black sea

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PREFACE
PREFACE
Major Major General General (Ret) (Ret) Dr. Dr. MIHAIL MIHAIL E. E. IONESCU
IONESCU
Director Director Director Director Director of of of of of the the the the the Institute Institute Institute Institute Institute for for for for for Political Political Political Political Political Studies Studies Studies Studies Studies
of of of of of Defense Defense Defense Defense Defense and and and and and Military Military Military Military Military History History History History History
The Hellenic and the Romanian Commissions of Military History, together with the Institute for
Political Studies of Defense and Military History, after seven years, are dedicating a new issue of the
“Review of Military History” to the history of political-military relations between our countries, with a
Pontic connotation this time.
A people of navigators and merchants, the old Greeks „discovered” the Black Sea by the expedition
of Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece (XIII th Century B.C.), annexed it to the written history,
firstly through Homer and Hesiodus, than in much circumstantiate manner, together with the entire
basin of the Danube, thanks to the work of Herodotus. But, by the Hellenic influence to the development
of the autochthonous civilization, the historical relations between old Greeks and the Carpathian-
Danubian-Pontic regions and their inhabitants, the Geto-Dacians, date back from more than three
millennia.
Although the Black Sea is a part of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, being considered as its
prolongation, the possession of the Straits is the key for the geopolitical understanding of the history of
Pontus, of the political relations between the inhabitants of its shores and Greece.
The possession of the Straits is essential not only for the developement in the Aegean, but also for
the Black Sea. The Greek possession of Dardanelles and Bosphorus in the ancient world explained the
Greek colonization on the Pontic shores, afterward being challenged by the Persians.
On the eve of the Christian era the Roman expansion in the Pontic basin, the development of the
Roman Empire and the transformation of the Black Sea into a “Roman lake” were possible by the strong
control over the Straits. Their exceptional geopolitical significance is proved by the translation to
Constantinople of the capital of the Roman Empire and its survival, the Byzantine Empire. By the
function of the Black Sea as a “Byzantine lake” and of an “Imperial Danube” until the IV th Crusade
(1204), were possible the spreading of the mediaeval Greek civilization and the implementation of
political forms, essential for the incipient organization of Romanian statehood.
During the „Turkokrateia” and the locking of the „Ottoman lake” – even if the Black Sea navigation
and trade relations between the Greeks and the Romanian Principalities have remained vigorous, the
Greek sailors and merchants being the main instrument of the naval communications –, the Ottoman
control over the Straits mediated or prohibited all political connections. But even in these conditions, in
the XVI th -XVIII th centuries, the influences and the flourish of the Greek culture were important for the
building of the modern civilization in the Romanian Principalities.
The Peace of Adrianople (1829) started a new era for the Romanian - Greek relations, by opening the
Blake Sea and the Danube to the great world trade and also by the emergence of a Greek state. The
important commercial partnership between Romania and Greece, the presence of colonies of Greeks
merchants in the Danubian and Pontic harbors influenced the development of the modern Romanian
urbanism.
Greece and Romania were involved in the Balkan crisis of 1912 – 1913 ended with the Peace Treaty
of Bucharest of 1913. The two countries were finally on the same side during the WW I and Greek units
participated at the second French mission of General Berthelot in Romania (1919), in the North-Eastern
Black Sea.
If, after 1923, the Greek political interest was focused on the East Mediterranean, we assist to a
strong Balkan dimension of the Romanian-Greek relations, by purpose to conserve here, with the
Yugoslavian alliance, the Versailles system, and, with Turkey, the status of Black Sea. Predominantly
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