Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania

[Paul Hederer]

Short review of "Prelude to Blitzkrieg: The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania," by Michael Barrett. Published 2013, 424 pages.

I finished Barrett's "Prelude to Blitzkrieg," last week and just wanted to drop a short review on the forum. I was a bit skeptical of the title, I'm not a fan of the term Blitzkrieg, especially in connection with the Great War, but setting my reservations aside, mainly due to my interest in the subject, I bought the book.

"Prelude to Blitzkrieg," is an extremely well researched account of the Romanian campaign of 1916 from the beginning of the campaign in August to January 1917. It provides some historical and political background as well on Romania's situation both before and during the war years of 1914-16.

The book is well written, with a primary focus on military events of the campaign, which are interesting. Not a lot of personal accounts, or perspectives from the civilian population to be found. What it does well is narrate a very mobile campaign in which the Romanian Army was virtually destroyed. He emphasizes the contrast between a basically pre-war Romanian army and the armies of the Central Powers with two years hard war fighting under their belts. He also covers the strains of coalition warfare on both sides.

Overall a very solid military history account of the campaign, and a welcome resource on a subject that hasn't been covered much. The author's extensive use of foreign language materials (including archival) is impressive. Only quibble is there could have been more maps (a common lament).

Paul

[kaiserknight]

Thanks for the review Paul!

I bought my copy many moons ago, but as yet to start, along with my 2 million titles that I have piling up.

An interesting, and little described (in English) campaign, which finally appears to have a decent book written by a capable author. I also hope to read the other title of the same front by Glenn E Torrey "The Romanian battlefront in World War I" - which also has had very good reviews across the ether.

Cheers,KK.

[Paul Hederer]

I would definitely say that Torrey's "The Romanian battlefront in World War I," is the deeper of the two books. I doubt there is any scholar out there (English speaking, at least) who knows more about Romania's participation in the war.