At the end of the
Crimean War, by the
Treaty of Paris (1856),
Southern Bessarabia was returned by the Russian Empire to
Moldavia. Southern Bessarabia was administratively organized into 2 counties:
Cahul and Ismail, and it was part of Moldavia and, after 1859, part of the
United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (called Romania after 1866). The Ismail county was split in the 1864 administrative reform, with most of its territory organised into a new
Bolgrad county. The rump county remained part of Romania until 1878, when by the
Treaty of Berlin (1878) all three counties were ceded back to the Russian Empire in exchange for
Northern Dobruja. After the
Union of Bessarabia with Romania in 1918, Ismail County returned to Romania, being formally re-established in 1925. After the 1938 Administrative and Constitutional Reform, this county merged with the counties of
Brăila,
Cahul,
Covurlui,
Fălciu,
Putna,
Râmnicu Sărat,
Tecuci,
Tulcea, and
Tutova to form
Ținutul Dunării. The county (and the whole of Bessarabia) was
occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and became part of the
Moldavian SSR and the
Ukrainian SSR. The area returned to Romanian administration as the
Bessarabia Governorate following the
Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941. A military administration was established and the region's Jewish population was either executed on the spot or deported to Transnistria, where further numbers were killed. As the Soviet Union's
offensive pushed the Axis powers back, the area again was under Soviet control. On September 12, 1944, Romania signed the Moscow Armistice with the
Allies. The Armistice, as well as the subsequent
Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, confirmed the Soviet-Romanian border as it was on January 1, 1941. The areas of the county, along with the rest of the Moldavian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR, became part of the independent countries of
Moldova and
Ukraine, respectively. ==Gallery==