The Balkans - Rumania, Greece, Yugoslavia And Crete

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THE BALKANS - RUMANIA, GREECE, YUGOSLAVIA AND CRETE


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WWII* Chapter 11

The fall of France in June 1940 had brought to the surface a dispute which had smouldered for years and which, although not in itself directly connected with the war between the great powers, was about to exert a major influence upon it. This was the territorial disagreement between Hungary and Rumania, which arose from the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. This Treaty had, following the defeat of Austria-Hungary in the Great War, caused Hungary to cede Transylvania, beloved of all followers of Dracula, to Rumania - a not unreasonable boundary change in most respects, since the majority of the inhabitants of Transylvania were, in any case, of Rumanian origin.
There were however, within Transylvania, some two million people of the Magyar race, known as the Sicules, who had no wish to be Rumanian, and who persistently refused to accept their change of nationality. When France fell, the Hungarian Government made approaches to King Carol II of Rumania, but it soon became apparent that Rumania was immoveable on the issue. War seemed inevitable, but Hitler, whose reliance upon the oil wells at Ploesti caused him to put a high priority upon the maintenance of access to Rumania, intervened. Hungary, whose government had a sympathetic ear in Italy, agreed, if Rumania was also agreeable, to submit to Axis arbitration on the dispute. As a result, Ciano and Ribbentrop presided over arbitration proceedings in Vienna in August 1940. Their verdict was that Transylvania should be partitioned, the west going to Rumania. Hungary was to gain the area occupied by the Sicules, plus the extension of her 1920 frontier to the Moldavian Carpathians. This had the effect of putting three million Rumanians into Hungary, a neat reversal of the previous position.
The Rumanians resented their government's acceptance of this proposal deeply, and General Antonescu, appointed Premier by King Carol II on September 4th, rapidly forced King Carol to abdicate and established Carol's son Prince Michael on the throne. Antonescu asked Hitler to provide military assistance to Rumania, and on October 7th the 13th German Motorised Division began to arrive in Bucharest.
Mussolini was indignant at the occupation, particularly since his allies had not told him of it before it took place. He resolved to reward Germany in kind, and to the horror of his Generals, who had, only three weeks before, demobilised 600,000 men on the Duce's orders, instructed them to prepare to invade Greece on October 26th. Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Foreign Minister, believed that neither Yugoslavia nor Turkey would come to the aid of Greece, to whom they were allied by the Balkan Pact, and that Bulgaria would approve of Italy's actions. Lieutenant-General Jacomoni, in command in Albania, told the planning conference on 14th October 1940 that everyone in Albania was anxious to settle the account with Greece. Faced with universal approval of Mussolini's scheme, Marshal Badoglio, who had severe doubts as to its military practicality, gave way and agreed, subject to an extension of the deadline for the attack for two days to October 28th.


Tito's most able and trusted lieutenants were sent to each of the regions to organise revolt under Tito's control. Some party groups, notably in Montenegro, did not accept that their role was solely to fight Germans rather than create a Socialist revolution,