The article analyses the aims of the Romanian political elite in World War One, which were changing depending on the perspectives of acquisition of new territories, where Eastern-Romanian population lived. By the end of the war, the leaders of the Entente were interested in using Romanian bayonets to erect a barrier against the Bolshevism in Central Europe. Due to a favourable coincidence, Romania acquired not only Transylvania, but also Bessarabia, even if to gain the latter would have been considered by the Romanian elite in the fi rst years of the war as an unrealisable dream.