The 1913 Romanian Army cholera outbreak was a cholera

outbreak In epidemiology, an outbreak is a sudden increase in occurrences of a disease when cases are in excess of normal expectancy for the location or season. It may affect a small and localized group or impact upon thousands of people across an entire ...

the

Romanian Army The Romanian Land Forces ( ro, Forțele Terestre Române) is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the Lan ...

suffered during the

Second Balkan War The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 ( O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies r ...

of 1913 against the

Kingdom of Bulgaria The Tsardom of Bulgaria ( bg, Царство България, translit=Tsarstvo Balgariya), also referred to as the Third Bulgarian Tsardom ( bg, Трето Българско Царство, translit=Treto Balgarsko Tsarstvo, links=no), someti ...

. This conflict was part of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. As Bulgaria was then fighting with

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

and

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

, the invasion by

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

, which had a geographic and strategic advantage, was met with minimal Bulgarian resistance.

History

The Romanian Army had to operate in a battleground with a low infrastructure and under the weather conditions of the summer. Furthermore, the little organization of the army's services provoked deficiencies in the alimentary and sanitary conditions of the Romanian soldiers. These conditions facilitated the spread of cholera. Thus, the first case of an infected Romanian soldier occurred on 13 July 1913. A week later, on 20 July, the cases were 2,000. This number rose so quickly due to ignorance of Romanian army

officers An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," f ...

, who ignored and even ridiculed the warnings by the army's

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

s on several occasions. It was quickly determined that

vaccination Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...

had to begin, this happening on 22 July. Medical measures were quickly taken to curb the

epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious ...

. The Romanian physician Ioan Cantacuzino began several series of inoculations of Romanian soldiers, and after the third one in 3 August, the cases were drastically reduced. Thanks to all this, the last case of cholera occurred in November and the disease could be mostly stopped before the Romanian soldiers returned to Romania. Marie of Romania, Princess and future

Queen of Romania Consorts of Romanian monarchs were persons married to the Romanian monarch during his reign. All monarchs of modern Romania were male with the title of King of the Romanians, but all Romanian consorts were women with the title of Queen of Romania ...

, organized a system of treatment and

quarantine A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...

for the Romanian soldiers when they arrived, avoiding a possible spread of cholera among Romanian civilians. Although figures might be conflicting, out of the approximately 400,000 Romanian soldiers who entered Bulgaria during the war, it is estimated that there may have been some 11,500–15,000 infected and a total of 1,600 dead. This made all Romanian casualties during the Second Balkan War non-military related, only caused by the cholera outbreak. Romania accused the local Bulgarian population and Turkish prisoners of war for the cholera outbreak, while Bulgaria blamed the Romanian Army and its "poor hygiene conditions". Once the Second Balkan War ended and after the Treaty of Bucharest was signed, Romania gained

Southern Dobruja Southern Dobruja, South Dobruja or Quadrilateral ( Bulgarian: Южна Добруджа, ''Yuzhna Dobrudzha'' or simply Добруджа, ''Dobrudzha''; ro, Dobrogea de Sud, or ) is an area of northeastern Bulgaria comprising Dobrich and Silis ...

from Bulgaria. A few years later, Romania itself suffered numerous cases of cholera as a result of its participation in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. To treat them, Queen Marie of Romania applied the same procedures as in the 1913 epidemic.

References

{{Balkan Wars 1913 in Romania 1913 in Bulgaria Second Balkan War 1913 disease outbreaks Cholera outbreaks Disease outbreaks in Bulgaria Disease outbreaks in Romania Romanian Land Forces

History

See also

References