Editing Iron Guard (section)

===Sima's ascendancy===
{{See also|Horia Sima|Romania in World War II|Legionnaires' rebellion and Bucharest pogrom}}
In the first months of [[World War II]], Romania was officially neutral. However the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]] of 23 August 1939, initially a secret document, stipulated, among other things, Soviet interest in [[Bessarabia]]. After the [[invasion of Poland]] by [[Nazi Germany]] on 1 September, [[Soviet invasion of Poland|joined by the Soviet Union]] on 17 September, Romania granted refuge to members of Poland's [[Polish government-in-exile|fleeing government]] and [[Polish Armed Forces in the West|military]]. Even after the assassination of Călinescu on 21 September, King Carol tried to maintain neutrality, but the later French surrender to Germany and the British retreat from Europe rendered them unable to fulfil their assurances to Romania. A lean toward the [[Axis powers]] was probably inevitable.

This political alignment was obviously favourable to the surviving legionnaires, and became even more so after France fell in May 1940. [[Horia Sima|Sima]] and several other legionnaires who had taken refuge in Germany began slipping back into Romania. A month after the fall of France, Carol restructured his regime's single party, the [[National Renaissance Front]], into the more overtly totalitarian "Party of the Nation," and invited a number of legionnaires to take part in the restructured government. On 4 July, Sima and two other leading legionnaires joined the government of [[Ion Gigurtu]]. However, they resigned after only a month due to mounting pressure for Carol to abdicate.<ref name=Payne/>

The [[Second Vienna Award]], which forced Romania to cede much of northern [[Transylvania]] to Hungary, angered Romanians of all political shades and all but destroyed Carol politically. Despite this, a legionnaire coup on 3 September failed.<ref name=Payne/>