The modern
Moldavian and
Wallachian armies were formed in 1830 following
Regulamentul Organic. During the
1848 Wallachian Revolution,
Gheorghe Magheru assembled an army at Râureni (now part of
Râmnicu Vâlcea). However, due to the lack of proper equipment and the hesitation of some revolution leaders, Magheru ordered his troops to disband when the
Ottoman forces swept into
Bucharest to stop the revolution. A battle between the Bucharest
fire company together with
Line infantry soldiers against the Ottomans also took place at
Dealul Spirii in 1848.
Romanian War of Independence redoubt The current Romanian Land Forces were formed in 1860, immediately after the
unification of
Wallachia with
Moldavia, and were commanded by
Alexandru Ioan Cuza,
Domnitor of Romania until his abdication in 1866. In 1877, at the request of
Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich of Russia the Romanian army fused with the Russian forces, and led by
King Carol I, fought in what was to become the
Romanian War of Independence. They participated in the
Siege of Plevna and several other battles. The Romanians won the war, but suffered about 10,000 casualties (dead and wounded).
Second Balkan War The Romanian Army entered the
Second Balkan War against
Bulgaria, allowing Romania to annex
Southern Dobruja (also known as the Cadrilater). Although some 330,000 troops were mobilised, the Romanians met little resistance in Bulgaria and as such this is not considered a major conflict in Romanian history. This was due to historical claims on land and the area no longer belongs to Romania. During the Second Balkan War, the Romanian Army suffered
a cholera outbreak that provoked 1,600 deaths.
World War I Alexandru Averescu On 6 July 1916, the
Kingdom of Romania declared war on the
German Empire and
Austria-Hungary, following the initial success of the
Brusilov Offensive (a major Russian offensive against the armies of the
Central Powers on the
Eastern Front). The Romanian armies entered
Transylvania (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), together with
Russian forces. However, German forces under the command of General
Erich von Falkenhayn stalled the attack in November 1916, and drove back the Romanian forces. At the same time, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman forces invaded southern Romania, forcing the country into a two-front war. The Central Powers drove deep into Romania and conquered the southern part of the country (
Wallachia, including Bucharest) by the end of 1916. The Romanian forces, led by
Marshal Constantin Prezan, retreated into the north-east part of Romania (
Moldavia). In the summer of 1917 however, Prezan, aided by
Ion Antonescu, successfully defended the remaining unoccupied territories against German and Austro-Hungarian forces led by
Field Marshal August von Mackensen. General
Alexandru Averescu led the
Second Army in victory at the
Battle of Mărăști (22 July to 1 August 1917), while Major Generals
Constantin Cristescu and
Eremia Grigorescu led the
First Army in victory at the
Battle of Mărășești (6 August to 8 September 1917). As a result of the
Russian Revolution, Romania was left isolated and unable to continue the war, and was forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers. Later on, in 1919, Germany agreed, in the
Treaty of Versailles Article 259, to renounce all the benefits provided to it by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1918. After the success of the
Vardar offensive on the
Macedonian front, which put Bulgaria out of the war, Romania re-entered the war on 10 November 1918, a day before its end in the West.
Hungarian–Romanian War After
World War I, in December 1918, the
Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia proclaimed a
union with the Kingdom of Romania. Later on, in April 1919, the newly established
Hungarian Soviet Republic vowed to retake occupied territories by force, and
Hungarian troops attacked Romanian formations in Transylvania. Under the command of generals
Gheorghe Mărdărescu and
Traian Moșoiu, the Romanian Army defeated the Hungarians and
occupied Budapest in August 1919.
World War II With the Axis Powers In June 1940 the
Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. After General (later
Marshal)
Ion Antonescu took power in September 1940,
Fascist Romania signed the
Tripartite Pact with the
Axis powers and subsequently took part in
Operation Barbarossa in 1941. An expeditionary force invaded the Soviet Union in
Bessarabia and southern
Ukraine, alongside the
Wehrmacht. The expeditionary force, 'Army Group Antonescu,' was composed on 22 June 1941 of the
3rd Army, the
4th Army, the 2nd Army Corps, and the 11th Infantry Division. The 3rd Army comprised the
4th Army Corps (6th and 7th Infantry Divisions), the Cavalry Corps, the
Mountain Corps, two separate artillery battalions, a TA unit, and the Air Force's 3rd Army Cooperation Command. The 4th Army consisted of the 3rd Army Corps, the 5th Army Corps, the 11th Army Corps (two fortress brigades), and the 4th Army Cooperation Command. The army group-level 2nd Army Corps, under Major General
Nicolae Macici, controlled the 9th and 10th Infantry Divisions and the 7th Cavalry Brigade. Additionally the 1st Armoured Division was formed for service on the Eastern Front. The Army Group's first offensive, in conjunction with the
Eleventh Army,
Operation München, enabled Romania to retake the territory immediately east of the
Dnister, former part of Moldavia. The Romanian armies saw their first major battles at
Odessa and
Sevastopol, and in 1942 advanced with other Axis forces deeper into Soviet territory during operation
Case Blue. In early November, Romanian
mountain troops under the command of Brigadier General
Ioan Dumitrache took
Nalchik, the farthest point of Axis advance into the
Caucasus. The worst defeat for the Romanian expeditionary force on the
Eastern Front occurred at
Stalingrad, where, during the Soviet counter-offensive of November 1942, the thinly spread forces of the
Third Army (under the command of General
Petre Dumitrescu, deployed north of Stalingrad) and of the
Fourth Army (under the command of Lieutenant General
Constantin Constantinescu-Claps, deployed south of Stalingrad) were attacked by vastly superior Soviet forces and suffered combined losses of some 158,000 personnel. During April–May 1944 the Romanian forces led by General
Mihai Racoviță, together with elements of the
German Eighth Army were responsible for defending Northern Romania during the Soviet
First Jassy-Kishinev Offensive, and took part in the
Battles of Târgu Frumos. In late August 1944, the
Red Army entered
eastern Romania.
With the Allied powers On 23 August 1944, a
coup led by
King Michael I of Romania deposed Marshal Antonescu and set up a pro-Soviet government. It has been estimated that the royal coup shortened the war by six months. Romania soon declared war on
Nazi Germany and its allies, and the
First Army (under the command of General Macici and later
Vasile Atanasiu) and the
Fourth Army (under the command of Lieutenant General
Gheorghe Avramescu and later
Nicolae Dăscălescu) were pressed into action. After expelling the last of the Wehrmacht and Hungarian Army units from Romania at the battles of
Turda and
Carei, the Romanian armies took part in the
Siege of Budapest and the
Prague Offensive of May 1945.
Cold War The
Soviet occupation of Romania led to a complete reorganisation of the Romanian Land Forces under the supervision of the Red Army. At the onset, pro-German elements were purged from the Romanian armed forces. In 1944–45, two divisions were formed out of Romanian volunteers—ex-prisoners of war, trained and indoctrinated in the Soviet Union during the war, but also of many Communist activists. One was the
Tudor Vladimirescu First Volunteer Division, under the command of Colonel
Nicolae Cambrea, and the other the
Horea, Cloșca și Crișan Division, under the command of General
Mihail Lascăr (who later served as
Minister of Defence from 1946 to 1947). These two units formed the nucleus of the new Romanian Land Forces under Soviet control. The postwar reorganization of the Land Forces included cavalry, but the arm disappeared from the force with the disbandment in November 1954 of the 59th Cavalry Division at
Oradea. After the
Romanian Communist Party seized political power, the
sovietization of the army commenced, under the supervision of the new Minister of Defence,
Emil Bodnăraș. Thirty per cent of the officers and noncommissioned officers (mostly experienced soldiers, and a potential source of opposition) were purged from the military. This involved copying the Soviet model of military and political organisation, and changing the military doctrine of combat and defence, also in the context of Romania's integration in the strategic system of the Soviets, at the beginning of the
Cold War. In the early 1950s the RLF reached a level of 12 rifle, one mechanised, and one tank division. From 1959 the rifle and mechanised divisions were converted to mechanized (motorized rifle) divisions, and reductions in strength began. Rottman writes that "force size dropped to six mechanized and two armored divisions by 1970 [actually 1968]. From 1970 to 1976, three more motor rifle divisions were formed, but one was deactivated in 1977, and the eight motor rifle and two armored division figure remained that way for the rest of the Cold War." From 1947 to 1960 the country seems to have been divided into three major military regions:
Cluj,
Bacău, and Bucharest in the west, east, and south, respectively. In wartime the land forces in each military region would become an
army corps with their headquarters in Cluj-Napoca,
Iași, and Bucharest. Armies seem to have succeeded military regions in 1960, and three armies seem to have become four in 1980. What is known is that on 1 July 1947
Fourth Army became 3rd Military Region, based in Cluj. The 3rd Military Region became the 3rd Army on 30 April 1960, and the 4th Army on 5 April 1980. During the 1980s, the land forces numbered 140,000 personnel, of whom two-thirds were conscripts. In 1989 the land forces were organized in four armies: the
First Army at
Bucharest, the
Second Army at
Buzău, the
Third Army at
Craiova, and the
Fourth Army at
Cluj-Napoca. The land forces consisted of eight mechanised (infantry) divisions (
1st, Bucharest,
2nd, Craiova,
9th,
Constanța, 10th,
Iași, 11th,
Oradea, 18th,
Timișoara, 67th,
Brăila and
81st,
Dej) two armored divisions (the 57th Tank Division at Bucharest and the
6th Tank Division at
Târgu Mureș), one armored brigade, four mountain (infantry) brigades, and four parachute infantry regiments. According to the 165-year 'History of Modern Romanian Artillery,' in 1989 each of the four armies were organized into a headquarters and reporting formations under them, which were organized as follows: • 1st Army Command • 1st Mechanized Division, 57th Tank Division and the
2nd Mountain Brigade • 2nd Army Command • 9th Mechanized Division, 10th Mechanized Division, 67th Mechanized Division and 32nd Tactical Missile Brigade • 3rd Army Command • 2nd Mechanized Division, 18th Mechanized Division, the 7th Tank Brigade and the 4th Mountain Brigade • 4th Army Command • 11th Mechanized Division, 81st Mechanized Division, 6th Tank Division, the 1st and 5th Mountain Brigades and the 37th Tactical Missile Brigade The mechanized divisions were organized along the Soviet model with a division HQ, three mechanized infantry regiments, one tank regiment, combat and service support units, and a full complement of 10,700 infantry soldiers, having 130 main battle tanks, 216 wheeled armoured personnel carriers (APCs), 30 wheeled armoured reconnaissance vehicles, 18 light SPGs SU-76, 54 towed 120mm. M-38/-43 (or Md.1982 120mm. Romanian made) mortars, 36 towed
122 mm howitzer M1938 (M-30) and 12 truck-mounted (Romanian production) 122mm. multiple rocket launchers APR-40 (which will become later, after an extensive modernization, the
LAROM MRL system). Compared to similar Soviet, Hungarian, or Bulgarian divisions, the Romanian ones were more poorly equipped, both in terms of number and quality of heavy weapons. The armored divisions were composed of 3 tank regiments and one mechanized infantry regiment plus support units. The artillery, antitank, and air defence regiments of divisions provided specialised fire support that enabled motorised rifle and tank regiments to maneuver. Each of the four Army Commands comprised an antiaircraft artillery brigade and an air defense missile artillery regiment (Surface-to-Air). Three of the four air defense missile regiments were equipped with
2K12 Kub systems, and the fourth regiment with
9K33 Osa SAMs in the late 1980s the artillery regiments of mechanized and tank divisions were organized into a regimental HQ, two artillery battalions and one multiple rocket launcher battalion. In terms of their combat equipment, the RLF operated a total of 2,825 tanks: 1,059 outdated (soviet WW-2 type)
T-34-85 tanks, 785 Soviet and Czechoslovak T-55/-55A/-55AM tanks, 415 Romanian built TR-77-580, 535 Romanian built
TR-85-800, and 31 Soviet
T-72 "Ural-1" tanks. The 9th and the 11th Mechanized Divisions operated Romanian built TR-77-580 tanks, the 2nd Mechanized Division and the 57th Tank Division operated Romanian built
TR-85-800 tanks, the 10th and 81st Mechanized Divisions and the 6th Tank Division operated soviet and Czechoslovak built T-55/-55A/-55AM tanks, while the remaining three mechanized divisions (1st, 18th and 67th) were equipped with mixed equipment, including a number of outdated soviet
T-34-85 tanks, within their mechanized regiments. The 1st Mechanized
Tudor Vladimirescu Division apparently operated four types of tanks, from the modern Soviet
T-72 "Ural-1", to a number of Romanian TR-77-580 and Soviet T-55A tanks, and to the outdated
T-34-85 tanks. The predominantly defensive structure of the Romanian Land Forces was also highlighted by the five anti-tank (missile-artillery) regiments (each with 36 Romanian made
100 mm anti-tank gun M1977 and 12 ATGM launcher vehicle based on BRDM-2 4x4 scout armoured car a.k.a. 9P133 "Malyutka" (with
9M14 Malyutka anti-tank guided missiles) and 9P148 "Konkurs" (with
9M113 Konkurs anti-tank guided missiles), placed especially in the areas most exposed to a possible armored attack, and subordinated to the four army commands. Besides these, there were also nine anti-tank artillery battalions, mostly subordinated to the mechanized divisions, some equipped with Romanian made
100 mm anti-tank gun M1977, but the majority with older Soviet production
85 mm antitank gun D-48.
Surface-to-surface missile battalions were divided into four batteries, each equipped with one missile launcher. The RLF operated 32
9K52 Luna-M short-range artillery rocket systems and 18
R-17 Elbrus tactical ballistic missile systems. Each mechanized division had a "Luna-M" missile battalion, while two of the four army commands had also an "Elbrus" missile brigade. Proven to be fairly inaccurate in combat, "Luna-M" (a.k.a. FROG-7) and "Elbrus" (a.k.a. SCUD-B) missiles would be rather less effective weapons carrying conventional high-explosive warheads. Tipped with nuclear or chemical warheads, however, they could be devastating. According to one former Romanian official writing in 1988, Romania produced chemical agents that could be delivered by battlefield missiles. The
vânători de munte specialised troops, reactivated in 1961, were formed up into an independent branch of the RLF with 4 separate mountain brigades in 1989. The vânători de munte were seen as the best-trained forces of the Army in the communist Romania. Each brigade had a mechanized company equipped with
MLVM APCs and a mountain artillery battalion of 76mm. mountain guns Md.1982 (similar to Yugoslav
76 mm mountain gun M48), but most of the equipment was for a motorized light infantry unit.
Post-communist era During the early 1990s, some major units were disbanded and much equipment was phased out or scrapped due to a severe shortage of funds. The whole land forces structure was reorganized from armies into territorial corps, and from regiments into
battalions. In the mid-1990s, the situation of the land forces was critical: the military budget was one third that of 1989 (636 million dollars), 50% of the equipment was older than 30 years, and 60% of the armoured vehicles and 85% of the missile units were non-operational. Due to lack of fuel and training, the level of combat readiness and military capability was extremely low (only about 30% of the entire land forces were operational). However, after 1996 the
government took serious action; the military budget was increased greatly, and modernisation of equipment commenced. Officially, the program to modernize and restructure the armed forces began on 11 April 2000. ==Organisation==