The part of the reading that I was kind of confused by was the part about Romania and Bulgaria. I had never really learned anything prior to this about Romania or Bulgaria having a significant effect on the war, so I really had no idea they were even involved to such extent. The book calls the declaration of war against Romania by Bulgaria Germany's "trump card". Why is this such a big deal? I've never even heard of this before. So either the public education system has failed me or I'm just really bad at retaining information. Neither Romania or Bulgaria was obligated to join in the war by treaty or alliance, neither one had anything significant to gain, neither one was big enough to come in as some kind of superpower and end the war. So why did this happen? And why was is it so important?
So I "Googled" it! Yay! And apparently, Bulgarians were still angry about the Balkan wars, as Romania controlled land in the Balkans that was previously Bulgaria's. So when Germany promised to restore their territories, they joined the war. Germany benefited because Romania was a Russian ally, but I still don't see why it was so important.
2 comments:
i think it was such a 'big deal' because it was so unexpected that these nations became so involved. i re-read the passage and it said that Romania became involved because they would have the chance of territorial gain in Austria Hungary, which they had been longing for. it says that this is why Romania became allies with Russia. And i also "googled" it a little more and found out a lot of people talk about quite a bit so i am not really sure why we haven't heard about it... hmm... but people just say their intensity was so surprising and it played a wild card in the war.
Good post, and good response from Lauren. I think to address your last question, the "big deal" question, is that both alliances believed expanding the war would weaken the enemies trenches and allow a major break through. This rarely happened, and the war only expanded. So in the middle of the war, it was a big deal for Germany. Today, not so much.
Post a Comment