British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War

by Dennis Deletant

Overview

British Clandestine Activities in Romania during the Second World War is the first monograph to examine the activity throughout the entire war of SOE and MI6. It was generally believed in Britain's War Office, after Hitler's occupation of Austria in March 1938, that Germany would seek to impose its will on South-East Europe before turning its attention towards Western Europe. Given Romania's geographical position, there was little Britain could offer her. The brutal fact of British-Romanian relations was that Germany was inconveniently in the way: opportunity, proximity of manufacture and the logistics of supply all told in favour of the Third Reich. This held, of course, for military as well as economic matters. In these circumstances the British concluded that their only weapon against German ambitions in countries which fell into Hitler's orbit were military subversive operations and a concomitant attempt to draw Romania out of her alliance with Germany.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137574527
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	04/08/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	257
File size:	799 KB

About the Author

Dennis Deletant is Visiting Ion Ra?iu Professor of Romanian Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, USA. He is also Emeritus Professor of Romanian Studies at University College, London, where he taught in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies between 1969 and 2011.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Selective Biographical Roster
1. Mission Accomplished: The Coup of 23 August 1944
2. Setting the Scene: Problems of Cohesion, 1918-1938
3. The Drift into Germany's Orbit: Romania, 1938-1941
4. The Prelude to Hostilities: Projecting Britain in Romania
5. Challenging German Ambitions: Clandestine British Military Operations in Romania, 1939-1941
6. Clandestine British Operations in Romania, 1942-1943
7. The 'Autonomous' Mission
8. MI6 and Romania, 1940-1945
9. The Eradication of Opposition to Communist Rule
10. Condemned But Not Forgotten: The Fate of Pro-British Activists in Romania, 1945-1964
11. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

A much-needed contribution to the understanding of the British intelligence activities targeting Romania during World War II … . this highly readable book is a must-read for students of Romanian and British history, especially for those interested in the history of espionage and international, political, and military history, the Holocaust, and the early communist regime in Romania.” (Ștefan Cristian Ionescu, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, October, 2018)

“Professor Dennis Deletant’s recent efforts at clarifying Romania’s place in the history of the Second World War have therefore been invaluable not only for Romanian scholarship, but for wider European historiography. … Deletant’s latest book isyet another much-needed and useful addition to the history of Romania and of East-Central Europe. … Those invested in the study of history can hope that this book will rekindle scholarly interest in the evolution of this part of Europe.” (Vlad Onaciu, LSE Review of Books, blogs.lse.ac.uk, September, 2016)

From the Publisher