Costuri directe şi indirecte ale participării României la Primul Război Mondial. Abordări, omisiuni şi potenţialităţi istoriografice
The historical approaches regarding the direct and indirect costs of the participation of Romania in the First World War

Summary/Abstract: The First World War was and still is because of its global character, a historical dimension of ardent debates that continues to develop under the spectre of diversity, as well as upon specific fields of methodological challenges, due to the permanent historiographical improvements. It is a fact that soon after the war, an immense analytical struggle emerged, at the centre of which stood the financial background regarding the States investments in terms of evolutions and damages, that were supposed to reveal to the political deciders the consequences of replacing diplomatic actions with military aggression. The basic questions were: Was the war worth fighting? Were the sacrifices justified? Were there winners or merely survivors? The first author that participated in this focal debate was E. Bogart, who gathered financial information about all the belligerents – including Romania. The present article will explain how he calculated the losses, while pointing out his mistakes and his erroneous economic estimations, without disregarding his methodological efforts in presenting the global direct and indirect costs, in a framework governed by inflation and depreciation of currencies, in the Romanian study case. I have focused strictly upon the comparison between western and south-eastern historiography regarding these issues, since – unfortunately – the gap between Romania and other countries is evident, even relating to the interest for economic theory and practice in explaining political events and developments.

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