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Ah...the “Pledge to Romania.” Unilaterally offered with nothing expected in return from Romania, except that they resist Nazi aggression.

Unlike Poland, the Germans wanted economic interests in Romania (oil & wheat). But there were no direct designs on Romanian territory, or so the Romanians were led to believe. It behooved the Romanians to play along with both sides through 1939, but the equation changed rapidly after September 1939. The Anglo-French guarantee to Poland having proved worthless, the Romanians rightly calculated their guarantee to have similar value.

The Germans really quadruple crossed Romania during this time. While courting and then participating in a Romanian alliance, Germany:

1. Promised the Romanian province of Moldavia to the USSR in the secret protocol to the Soviet-German Non Aggression Pact, without telling the Romanians;

2. Forced Romania to give up Transylvania to Hungary in the later “Vienna Award.”

3. Dragged Romania into war with the USSR, dangling the recovery of Moldavia as bait (getting someone to join you by promising to give back what you took away; if that isn’t slimy I don’t know what is).

4. Goading the Romanian army to take responsibility for a long sector of the Eastern Front deep inside the USSR with an army that was way too poorly trained and equipped to fight the Soviets. The Romanians got whipped, and the German 6th Army was lost at Stalingrad as a result. The Germans knew the Romanians had no business trying to fight the USSR, but unlike the USA, the Germans were unwilling or unable to provide suitable equipment to their allies.

In this article, we start to see how this nightmare begins for Romania. Everyone wants to use her as a puppet, and in the end she pays heavily and gets Ceaucescu in return.

In the middle of April, Goering arrived in Rome and much to Ribbentrop’s annoyance had two long talks with Mussolini, on the fifteenth and sixteenth. They agreed that they “needed two or three years” to prepare for “a general conflict,” but Goering declared that if war came sooner “the Axis was in a very strong position” and “could defeat any likely opponents.”

Mention was made of an appeal from President Roosevelt which had arrived in Rome and Berlin on April 15. The Duce, according to Ciano, had at first refused to read it and Goering declared that it was not worth answering. Mussolini thought it “a result of infantile paralysis,” but Goering’s impression was that “Roosevelt was suffering from an incipient mental disease.” In his telegram to Hitler and Mussolini the president of the United States had addressed a blunt question:

Are you willing to give assurance that your armed forces will not attack or invade the territory of the following independent nations?

There had followed a list of thirty-one countries, including Poland, the Baltic States, Russia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain. The president hoped that such a guarantee of nonaggression could be given for “ten years at the least” or “a quarter of a century, if we dare look that far ahead.” If it were given, he promised American participation in world-wide “discussions” to relieve the world from “the crushing burden of armament” and to open up avenues of international trade.

“You have repeatedly asserted,” he reminded Hitler, “that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war.”

In the light of what now is known, this seemed like a naïve appeal, but the Fuehrer found it embarrassing enough to let it be known that he would reply to it – not directly, but in a speech to a specially convoked session of the Reichstag on April 28.

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

On April 15, 1939, after the declaration of the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Goering met Mussolini and Ciano in order to explain to the Italians the progress of German preparations for war. The minutes of this meeting have been found. One passage reads – it is Goering who is speaking: “the heavy armament of Czechoslovakia shows, in any case, how dangerous it could have been, even after Munich, in the event of a serious conflict. By German action the situation of both Axis countries was ameliorated because, among other reasons, of the economic possibilities which resulted from the transfer to Germany of the great productive capacity of Czechoslovakia. That contributes towards a considerable strengthening of the Axis against the Western Powers. Furthermore, Germany now need not keep ready a single division for the protection against that country in case of a bigger conflict. This too is an advantage by which both Axis countries will, in the last analysis, benefit. . . . The action taken by Germany in Czechoslovakia is to be viewed as an advantage for the Axis Powers. Germany could now attack this country [Poland] from two flanks, and would be within only twenty-five minutes’ flying distance from the new Polish industrial centre, which has been moved farther into the interior of the country, nearer to the other Polish industrial districts, because of its proximity to the border.”

“The bloodless solution of the Czech conflict in the autumn of 1938 and spring of 1939 and the annexation of Slovakia,” said General von Jodl in a lecture some years after, “rounded off the territory of Greater Germany in such a way that it now became possible to consider the Polish problem on the basis of more or less favourable strategic premises.”

On the day of Goering’s visit to Rome President Roosevelt sent a personal message to Hitler and Mussolini urging them to give a guarantee not to undertake any further aggression for ten “or even twenty-five years, if we are to look that far ahead.” The Duce at first refused to read the document, and then remarked: “A result of infantile paralysis!” He little though he was himself to suffer worse afflictions.

Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm