romanians were particularly good in the air, at least at first. Romania had the strongest aeronautical tradition of any country between Germany and Russia, and Romanian pilots were as good as any if not better. In 1941-2, they gave a very good account of themselves against the Soviets.

But by 1944 heavy casualties had reduced the Romanian air force to a shadow of its former self. It was still able to inhibit Allied strategic bombings to some extent, but no longer played much of a battlefield role.

(6) Which might not be easy. The old Marshal seems to have been possessed of a Rasputin-like tenacity of life.

"The execution took place on 1 June 1946 at 1803, in the Jilava penitentiary. Marshal Antonescu asked to be shot by the army, but was refused and the firing squad was made up of 12 prison guards. In the moment of the volley, he saluted and then fell down.

"[But then he] rose up on his right arm and said that he was not dead and that they should fire again. The chief of the guards shot him in the head with the revolver, but the doctor did not confirm the death, so another shot in the chest was necessary. But [he was] still alive. The chief of the guards then took a rifle and fired three bullets in several places of their bodies. Only then did the doctor confirm his death."
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