Romania 1941–45

After initially declaring itself neutral, Romania eventually joined with Nazi Germany and its allies in November 1940. The government had been taken over by a military dictatorship under Mareşal Ion Antonescu and committed a large number of troops to the eastern front. It joined Germany in its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and played an important role in the fighting in Bessarabia and Ukraine. From 1943, as the Nazis began to lose the war, the Allies repeatedly bombed Romania. Their main target was Ploiesti, where Romania had a large oil refinery. The Soviets reached Jassy in northeastern Romania in August 1944, convincing King Michael to sign an armistice with the Allies; after a coup that deposed Antonescu’s regime, Romania went on to join forces with the Allies. Despite this, they lost much of their territory to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union but, once again, regained northern Transylvania from Hungary.