On 1 December 1887, Ioan Dragalina resigned from the Austro-Hungarian Army and moved to Romania where he joined the Romanian Army ten days later, retaining his rank of Lieutenant. Thanks to the skills and qualifications he had acquired in Austria-Hungary, Dragalina embarked upon a successful military career in Romania. As Captain Dragalina, he served under then-Colonel Constantin Prezan, a Romanian General during the First World War who eulogized him in 1936: "to his teachings I owe the tactics and strategy and all I knew and applied during the war and as Chief of the General Staff".