Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Preface: A Test Case of Collective Security
- Introduction: The Nature of the Problem
- Part One Background of the Munich Crisis
- 1 The Shaky Foundations of Collective Security: Moscow, Paris, London
- 2 Soviet–Romanian Relations I: 1934–1938
- 3 Soviet–Romanian Relations II: Summer 1938
- Part Two Foreground: Climax of the Crisis
- Part Three Conclusion
- Appendices
- Index
3 - Soviet–Romanian Relations II: Summer 1938
from Part One - Background of the Munich Crisis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Preface: A Test Case of Collective Security
- Introduction: The Nature of the Problem
- Part One Background of the Munich Crisis
- 1 The Shaky Foundations of Collective Security: Moscow, Paris, London
- 2 Soviet–Romanian Relations I: 1934–1938
- 3 Soviet–Romanian Relations II: Summer 1938
- Part Two Foreground: Climax of the Crisis
- Part Three Conclusion
- Appendices
- Index
Summary
The commitment of Czechoslovakia's Little Entente ally Romania to the preservation of Czech integrity and strength was part and parcel of its commitment to collective security more generally, which was hardly in doubt. Nor is there any logical reason why it should have been, given the territorial gains that it had realized in 1918 and the tacit conspiracy of its victims against it ever since. In the Anschluss crisis, Romania mobilized its army on the Western frontier. At same time, French Minister Adrien Thierry was summoned to the Romanian Foreign Office and told that anything that affected the independence of Austria must be considered a casus belli but that it was up to the great powers to take the initiative. The clear implication here is that Romania would have supported an Anglo–French war in the good cause, but it is equally clear that Romania was not in a position alone to face down the revisionists. As the French military attaché, Colonel Jean Delmas, reported about the same time, “Romania has long since declared that if it finds itself abandoned between the two enemy colossi, Soviet Russia and Germany, it will without hesitation opt for the latter for the sake of escaping communism.” A few weeks later, Minister Thierry reported to Paris his opinion that, in the case of war, Romania would be “with us” but that it would make no formal commitments in advance.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004