The Conception of the Armed Forces General Staff Regarding the Defence of Dobrogea at the Beginning of the 20th Century Cover Image

The Conception of the Armed Forces General Staff Regarding the Defence of Dobrogea at the Beginning of the 20th Century
The Conception of the Armed Forces General Staff Regarding the Defence of Dobrogea at the Beginning of the 20th Century

Author(s): Ion Rîşnoveanu
Subject(s): Security and defense, Military policy
Published by: Centrul tehnic-editorial al armatei
Keywords: World War I; Romanian Army; military doctrine; military attachés; defence line;
Summary/Abstract: At the start of the twentieth century, the Romanian General Staff was busy constructingRomania’s defence doctrine. They were focused on the most probable situations, in whichRomania would be forced to defend itself.The officers of the General Staff used reports from the military attachés in Petersburg andSofia and identified that Dobrogea was targeted by two potential aggressors – Russia andBulgaria.This is why the planners made detailed drafts to those defence plans, focusing on thedifferent defence lines from the Danube Delta to the Black Sea Coast, in the case of a Russianaggression. For southern Dobrogea, a delicate area after the Peace of Bucharest in 1913, afterwhich Romania received the counties of Durostor and Caliacra (or Quadrilateral, as it appearson Romanian military maps) new alinements were viewed as essential for the defence of thearea against the Bulgarians.