Kingdom of Romania

The Kingdom of Romania was the constitutional monarchy of the lower Danube, proclaimed on 14 March 1881 when Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, ruling since 1866, took the crown as Carol I, and lasting until the forced abdication of Michael I on 30 December 1947. From Bucharest it modernised army, railways and oilfields, and in the First World War joined the Entente, collapsed under German occupation, and emerged enlarged: Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina made Greater Romania, nearly double the old kingdom. Ferdinand I the Unifier and Marie reigned over the confident 1920s; Carol II's personal rule and the Iron Guard corroded it in the 1930s. In the Second World War Antonescu carried the country with Germany to Stalingrad, until the young Michael arrested him in August 1944 and turned the army against the Axis. Soviet occupation hollowed the throne, and at year's end 1947 the king signed away the crown at gunpoint and the People's Republic was proclaimed.