On 30 August 1940, in Vienna, Foreign Ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop (Reich) and Galeazzo Ciano (Italy) issue the Second Vienna Award — the arbitral decision ceding Northern Transylvania from the Kingdom of Romania to Hungary.

The Romanian and Hungarian governments requested Axis arbitration after direct talks failed; Mihail Manoilescu and Count Csáky accepted the award as final. The mapped frontier was to be delimited on the ground by a joint commission; Romanian troops were to evacuate within 14 days.

The award regulates citizenship, option and minority treatment. It was later repudiated; the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty restored Romania’s 1938 Transylvanian frontier.

In Romanian historiography the event is known as the Vienna Diktat.

For Romania and Hungary, 30 August 1940 marks the Axis award.

The English text appears in the UN Reports of International Arbitral Awards and in FRUS 1940.

The Second Vienna Award of 30 August 1940 remains the Northern Transylvania cession milestone.

Image: Vienna/Transylvania; Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Second Vienna Award. Treaty text: UN RIAA — Award relating to territory ceded to Hungary (30 August 1940).