German ultimatum to Romania

At the beginning of February 1918 Field Marshal August von Mackensen, commander of the Central Powers’ army group in occupied Wallachia, called on the Romanian government at Iași to open peace negotiations. Within four days the Romanians were to send a delegation to begin talks on peace. Otherwise the Central Powers threatened to resume hostilities. According to Romanian historians the note reached Iași on 5 February (23 January by the Julian calendar, which Romania still used until 1919). A British chronology of the war records the ultimatum a day later, under 6 February.

Moldavia hemmed in

Since the armistice of Focșani Romania had not been fighting, but formally it was still at war and in alliance with the Entente. Its position, however, was getting worse month by month. In January Lenin’s government broke off relations with it and seized the Romanian treasure kept in Moscow. At Brest-Litovsk the Central Powers were close to an agreement with the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and Russia was dropping out of the war. Moldavia, the last scrap of the kingdom in the hands of the king and the government, was caught in a vice: to the west and south stood Mackensen’s troops, to the east Russia was falling apart. The only route by which ammunition, equipment and food arrived from the West ran over the Russian railways and was already practically closed.

The Romanian army, rebuilt with French help and hardened in the summer battles, was still formidable. The Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Ottokar Czernin later admitted that the belief that the Romanians were at the end of their strength and had to accept any terms was “completely false”. The Central Powers, however, were pressed for time. They wanted to close the whole Eastern Front as quickly as possible in order to move troops west before the planned spring offensive.

Berlin and Vienna and the king

Berlin and Vienna saw Romania’s future differently. The German Supreme Army Command and some Hungarian politicians held that King Ferdinand I, a Hohenzollern who had turned against the Central Powers in 1916, should be “punished for treason” and lose his throne. Czernin thought the opposite: a lasting peace could be made only with the legitimate ruler, and he considered the overthrow of one monarch after another dangerous for the monarchies themselves. While still at Brest he advised Emperor Charles I to assure Ferdinand confidentially that he could count on an honourable peace. According to Czernin’s memoirs, Colonel Maximilian Randa, before the war Austro-Hungarian military attaché in Bucharest, spoke on 4 and 5 February with a trusted envoy of the king. The Romanian envoy asked whether this step was supported by all the allies and whether Romania would recover the occupied territories. Some Romanian historians maintain that Randa also brought a threat of dethronement. Czernin informed the German state secretary Richard von Kühlmann of the whole move only after the event.

Brătianu’s resignation

The ultimatum broke up the Romanian government of national unity. The prime minister Ion I. C. Brătianu, leader of the Liberals, who had taken the country into the war in 1916, believed that Romania must gain time and hold out until an Allied victory, even at the price of separate talks with the enemy. His coalition partner Take Ionescu, leader of the Conservative-Democrats, wanted to fight on at the side of the Entente, even if the government and the army had to withdraw beyond the Dniester, deep into Russia. The dispute could not be smoothed over. Nor did Brătianu intend to put his own name to a peace that would undo his entire policy. He decided that the negotiations must be conducted by another government, and suggested to the king General Alexandru Averescu, a popular commander from outside the parties.

On 8 February (26 January O.S.) the Brătianu cabinet resigned. A British chronology of the war records this as early as 6 February, the day of the ultimatum, while the former German vice-chancellor Karl Helfferich wrote in his memoirs of 10 February. According to Romanian accounts Mackensen’s four-day deadline expired on 27 January O.S., that is 9 February. The new government’s main task was to play for time. Only on 27 February did Czernin meet King Ferdinand at a railway station in Moldavia and give him a 48-hour ultimatum, and on 5 March at Buftea Romania signed a preliminary peace with the Central Powers.