King Michael's Coup refers
to the coup d'etat led by King Michael of Romania
in 1944 against the pro-Nazi Romanian
faction of Ion Antonescu, after the
Axis front in Northeastern Romania collapsed under the Soviet offensive.
The coup
On
August 23,
1944,
King Michael joined with
pro-Allied opposition politicians (who included the Communists) and
led a successful coup with support from the army. Michael, who was
initially considered to be not much more than a "figurehead", was
able to successfully depose the dictator
Ion Antonescu. The king offered a
non-confrontational retreat to German ambassador
Manfred Freiherr von
Killinger, but the Germans considered the coup "reversible" and
tried to turn the situation around by military attacks. The
Romanian First Army, the
Romanian Second Army (under
formation), what the remnants of the
Romanian Third Army and the
Romanian Fourth Army (one corps) were
under orders from the king to defend Romania against any German
attacks. The king then offered to put Romania's battered armies on
the side of the
Allies.
Aftermath
The coup sped the Red Army's advance into Romania. It has been
estimated by some to have shortened the war by as much as six
months.
The
complexities of negotiations between the USSR
and United Kingdom
postponed formal Allied recognition of the de
facto change of orientation until September 12. During
this time, Soviet troops started moving into Romania. The Soviets,
acting as if Romania was still an enemy, allegedly robbed and raped
at will. They took approximately 140,000 Romanian prisoners (some
estimates are as high as 600,000). About 130,000 Romanian soldiers
were taken prisoner and transported to the Soviet Union, where many
perished in prison camps.
The armistice was signed three weeks later on
September 12,
1944, on
terms the Soviets virtually dictated. The coup effectively amounted
to a "capitulation", an "unconditional surrender" to the
Soviets.
In October 1944
Winston Churchill,
Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom, proposed an agreement with Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin on how to split up
Eastern Europe in spheres of
influence after the war. The Soviet Union was offered a 90% share
of influence in Romania.
In the Armistice Agreement of
September
12,
1944, it was stipulated in Article 18
that "
An Allied Control Commission will be established which
will undertake until the conclusion of peace the regulation of and
control over the execution of the present terms under the general
direction and orders of the Allied (Soviet) High Command, acting on
behalf of the Allied Powers. In the Annex to Article 18, it
was made clear that "
The Romanian Government and their organs
shall fulfill all instructions of the Allied Control Commission
arising out of the Armistice Agreement."
It also made clear
that The Allied
Control Commission would have its seat in Bucharest
. In line with Article 14 of the Armistice
Agreement two
Romanian
People's Tribunals were set up to try suspected war
criminals.
The
Romanian Army ended the war
fighting alongside the Soviets against Germans.
They fought in
Transylvania, Hungary
, and
Czechoslovakia
. In May 1945, the
Romanian First Army and the
Romanian Fourth Army took part in the
Prague Offensive. The Romanians
incurred heavy casualties fighting
Nazi
Germany.
Antonescu was placed under arrest; the new Prime Minister, Lt.
General
Constantin
Sănătescu, gave custody of Antonescu to the Communists who
would turn the former dictator to the Soviets on
September 1. Antonescu would be tried and
executed in 1946.
King Michael was spared the fate of another former German ally,
Prince Kyril, Regent of
Bulgaria, executed by the Soviets in 1945, and was also the
last monarch behind the
Iron Curtain to
lose his throne. Under the Communist régime Michael functioned as
little more than a figurehead; he was finally forced to abdicate in
1947. He also received international recognition: at the end of the
war, King Michael was awarded the highest degree (Chief Commander)
of the
Legion of Merit by U.S.
President
Harry S. Truman. He was also decorated with the
Soviet
Order of Victory by
Stalin "for the courageous act of the radical change
in Romania's politics towards a break-up from
Hitler's Germany and an alliance with the
United Nations, at the moment when there was
no clear sign yet of Germany's defeat," according to an official
description of the decoration.
However, some claim that Michael's coup afforded Stalin's troops a
faster advance into Romania and Europe, to the detriment of that of
the Western Allies. Some others even see in Michael's failure to be
invited, with a few exceptions, to most of the
V.E. Day celebrations in the West
throughout the years, a tacit condemnation by the Western Allies of
the consequences of his coup. Michael was not invited to the 60th
anniversary of the V.E. Day by any Western Ally. He was invited
only to the celebrations in Russia and to some
Czech and
Slovak
commemorations on the same occasion.
See also
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