Istoria Romaniei si a Fortelor Armate

[tom_sawyer]

The Focșani Gate - a Key Terrain for European Security

A Bit of History

Always important in Romanian military thinking, the impetus to have the Focșani Gate fortified with permanent military engineering works came as a result of Russia's breach of the terms of the Treaty it signed with Romania in 1877. Romania was a country allied with Russia in the Russia – Turkish War of 1877-1878, and the text of the Treaty spoke about Russia's assurances regarding, among other things, the integrity of Romania's territory. Notwithstanding, at San Stefano, firstly, then at the Berlin Peace Congress, Russia used its might, its influence and the European states' "Realpolitik" fashion of doing foreign policy and rapped from Romania adding to Russian territory three Romanian Counties. That did not happen without Romania's vocal protests and parading of ideas of military opposition to the Russia's objective. As a result, the two countries came very close to exchanging military blows.

The lesson was that Russia could not be trusted, even when it promises something, and that the Russian political schemes and objectives regarding Romania were deadly threats for the Romanian state. The solution to this strategic paradigm was to find and ally powerful and willing enough to level the ground and, concomitantly, to increase the national defensive capability of the country. Thus, amongst other measures, the Defence Treaty with Austria – Hungary from 1883.

At the national level, the thinking was that Romania's geographical and political situation claimed for defensive engineering works to be undertaken where the natural terrain was not deemed to buttress enough the defence. In 1882 the Romanian Government was receiving a study regarding the engineering works necessary. The study specified five objectives to be reinforced. Along with Focșani-Nămoloasa-Galați area (the most famous line inside the Focșani Gate), the other sites were the Bucharest Fortress, two bridgeheads in Mărășești area and Cernavodă area respectively, and defence works around Galați and Constanța.

The initial plan for the reinforcement of the Focșani- Nămoloasa-Galați alignment belonged to Major Maximilian Schuman from the Prussian Army. The Schuman's initial blueprint was completed by the contribution of Romanian staff officers and in 1887 the Ministry of War approved the plan. The work began in 1888 and was finalised in 1893, the money spent occupying a vast swathe of the military budget. The plan called for the existence of 676 artillery guns arranged in 3 "fortified areas" (Focșani, Nămoloasa and Galați), with guns arrayed three lines deep. The artillery slated to be used represented almost half of total of Romanian artillery (1.452 pieces when the war began). 7000 specialized fortification troops were to permanently man the fortifications.

In a sort of operational paraphrase of the Moltke the Elder's say that no plan survives the shock of reality, the fist operational use of the Focșani Gate was during the First World War, in 1916, but facing the south threat and not the north and the east threats as originally intended. That was the situation because Romania had joined the Entante in 1916 after two years of armed neutrality. In accordance with the Romanian Army's 1916 strategic plan (based on the "Z Hypothesis"), the declaration of war was concomitant with an offensive in Transylvania, with defence adopted along the Danube River and in Dobrogea.

Romanian Army Campaign Plan for 1916 ("Z" Hypothesis)



Unfortunately, relatively soon, events unfolded negatively for the Romanian Army and it had to start withdrawing, its forced retreat coming to an end in the Focșani Gate where the Romanian Army allied with Russian Forces stopped the advancing forces of the Central Powers, in 1916.

the Central Powers military forces advance towards the Focșani Gate in 1916


The next year, Romanian Army, with the support of the Russian forces, defeated the German and Austria-Hungary forces in the famous defensive battles of Mărășești (inside the Focșani Gate) and Oituz (inside the Oriental Carpathians) denying the Central Powers' intention to occupy the rest of the Romanian territory. 1917 was, as well, the year that saw the Gate being used as the operational base of the successful offensive actions of Romanian Army (Mărăști Offensive Operation).

The Focșani Gate received a special attention during the Second World War. In Romania the year 1940 equates with Annus Horribilis. That year Romania was subjected to a Soviet ultimatum to annex Romanian land, the German – Italian Diktat in support of Hungary's territorial claims and the Bulgarian land reclamation. The overall loss amounted to almost one third of Romania's territory. Alone and isolated, with traditional allies (France and UK) either defeated or fighting for survival, Romania had to choose to ally herself with the only European military power of the era that was capable and promised to guarantee whatever had remained after all those losses, namely Germany. Consequently, on 22nd June 1941, Romania joined Barbarossa with the aim of retaking the territories she had lost the previous year to the Soviet Union.

In 1944 the Soviet forces were reaching the northern and eastern part of Romanian territory in their advance towards Western Europe. To the Romanian leadership it was clear that the German and Romanian forces were not powerful enough to stop the Soviet military's roll steamer without using very strong terrain features that would have alleviated the numerical advantage the Soviets had. The German overall aim called for time to be gained in order, among other things, for the new weapons to be massively built, used and gained advantage from. Evidently, Romania's objective was the defence of the national territory. So, time was of the essence and the Carpathians, and the Focșani Gate, were seen as fundamental in gaining that time and in attrite the Soviet forces.

the Red Army's Operational Plan for the period 20 August to 25 October 1944


The main thrust through the Focșani Gate

The concept of the German-Romanian High Command was to employ mobile defence in the Iași area and to block the passing of Soviet forces over the mountains in Transylvania, to lead these forces in the Focșani Gate where they would have been stopped and destroyed by the very strong defence organized there, in order to gain time and produce attrition to the Soviet forces. For that to happen ample measures were taken in order to make the Focșani Gate impenetrable.

Romania's joining of the Allied camp, in august 1944, relented those plans to the shelves of history without them being put to the trials of reality. After switching the side, the Romanian Army stopped opposing the Soviet Army, regrouped and ensured the Soviets marched unhindered through the Focșani Gate towards Bucharest, the rest of Romania, Western Europe and south of the Danube.

Aside from whatever the plans were then, with the advantage of hindsight, our days military specialists and historians have calculated that if Romania had not left the alliance with Germany the defence alignment that would have been established on the Carpathian ridges and in the Focsani Gate would have delayed the Soviet advance towards Western Europe with, at least, six months.

The lesson is that then, as today, Focșani Gate is an area that opens the route to Western and Southern Europe, a zone of fundamental operational importance and therefore it must receive maximum attention possible.

https://www.newstrategycenter.ro/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Policy-Paper-Focsani-Gate.pdf

[tom_sawyer]

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