Did the US promise to save Romania from the Soviets?

Question

Around and after the end of WW2, many Romanians believe that "the Americans are coming" to save us from the Soviet takeover. There is a belief that promises were made at high levels to Romanian leaders.

As a result, there was a big resistance movement in the mountains, including parts of the Romanian Army who were waiting to sync with the Americans once they come. Of course, this never happened.

Do we know any details about what, if any, promises were made, by who and to whom? If promises were made, are there any documentation of what US leadership were thinking about offering them, and subsequent failure to follow through?

I've read/seen interviews with people mentioning specific promises made by certain US officials. Unfortunately I don't know those sources anymore, that's why I'm asking.

Answer 1

There's nothing special about Romania here. There were anti-Communist insurgencies throughout the Communist-controlled portion of Europe.

After losing millions of lives in the war against Nazi Germany, the citizens of democratic countries were not going to tolerate another major war. Even before the Soviets developed nuclear weapons, such a war would have killed millions more and held no certainty of victory. In 1918 the Western powers had tried to defeat the Soviets and failed miserably against a ragged band of fanatics. In 1945 the Soviet Union was a confident, victorious country with millions of battle-hardened soldiers and Western-made weapons. Invading Romania would have achieved nothing and got millions of people - mostly Romanians - killed.

The Allies did, in fact, manage to halt the Soviet takeover of some European countries - Greece is a good example. If any promise was made before the end of the war, it would have been on the basis of supporting one side in an unstable power vacuum, not overthrowing an established government backed up by armed Russians.

Answer 2

The Western Allies had very limited ability to help eastern European countries that the Soviets had invaded. Contrary to the belief of some that they could have continued advancing to Moscow in spring 1945, they lacked the strength to do that by conventional warfare, and their populations were growing tired of war.

There's a revealing passage in War Diaries 1939-45, by Alan Brooke. He was Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army, from December 1941 and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee from March 1942. He was a member of the US-British Combined Chiefs of Staff committee from its creation in April 1942. With all these roles, he dealt with strategy world-wide. His private diary was rather open about everything he did and thought, and you need a modern edition: the volumes published in the 1950s edited by Arthur Bryant have been ... excessively bowdlerised and tittivated.

In the entry for 24th May 1945, he writes:

This evening I went carefully through the Planners' [Joint Planning Staff] report on the possibility of taking on Russia should trouble arise in our future discussions with her. We were instructed to carry out this study. The idea is of course fantastic and the chances of success quite impossible. There is no doubt that from now onwards Russia is all powerful in Europe.

He was not considering nuclear weapons, since he would not have known much about the Manhattan Project, and nobody knew how effective or practical they would be. There was lots of theory, but no more.

At some point during the 1950s he wrote an addition to this diary entry. It is a bit long to quote in full, but the salient point is:

The results of this study made it clear that the best we could hope for was to drive the Russians back to about the same line the Germans had reached. And then what? Were we to remain mobilised indefinitely to hold them there?