The Romanian Battlefront in.../Glenn Torrey

[pasoleati]

Anyone read this: http://www.amazon.com/Romanian-Battlefront-World-Modern-Studies/dp/0700618392/ref=pd_sim_b_4

[aengland]

No I haven't, but the review on Amazon is pretty damn good if that is anything to go by

Andrew

[charlesmessenger]

I am currently in the midst of reading it and much enjoying it, too. The key element is Torrey's use of the Romanian archives.

Charles M

[Robert Dunlop]

It's very good. Well written and, as Charles pointed out, well researched. I liked the blend of anecdotal material as well, covering off the experiences of soldiers, officers and the generals. The maps were good. Recommended.

Robert

[David Filsell]

I have copy in for review - it is confusingly splendid for anyone who starts it without any handle on the nation's war. As CM has written it is extremely strong on use of Ropmanian archives (and well written). Review will follow, but I have to keep taking a break to back track on highly confusing names of peopla and places. It may take some time!

David

[Robert Dunlop]

Very good point, David. I am familiar with the language and have read some of the official history. It is easy to forget that the names and places take some getting used to - even more so than reading the likes of von Kluck's history of the advance on Paris. Thanks for that reminder. I hope you will still find the effort worthwhile. Please keep us posted.

Robert

[JesseM88]

Wow that review by Carol Sabin may just be one of the best I've ever seen on Amazon. Incredibly thorough.

Looks like an interesting read on a topic which has gone largely ignored in the English-speaking world for so long. I'll have to put it on my to-read short list.

[marsyao]

There will be another book on this subject but from Austro-german perspective: "Blitzkrieg in Walachia: The 1916 Austro-german Campaign in Romania" by Michael B. Barrett, I read his previous book "Operation Albion: The German Conquest of the Baltic Islands" and like it, this new book will be pulished in 2013

[JesseM88]

I'm going to be doing a semi-scholarly review for the website of the research center I work at.

Just wondering what people's experiences with this book have been like, as this is sort of an old thread and I would assume at least some of you guys have had the chance to read it.

[James A Pratt III]

I looked through but did not read word for word this book. It looks great. I have also read his other two books and found them excellent. If you want to know about Rumania in WW I these are the books to read.

[charlesmessenger]

Glenn Torrey really does fill in a gap in WW1 historiography. I have learned much from this book. My only quibble is the maps, which areoften hard to follow.

Charles M

[JesseM88]

Need to correct myself, the review I'm doing is actually this: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Snow-Carpathian-Winter-Studies/dp/0700618589

I do still plan on reading Glenn Torey's seemingly excellent work on the Romanian Front.

[David Filsell]

Just refound this thread. Herewith my Stand To! review.

GLENN E TORREY,

The Romanian Battlefront in World War 1, £35.95 (Check prices on Amazon for cheaper copies), 421pp, 17 maps, 42 photographs, 2 tables, bibliog., index. ISBN 978-0-7006-1839-2

When I first ‘discovered’ the Great War I began the tyro’s hard struggle to understand the complexities of the World War 1. Initially I lacked reference points; the names, the places, the length and breadth of a battalion, divisions or army corps, as well as the strategies, tactics and personalities. This ignorance brought to a halt at the very start of learning curve ahead and put me off the subject for many years.

Initially as I began this book the struggle Romanian politics, names of generals like with Popovici and Zottu and places like Bälesti and Sadova in Glenn E Torrey’s splendid The Romanian Battlefront in World War 1 reconjoured the same old he same feelings of ignorance. For, not least, Romania’s is a war of complicated politics, generalship and campaigns far away in a place about which I, and I suspect you, know little.

It is a complex tale, yet perseverance unveiled the author’s deep scholarship and confirmed publishers’ claims of the author’s “unparalleled familiarity with archival and secondary sources”. This, together with his familiarity of similar Austrian, German and French accounts, is matched by a clear and cogent text, which encourages readership by the ignorant. Torrey shows how and why Romania fought its war against the Central Powers between August 1916 and December 1917, during which it suffered some 220,000 dead. Initially the nation’s primary objective was to gain Transylvania, later to limit defeat. That the nation’s thinking, strategy, and generalship proved faulty was compounded by the stuttering indecision of French and British in Salonika and, above all, the military leadership of Falkenhayn and Mackensen. That, finally, the nation gained Transylvania from the Hungarians in the Treaty of Versailles proved a short lived paper victory.

This is a story largely unknown outside central Europe; it deserves not to be so. Whilst better and larger maps would greatly aid the reader, Glenn E Torrey, Emeritus professor of history at Emporia State University offers a highly valuable (and the only?) history of Britain’s least known ally’s war. Highly recommended

[kenneth505]

Thanks for putting us onto the trail of this book. Looks phenomenal. My only awareness of this part of the war is that the wife and I have had a good laugh over a bit we saw, somewhere that claimed that only higher ranking officers in the Romanian Army, Capt and above, were entitled to use facial make-up. Led to comments like, 'that's as bad as lipstick on a Lieutenant.'

A serious question though. I've not read anything detailed about Salonika either. Would it be useful to have some grounding in that part as well and if so any good titles to suggest?

[kenneth505]

I just finished Glenn E. Torrey's excellant book. I fully recommend this to all the fully obsessed amongst us. Torrey does a great job conveying the political environment that leads to Romanian entry, the military realities that lead to initial catastrophe and the remarkable resurrection that results. He demonstrates that the effects of Romanian involvement, even though mired in mixed results on the battlefield are instrumental in the formation of modern Romania.

Often I find myself thinking of TGW as two wars fought concurrently (West & East). Torrey's book manages to show me the intersections both militarily and politically between the two. Torrey convincingly describes that the war and its progression would have been quite different without Romanian entry. I'm thankful to Pasoleati for bringing my attention to this title.

Finally a topic Torrey doesn't delve into; What was the effect on the French Military diverting so much material assistance to Romania over fall 1916 and into 1917? It's clear without French assistance the Romanian contribution would not have amounted to nearly as much as it did. What did it take away from France?