Military Sources for the Studying ff Historical Geography of Romania 1923-1941

Abstract

The documentation of different military authorities (archives, map collections) provides a lot of source material for the studying of historical geography. The relevant area can be the territory of the country as well as the neighbouring countries, which could be taken into account as a potential battlefield. For this reason, the military leadership did their best to have military geographical descriptions completed both about the homeland and the territory of the possible battlefield. These descriptions were continuously corrected. Their role was to make planning easier for the higher headquarters and the staff officers.
They depicted the territory of the potential battlefield from a military perspective. More types are known: military geography, operations manual, descriptions of rivers and strongholds as well as military statistical operations manual. Due to the size restriction of this study, we review three types of sources as regards to the Romanian Kingdom. An operations manual's first edition from 1923 (maps, descriptions, statistics). Aerial photos taken and reviewed by the air force (1919-1940), whose value as sources have not been taken advantage of yet. Administrative and logistical fluke manual (statistics) to make the military administration's work easier, which was supposed to be organized in the territories returned under the Second Vienna Arbitration. These sources supplement and sophisticate the others that are being used at historical geography.