Bucharest taken. Romania surrenders

While the British made good gains in Yugoslavia, the Russians took the opportunity to consolidate their bridgehead and make their long awaited move into the Balkans. Stalin sold it as a liberation of Romania and a chance to knock one of the axis minor allies out of the war. Churchill saw it for the land grab it really was.

The advance began slowly, with the element of surprise long since lost. The Totenkopf SS division barred the red army, and their panther tanks wreaked havoc amongst the massed T34s which attempted to push into the plains to the south of the Carpathian mountains. For five days the battle raged with casualties mounting on both sides, and it seemed that a breakthrough would not be possible.

Then there was a change of the general staff, and a new plan was hastily organised. The Russians abandonned their cautious advance in favour of mad dash tactics. The ploy worked, Suddenly whole companies of German SS troops found their positions swarming with Russians who attacked headless of the casualties sustained. The close in fighting, entirely not what the Germans wanted, soon saw most of the SS panthers either destroyed or sent fleeing in panic. Seeing the SS units retreating the Romanians needed no encouragement and by the 14th the whole of the Romanian front had collapsed, and the Germans were trying desperately to extricate their remaining fighting units from the country before the inevitable happened.

With the fight knocked out of them the Romanian government, fearful of revolution, surrendered to the Red Army on the 15th, and the Russians occupied Bucharest on the next day, chasing the Germans all the way to the Ploesti oilfields, where a well executed German counter attack blunted the Russian advance. Angered by his ally's weakness, and determined not to lose the vital oil Romania provided, Hitler ordered the fields of Romania to be stained with the blood of Russian and Romanian alike...