Romanian Inter-Allied Victory Medal 1916-1921

 

World War I.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

This medal was instituted in July 1921 following an international agreement at the Inter-allied Peace Conference immediately preceding the Treaty of Versailles which was signed in June 1919.

 

The basic design - a ‘Winged Victory’ - and ‘rainbow’ ribbon was adopted by Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Union of South Africa and the USA. Siam and Japan also issued the medal but with a different design - although the ribbon matched that of the others.

 

The Romanian medal was awarded to those on active service between 28 August 1916 and 31 March 1921. (The late latter date enabled recognition to be given to those troops who occupied Budapest after the Communist uprising in Hungary and oversaw the annexation of Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia).

 

No minimum period of service was required but the medal was specifically for combatants and those supporting them.

 

Approximately 300,000 medals were awarded.

 

 

The medal is circular, 36mm in diameter and was struck in bronze. The obverse of this medal depicts a winged Victory, a sword pointing downwards in her right hand, a palm branch pointing upwards in her left;

 

The reverse contains the inscription; ‘MARELE RAZBOI PENTRU CIVILIZATIE’ (The Great War for Civilisation) imposed on an upright two-edged axe within a laurel wreath encircles by a chain inscribed with the names of the Allied countries, signed; ‘Kristesko’.

 

The medal was suspended by a ring through a small laterally pierced mount fixed to the top of the medal.

 

This medal was issued un-named.

 

 

 

The ribbon is 37mm wide and is the silk moiré rainbow coloured design common to all the Inter-Allied Victory Medals issued by the First World War Allies.

 

 

None were authorised for this medal.

 

Further relevant historical context can be found at the foot of this entry.

 

 

 

* It should be noted that the values quoted above reflect the average price that a medal dealer may expect to sell this medal for - please see the ‘things you should know’ web page for more details about valuing medals.

 

 

This section contains information on:-

 

- Romanian Forces During World War I.

- The Entente Powers.

 

Romanian Forces During World War I - The Romanian campaign was part of the Balkan theatre of World War I, with Romania and Russia allied against the armies of the Central Powers. Fighting took place from August 1916 to December 1917, across most of present-day Romania, including Transylvania, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time, as well as southern Dobruja, which is currently part of Bulgaria.

 

Romania entered the war in an attempt to seize Transylvania, a historical province occupied by Hungary with a majority-Romanian population. Despite initial successes, the combined Russo-Romanian forces suffered several setbacks, and by the end of 1916 only Moldavia remained under Allied control. After several defensive victories in 1917, the Allied front collapsed when the Bolsheviks took Russia out of the war, and Romania, left surrounded by the Central Powers, signed an armistice at Focșani.

 

On November 10, 1918, just one day before the German armistice and when all the other Central Powers had already capitulated, Romania belatedly re-entered the war. By then, about 220,000 Romanian soldiers had been killed.

 

On November 28, 1918, the Romanian representatives of Bukovina voted for union with the Kingdom of Romania, followed by the proclamation of the union of Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania on December 1, 1918, by the representatives of Transylvanian Romanians gathered at Alba Iulia, while the representatives of the Transylvanian Saxons approved the act on December 15 at an assembly in Mediaș.

 

The Treaty of Versailles recognized these proclamations under the right of national self-determination. Also Germany agreed under the terms of the same treaty to renounce to all the benefits provided by the Treaty of Bucharest in 1918.

 

The Romanian control of Transylvania, which had also a Hungarian-speaking population of 1,662,000 was widely resented in the new nation state of Hungary. A war between the Kingdom of Romania and the Hungarian Soviet Republic, who also had parallel conflicts with Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was fought mainly in 1919 and ended with a partial Romanian occupation of Hungary.

 

The Romanian army left Hungary in early 1920.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.

 

The Entente Powers - The Entente Powers or Allies were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the French Republic, the British Empire and the Russian Empire; Italy ended its alliance with the Central Powers and entered the war on the side of the Entente in 1915. Japan, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania and the Czechoslovak legions were secondary members of the Entente.

 

The United States declared war on Germany in 1917 on the grounds that Germany violated U.S. neutrality by attacking international shipping and because of the Zimmermann Telegram sent to Mexico.

 

The U.S. entered the war as an ‘associated power’, rather than a formal ally of France and the United Kingdom, in order to avoid ‘foreign entanglements’. Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, neither declared war.

 

Although the Dominions and Crown Colonies of the British Empire made significant contributions to the Allied war effort, they did not have independent foreign policies during World War I. Operational control of British Empire forces was in the hands of the five-member British War Cabinet (BWC).

 

However, the Dominion governments controlled recruiting, and did remove personnel from front-line duties as they saw fit.

 

From early 1917 the BWC was superseded by the Imperial War Cabinet, which had Dominion representation. The Australian Corps and Canadian Corps were placed for the first time under the command of Australian and Canadian Lieutenant Generals John Monash and Arthur Currie, respectively, who reported in turn to British generals.

 

In April 1918, operational control of all Entente forces on the Western Front passed to the new supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch.

 

The only countries represented in the 1918 armistice which ended the combat were Britain, France and Germany.

 

This information was taken from ‘Wikipedia’. The original article and details of the authors can be found here. It is reproduced on this web-site under the ‘creative commons’ licence which can be found here.