What if Romania attacked Bulgarian Dobruja in 1908 or 1912?

raharris1973

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In OTL's Second Balkan War in 1913, Romania conquered Bulgarian ruled Dobruja, and retained it until WWII when Bulgaria won it back permanently.

In OTL, the Romanians were taking over a territory they were interested in and taking advantage of circumstances where the Bulgarians had recently aggrandized themselves but also turned on their allies.

What if Romania sought this territory earlier?

There seem to be two times when the situation could have been somewhat comparable.

Romania could have moved to attack Bulgaria in the back upon the commencement of the first Balkan War against the Ottomans. Whether or not it helps the Turks, the Turks would be pleased with it. The Austrians might also be pleased. I am not sure the Russians would be displeased to a level dangerous to the Romanians.

An earlier scenario could be if Romania attacks Bulgaria when it declares independence in 1908. At this time, there is not a similar military distraction for the Bulgarians, but the Bulgarians also do not have their alliance with the Serbs and Greeks yet.
 
In 1908, Löbells Jahresberichte, a German military yearbook, estimated that Bulgaria was able to mobilize a field army that was about half-again as large as its Romanian counterpart. (The figures were, respectively, 360,000 and 250,000.) Thus, a unilateral Romanian invasion of Bulgaria would be, to say the least, an extraordinarily risky undertaking.

If the Romanians invaded Bulgaria during the First Balkan War, the Bulgarians would have been able to redeploy substantial forces (those fighting in Macdeonia and eastern Thrace) without giving up the siege of Adrianople. (This, strange to say, would have reduced the losses experienced by Bulgaria in the taking of those places, thereby reducing some of the tensions that, in our time line, led to the Second Balkan War.) Those forces, with a strength of some 200,000, would have been able to, at the very least, inflict substantial damage upon the Romanian invaders.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
In 1908, Löbells Jahresberichte, a German military yearbook, estimated that Bulgaria was able to mobilize a field army that was about half-again as large as its Romanian counterpart. (The figures were, respectively, 360,000 and 250,000.) Thus, a unilateral Romanian invasion of Bulgaria would be, to say the least, an extraordinarily risky undertaking.

If the Romanians invaded Bulgaria during the First Balkan War, the Bulgarians would have been able to redeploy substantial forces (those fighting in Macdeonia and eastern Thrace) without giving up the siege of Adrianople. (This, strange to say, would have reduced the losses experienced by Bulgaria in the taking of those places, thereby reducing some of the tensions that, in our time line, led to the Second Balkan War.) Those forces, with a strength of some 200,000, would have been able to, at the very least, inflict substantial damage upon the Romanian invaders.

Might the engagement of Romania against Bulgaria encourage Austria-Hungary to get off the sidelines and attack Serbia? What would that do to the Serbs, the whole war and the peace settlement?
 
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