After the nationalist faction of the Sfatul Țării requested military assistance from Romania, the Romanian Army crossed the republic's border on 10/23 January, taking the capital within days.

On 27 March/9 April, Moldavia entered a conditioned union (essentially a federation) with the Kingdom of Romania, retaining its provincial autonomy as well as its legislative body (the Sfatul Țării).

On 27 November/10 December, after the end of World War I, a secret meeting of Sfatul Țării members renounced all conditions and proclaimed the unconditional union of Bessarabia with Romania, effectively amounting to an annexation by the latter.

This move was planned by Alexander Kerensky, who sent Inculeț, an associate professor at the University of Petrograd, to Bessarabia to take hold of the situation.

The large number of retreating soldiers increased the level of anarchy in Bessarabia, leaving the National Council with only minimal authority over the territory.

To further complicate matters, as the council was delaying a decision on the agrarian question, peasants across the region started to break up the estates of the large landowners and divide them among themselves.

As the General Staff of the Romanian Front was unable to send any troops, attempts were made to organize a Moldavian National Guard, but the results were far from expectations.

27 March] 1918, with the condition of local autonomy and the continuation of Bessarabian legislative and executive bodies, legally ending the Moldavian Democratic Republic.

8 December] 1917, the Sfatul Țării elected the government of the Moldavian Democratic Republic - the Council of Directors General, with nine members, seven Moldavians, one Ukrainian, and one Jew: In its first decree, the Council set forward the aim to "introduce order in all the aspects of life of the country, to eliminate anarchy and disaster, to organize all the aspects of state administration".