Publisher's Synopsis
This comprehensive study, based on archival material from across Europe, examines the military and political career of Ion Antonescu, one of the most controversial figures in contemporary Romanian history. He rose quickly to become chief of operations for the Romanian Army in 1917 and was considered one of the most dynamic element of the Romanian command. He is credited with the authorship of Romania's most important military operations including the defense of Moldova in 1917 and the 1918 campaign for Transylvania, leading to its union with Romania. Antonescu earned a similarly impressive reputation as a military reformer, a champion of the Little Entente, and a staunch advocate of a pro-French and pro-British foreign policy orientation during the inter-war period. In a striking paradox, after becoming head of the Romanian state in September 1940, Antonescu became Germany's most important military ally against the Soviet Union during World War II. He was later condemned for Fascism although he crushed Romania's native Fascist movement, the Iron Guard, in 1941. And he continues to be vilified as an anti-Semitic mass murderer even though the survival rate of the Jewish population under his control during the war was greater, with the exception of Finland, than that of any other Axis ally, protectorate or occupied area.
