Carol I

Sorry, the book cover did not come through first.

The National Military Museum should have this king of information. Many years ago they published the book below, but I have no idea how much they ventured into the RPR period and beyond.

Is this supposed to be a Romanian bar? One of the most puzzling is the Order of the Crown of Romania on the bar. The orders awarded before 1947 were disbanded in 1948. I have read stories about holders who were forced to give back the old awards after that date or who had them changed to RPR awards. Even neglecting the Order of the Crown of Romania, if this is a Romanian bar, I think it unusual to have the Soviet awards before the Romanian ones, but I am no expert on these matters. One more thing, the Order of the Crown of Romania is unusual, being made out of a type II body with type I center disks.

I see no argument. Practically, it all came down to the number of pupils in the class and sometimes to the layout of the classroom. For 38-40 pupils, 4 groups of about 10 pupils make sense. For 34-36 pupils, 3 groups were more reasonable. Furthermore, many classrooms had three rows of desks and it was relatively common that each row was attributed to a group. So, I think in practice there were many variations from place to place, none of them being the rule and the others the exceptions.

In "detachments" (classes ) of 36, there were usually 3 groups. You mean the one below? I think their background colour corresponded to the age group, like the shoulder straps. Source: www.latrecut.ro By the way, the same site (in Romanian only) has an image of a group commander (red) lanyard.

The yellow lanyard was the sign of a "detachment commander", in practice the detachment being the class. The red lanyard was for a "group commander", with about 3-4 groups per detachment. If I remember well, blue was the colour of the elementary school pioneers, while yellow was the colour of the secondary school pioneers.

I very much doubt it was a WWI award as in that case it would have been described as the "Order of the Star with swords", i.e., a wartime award. In Romanian terms, wartime awards were referred to as "the order ... with swords" and had swords through the centre of the cross, while peacetime awards that were limited in terms of members were referred to as "the order ... with peacetime military insignia" (only in the case of the Order of the Star of Romania this meant swords above the cross). Yes.

Below is an image of the peacetime military insignia of a Commander of the Order of the Star of Romania during Ferdinand's reign, like the one awarded to Rear Admiral Burzagli (by the way, do you have the date of the award?).

Hi Mauro! Rear Admiral Burzagli received the commander's cross of the Order of the Star of Romania with swords above the cross. This was the "peacetime military insignia" for this order.

Hi everybody. I am interested in collecting information about the Romanian order awards during WWII (to Romanian, German or Soviet officers) and I would like to take a look in the award certificates that you may have in your collections. I would therefore appreciate if you could help me by sending the information that you may have available. It would be great if you could post or send me images of the awards certificates as this would minimise errors in transcription (the images should preferably be large enough to allow the information on them to be read without straining the eyes ). As an example I attach an image of an award certificate for the Order of the Crown of Romania with swords which I have seen for sale several years ago and on which I have colour-coded the essential information. Red: Decree number Blue: Date of the decree (usually in the format DD.MM.YYYY) Green: Details of the award (class and ribbon) Yellow: Details of the awardee (name, rank, unit, justification of the award) Pink: Certificate number Purple: Date of issue for the certificate (in the format YYYY.MM.DD) Please note that sometimes provisional award certificates with a different format were issued, but information from those is equally interesting. Thanks.

I think artillery also had black as the branch colour.

You're welcome. Could you give the details of the awardee (name, rank, unit) here or in a private message? Thanks.

Yes!

It certainly fits here. The inscription around the badge is bilingual, with the version to the left in Romanian: Podul Dunarea (Danube Bridge). The vice-president of the comission appears to have a Romanian last name: Diaconescu.

My contribution to this topic, an unofficial type 2 medal (with reversed "N"-s and replaced "G"-s). It belonged to Ion Stoenescu, a junior officer in WWI. http://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-2129-125464904983.jpghttp://gmic.co.uk/uploads/monthly_10_2009/post-2129-125464906841.jpg

The last statement requires some corrections. Following the union of Transylvania with Romania on 1 December 1918, the Soviet Republic of Bela Kun planned an offensive against Romania in the spring of 1919 and begun a military buildup at the frontier. The Hungarian attack triggered the Romanian reaction and eventually the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The Romanian army units withdrew completely from the Hungarian territory by the spring of 1920. Activities after that date regard operations against the Bolshevik units that attacked the Dniester frontier in the East.

To put names and faces to signatures, Minister of War between 1922 and 1926 had been General Gheorghe Mărdărescu. (from the Photo gallery of the Ministry of Defense))

I'm glad you like them. They are indeed an extraordinary sight that's worth a visit when you are in Munich.

Bavarian Crown Jewels The Collar of the Order of St. Hubertus can be seen in the background to the left.

Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece

Collar of the Order of St. George

Gem-studded insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece and of the Order of St. Hubertus

Gem-studded insignia of the Order of St. George

Here are images of some rare orders in the treasury of the Munich Residence. Collar of the Order of St. Hubertus

There are several books on Romanian awards, but most of them deal with the pre-1948 awards. One of them however has a small section on the communist-era decorations. S. Catone, N. Şerbănescu, D. Bedivan România - Decoraţii 1859-1991 [Romania - Decorations 1859-1991] Bucharest 1992 The book is rather a disappointment given the "wealth" of information on the royal awards, so I presume it is equally spartan on the communist-era decorations. But it is one of the few references available.