RELAŢII MILITARE ANGLO-ROMÂNE ÎN PRIMII ANI DUPĂ RĂZBOIUL DE INDEPENDENŢĂ.

The theme of this article is the evolution of the Anglo-Romanian military relations during the first years after the Romanian Independence War of 1877-1878. The author is proposing himself to present in details this evolution, pointing at the geopolitical and geostrategic British interests in the position of Romania. After the Congress of Berlin, which didn't solve the "Eastern Question", the concern of the United Kingdom was directed to the tsarist Russia and the policy of this Power, aiming to the conquest of Constantinople and the two strategic straits, Bosphorus and Dardanelles, and to jeopardize in this way the important English commercial route to India. On the other side, the military conquest of the new independent state of Romania by the Russian armies and the forced entry of our country in the political sphere of influence and domination of this Eastern Great Power would surely jeopardize the strong position of the British merchants in the Danubian and the Black Sea trade. In the period analyzed below, 1878-1882, the British authorities and political establishment granted o great importance to the modernization process of the Romanian Army and Fleet, following various aspects, such as: the modernization of the technical knowledge of the Romanian Officers in the British colleges, the offer to the Romanian Army of the latest standard guns, powder, bullets and cannons, and finally, modern warships. And the result was, of course, the expected one: by the end of the year 1882, a modern Romanian Army and Fleet could be noticed, completely different of the 1878 ones, fact remarked by the British diplomats accredited in Bucharest, in their diplomatic correspondence with Foreign Office. A strong Romanian army, able to face any kind of external danger, coming even from a foreign power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]