LVIII Series Historica 2019

Abstract: Historiography has traditionally described the revolutions of 1848 in the Romanian Lands especially as reflecting the programmes shaped by Transylvanian, Wallachian and Moldavian revolutionaries. The military component of the Romanians’ revolutions was thus neglected. In Moldavia, the first Romanian revolution started on 27 March 1848 was followed by exemplary arrests enforced by local repression troops. As Moldavia also suffered Russia’s first invasion (June 1848) and longest occupation (July 1848 – October 1850), inner opposition was apparently impossible, so historiography focused on the outstanding Moldavian emigration. Our study brings unknown testimonies from the Military-Historical Archive in Moscow that prove the Romanian armed resistance on Moldavian soil. Russian military documents reveal the organization of the Polish South Legion, while Austrian consular reports present the planned Romanian armed insurrection in Moldavia (June–September 1848). The Tsarist sources denounced: the fight for independence and national unity of the Moldavians; their armed efforts aimed at removing the Russians; arms trafficking in Moldavia; armed forces of mountain inhabitants and hunters concentrated in the Curvature Carpathians; the training camp in Grozeşti (Oituz); the guerrilla fighters in the Ploşniţa mountain beating off the Cossacks. In April–September 1848, highpoint of the Romanian-Polish military collaboration was the South Legion of the Polish Republic, sustained by Romanian logistics and manpower, with operational basis in Grozeşti and military deployment in southern Moldavia and north-eastern Wallachia. By autumn 1848, the armed resistance of the Romanians and Poles was scattered and destroyed by the Tsarist troops of the 5th army corps, led by general Alexander Nikolaevich Lüders. Minutely described by the Russian campaign diary, the military occupation of the Romanian Principalities lasted until autumn 1850.