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Home | Overview | Controversies | Timeline | Combatants | Biographies | Glossary | Learn More
Combatant States - Central powers | Austro - Hungary | Germany | Turkey (Ottoman Empire) | Bulgaria
Combatant States - Allies | Serbia | Russia | France | Belgium | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | India | New Zealand | Rhodesia | Union of South Africa | United States of America| Italy | Romania | Greece | Montenegro | Portugal | Japan
Entered War : 27 August 1916 (declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary)
Political system : Constitutional monarchy since gaining independence from Turkey (1878)
Leader : Ferdinand I: sovereign, 1914-27
Ion Bratianu: prime minister, 1914-18
Population : 7.5 million (1914)
Army : 400,000 men (1913). When the army was fully mobilised in 1916, that number rose to 860,000 men
Navy : 1 cruiser, 4 monitors, 4 destroyers, 3 torpedo boats (1914)
Recent Diplomacy : The Second Balkan War of 1913 - when Bulgaria declared war against Greece and Serbia - ended when Bulgaria was invaded by Romania. The subsequent peace treaty doubled the size of Serbia and gave Greece control over most of the Aegean coast. Romania also gained territory.
Romania stayed neutral when war began in 1914, but Russian successes in 1916 convinced it to join the Allies in the hope of gaining territory from Austria-Hungary, particularly Transylvania. King Ferdinand was married to a cousin of George V.
Casualties by 1918 : 335,706 dead, 120,000 wounded