Romanian Naval Forces

The Romanian Naval Forces (Romanian: Forțele Navale Române) 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.

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. 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 "România [ro]" 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. The next ship to enter service with the Romanian Navy was the spar torpedo boat NMS Rândunica in 1875. These ships represented the Romanian Flotilla 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. The riverine base was at Galați, while the maritime base was at Constanța, which was by then part of Romania.

The Romanian Black Sea Fleet was founded in the summer of 1890, 10 years after Romania acquired its first sea-going warship: the gunboat NMS Grivița. The newly created division consisted of the small protected cruiser NMS Elisabeta, the training ship NMS Mircea, the three Smeul-class torpedo boats, and the forementioned Grivița.

On 2 July 1905, during the mutiny of the Russian battleship Potemkin, the Romanian protected cruiser NMS Elisabeta engaged the Russian torpedo boat Ismail 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. 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. On 10 July, after negotiations with the Romanian Government, Potemkin was handed over to Imperial Russian authorities and taken to Sevastopol.

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, 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 Elisabeta, laid down in 1888. 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.