The Romanian Naval Forces () is the principal naval branch of the Romanian Armed Forces and operates in the Black Sea and on the Danube. It traces its history back to 1860.
History
The Romanian Navy was founded in 1860 as a river flotilla on the Danube. After the unification of Wallachia and Moldavia, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the ruling Domnitor of the Romanian Principalities, decided on 22 October 1860 by order no. 173 to unify the navies into a single flotilla, the Danube Flotilla Corps. The navy was French-trained and organized.Axworthy, p. 327 Officers were initially sent to Brest Naval Training Centre in France, as the Military School in Bucharest did not have a naval section. The first Commander-in-chief of the navy was Colonel Nicolae Steriade. The base was first established in 1861 at Izmail, but it was later relocated in 1864 to Brăila and in 1867 to Galați. The equipment was modest at best, with 3 ships from Wallachia and 3 from Moldavia, manned by 275 sailors. The main goal of the navy was to organize, train and expand this small force.
The first seamen's training school was established in 1872 at Galați for officers, petty officers and sailors. The first acquisition of the Romanian Navy was the paddle steamboat "Prințul Nicolae Conache Vogoride". The ship was purchased in 1861 and was later transformed into a warship at Meyer naval shipyard in Linz, being christened "" when it was launched at Galați harbor. In 1867, the royal yacht "Ștefan cel Mare" (Stephen the Great) entered service. In October 1873, the Fulgerul gunboat, ordered by the Romanian state as the first purpose-built warship in the history of the Romanian Navy, was finished at the Toulon shipyard in France. However, the ship was unarmed, so she would be allowed passage through the Turkish straits. After arriving in Romania in April 1874, she was fitted with a Krupp cannon in a mild steel turret at the Galați shipyard.Locot.-Comandor C. Ciuchi – "Istoria Marinei Române în curs de 18 secole" (Tipografia "Ovidiu" H. Vurlis, Constanța, 1906), pag. 160–162 The next ship to enter service with the Romanian Navy was the spar torpedo boat in 1875. These ships represented the Romanian Flotilla during the War of Independence.
Romanian Navy during the War of Independence
During the War of Independence, the name used in Romanian historiography to refer to the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish war, the Romanian Navy sailed under the Russian flag. The main task of the Romanian Flotilla Corps was to transport Russian troops, equipment and supplies across the Danube and to protect the bridges across the river by using mine barrages in key points. The main success of the war was the sinking of the Turkish river monitor "Seyfî" near Măcin by a group of spar torpedo boats including "Rândunica" and the Russian Carevitch and Ksenya crafts. Another notable success was the sinking of the Turkish river monitor "Podgoriçe" (Podgorica) by the Romanian coastal artillery on 7 November 1877.
After the war, the navy transported the Romanian troops back across the Danube. The small but successful navy had demonstrated the need for a strong Danube flotilla in order to secure the southern border of Romania. Three rearmament plans were implemented: during 1883–1885, 1886–1888 and 1906–1908. These plans mainly concentrated on the Danube flotilla. In 1896, the "Flotilla Corps", as it was known until then, was organized in two sections: the Danube Division and the Sea Division.Gardiner (1984), p. 421 The riverine base was at Galați, while the maritime base was at Constanța, which was by then part of Romania.
Creation of the Romanian Black Sea Fleet The Romanian Black Sea Fleet was founded in the summer of 1890, 10 years after Romania acquired its first sea-going warship: the gunboat . The newly created division consisted of the small protected cruiser , the training ship , the three Smeul-class torpedo boats, and the forementioned Grivița.Warship International, Volume 21, International Naval Research Organization, 1984, p. 160
Involvement in the Potemkin mutiny
On 2 July 1905, during the mutiny of the , the Romanian protected cruiser engaged the as the latter was trying to sneak into the Romanian port of Constanța. Elisabeta fired two warning shots, first a blank charge then an explosive charge, forcing the torpedo boat to retreat. Later that day, Potemkin and Ismail left Romanian waters.Neal Bascomb, Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin, p. 252 During the night of 7 July, however, Potemkin returned to the Romanian port, this time agreeing to surrender to the Romanian authorities in exchange for the latter giving asylum to the crew. On the noon of 8 July, Captain Negru, the commander of the port, came aboard the Potemkin and hoisted the Romanian flag before allowing the warship to enter the inner harbor.Neal Bascomb, Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin, pp. 286–99 On 10 July, after negotiations with the Romanian Government, Potemkin was handed over to Imperial Russian authorities and taken to Sevastopol.Antony Preston, Warship 2001–2002, p. 121
Romanian Navy during World War I
After the War of Independence, two naval rearmament programs were proposed for the Black Sea flotilla. The 1899 program called for six coastal battleships, four destroyers and twelve torpedo boats. None of these ships were ever built,Halpern, p. 276 while the battleship Potemkin was returned 1 day after being acquired. The 1912 naval program envisioned six 3,500-ton light cruisers, twelve 1,500-ton destroyers and a submarine. Four destroyers (and allegedly a submarine) were actually ordered from Italy but were not delivered, as the Italian Navy requisitioned them in 1914. Three 340-ton coastal submarines were ordered from France in early 1917, but these were also requisitioned at the end of the year and completed for the French Navy as the O'Byrne class. The largest Romanian Black Sea ship was the old cruiser , laid down in 1888.Gardiner (1997), p. 419 The protected cruiser had guarded the mouths of the river Danube during the Second Balkan War, but she was disarmed when World War I began. Her armament was emplaced on the bank of the Danube River to protect against possible attacks by Austro-Hungarian river monitors, and she remained in Sulina for the duration of the war. The Romanian Black Sea squadron also had four old gunboats from the 1880s, which were of limited value, and three old Năluca-class torpedo boats, built in France. The Romanian Navy had to rely on the armed merchant ships of the state merchant marine, known as SMR (Serviciul Maritim Român). The steam liners Regele Carol I, România, Împăratul Traian and Dacia were converted into auxiliary cruisers.Gardiner (1984), p. 423
The Danube Flotilla was more modern,Halpern, p. 277 and consisted of four river monitors (Lascăr Catargiu, , Ion C. Brătianu and Alexandru Lahovari) and eight British-built torpedo boats. The four river monitors were built in 1907 at Galați. They were armed with three 12-cm cannons each. In 1918, Mihail Kogălniceanu was converted to a sea-going monitor. The British torpedo boats of the Căpitan Nicolae Lascăr Bogdan class were built during 1906–1907 and weighed 50 tons each. There were also approximately six older gunboats used for border patrol and as minelayers, and other auxiliary ships used for transport or supply. The Romanian Navy had a secondary role during World War I and only had light losses. The river monitors participated in the defense of Turtucaia and later secured the flank of the Romanian and Russian defenders in Dobruja.Halpern, p. 278 The main success of the war was the mining of an Austro-Hungarian river monitor.
Romanian Navy during the interwar period
Following the end of World War I, the Kingdom of Romania took possession of three Austro-Hungarian river monitors (renamed , , and after the newly incorporated territories), and in 1921 purchased four Italian patrol boats. These ships, together with the ones already in service, made Romania's Danube flotilla the most powerful riverine fleet in the world until World War II.
The main focus of the Romanian Navy during the interwar period was the Black Sea fleet. In 1920, two of the initial four scout cruisers (officially designated as destroyers) ordered from Italy were received. These were renamed and .Gardiner (1984), p. 422 Four gunboats were purchased from the French Navy: Stihi, Dumitrescu, Lepri, and .Gardiner (1980), p. 359 Another gunboat of the same class was bought for spares. Seven torpedo boats were received as war reparations from Austria-Hungary. The torpedo boat Fulgerul however was lost during the trip to Romania when she capsized and sank in the Bosphorus in 1922. , , and , three of these old torpedo boats, will later see service in World War II. In 1926, two additional destroyers were ordered from Italy: and of the , together with the Romanian Navy's first submarine, , and the submarine tender . These ships were commissioned between 1930 and 1936.
The expansion of the Romanian Navy during the interwar period required more training facilities and ships. The first step towards this issue was taken in 1920, when a naval college was founded at Constanța. In 1938, the sail ship was built in Hamburg by the Blohm & Voss shipyard as a training vessel for the Romanian Navy. The SMR (Serviciul Maritim Român, the Romanian state merchant marine) was also endowed with a number of new ships: the steamer Oituz, the ex-German freighters Ardeal, Peleș, Alba Iulia, and Suceava (all of them commissioned between 1932 and 1933), the passenger liners Basarabia and Transilvania (bought from Germany in 1938) and four new freighters from Italy just before the start of the Second World War: Balcic, Cavarna, Mangalia, and Sulina. In 1940, the SMR had 17 merchant ships with a total of over 72,000 tons of shipping.
The 1937 naval program and subsequent developments
In 1937, a new rearmament program was proposed. The new plan envisioned a cruiser, four small destroyers, three submarines, two minelayers and ten motor torpedo boats.Robert Gardiner, Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946, Naval Institute Press, 1980, p. 360 These warships were to be built locally at the Galați shipyard, where a new dry dock was developed.Axworthy, p. 328
The anti-aircraft escort minelayer was laid down at the Galați shipyard in August 1938, launched in June 1939 and commissioned during the first half of 1941. She replaced the planned cruiser as the largest warship yielded by the 1937 program. She was employed in minelaying operations as well as convoy escort missions. Her main armament consisted of 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval guns, much like the German anti-aircraft cruisers and . Her sister ship, Cetatea Albă, was laid down in 1939, but abandoned at an early stage.Naval Institute Proceedings, Volume 65, United States Naval Institute, 1939, p. 1364Robert Gardiner, Warship 1991, Conway Maritime Press, 1991, p. 147 Her construction was transferred to Germany and in 1940 she was completed by the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg.Earl Thomas Allnutt Brassey, Brassey's Annual: The Armed Forces Year-book, Volume 58, Praeger Publishers, 1947, p. 259 Cetatea Albă had the same standard displacement and top speed as her sister. It is not known, however, if her armament consisted of more than two 102 mm dual-purpose main guns, two 37 mm anti-aircraft guns and 135 mines. Cetatea Albă was likely never commissioned.
The four planned destroyers were replaced by four German minesweepers. These were built locally from German materials in 1943. They were 500-ton vessels armed each with two 88 mm main guns, five anti-aircraft guns (two 37 mm and three 20 mm) and two depth-charge throwers.Frederick Thomas Jane, Jane's Fighting Ships, Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1974, p. 275