section_path: History/Unification and the Kingdom of Romania/World War I and the Great Union
section_name: World War I and the Great Union
paragraph_text: World War I and the Great Union
  
  In 1916, Romania entered World War I on the side of the Entente Powers. Although the Romanian forces did not perform well militarily, by the end of the war the Austrian and Russian Empires had disintegrated; the National Assembly in Transylvania, and the Sfatul Țării in Bessarabia and Bukovina proclaimed their union with Romania, and King Ferdinand I and Queen Maria were crowned sovereign of all Romanians in Alba Iulia on 15 October 1922. The Treaty of Versailles recognised all the union proclamations in accordance with the right to self-determination established by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ’s Fourteen Points.