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78 Rumania and the Warthe Pope, Sixtus IV. After each war in whichhe was victorious he built a beautiful church.These churches still exist in various parts of thecountry, and have been used as places of worshipup to the present time. Thus he built 47churches. In the inspiration of his mother hefound his highest moral stimulus. This is whata popular legend says about this heroine :

"In this old fortress built on the side of amountain, the Mother of the Prince keeps watchas a sentinel of honor. Voichitza, the young wifeof the Prince, is also there, sweet and suave, asa white carnation, sighing for her glorious andmuch-loved lord, who returns not from the com-bat. The Princess, her mother-in-law, consolesand cheers her. The clock has just struck mid-night, when Voichitza hears the fanfare of thetrumpet and the knocking at the gate. She knowsit is her husband, and her heart goes out to him.Both the princesses rise quickly, and soon thevoice of him whom they love cries from the dark-ness: 'It is I, thy son, dear mother. I thy son!I am wounded in battle, the struggle has been toostrong for us, and my little army is devastated.Open the gates, for the Turks are surroundingus, the wind is piercing, and my wounds are pain-ful.' Voitchitza rushes to the window, but hermother-in-law holds her back, and bidding her


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Woman 's Work in Rumania 79remain where she is, descends the stairs, ordersthe castle gates to be opened, and appears beforeher son, tall, majestic, severe the absolute per-sonification of dignity and grandeur. 'What doyou say, stranger? My Stephen is far away!His arm is sowing death and annihilation. I amhis mother and he is my son! If you are reallyStephen, I am not your mother. If heaven doesnot wish to make my last days sorrowful, and ifyou are really Stephen, you will not enter here,vanquished, against my will. Fly to the battle-field! Die for your country! Your tomb shallbe strewn with flowers!' And closing the door,she remounts the stairs ; and calm and serene, sheconsoles and wipes away the tears of the youngPrincess Voichitza."The dignified descendants of those women of

the past are also in the present times keeping hightheir inheritance and their fruitful mission.Whilst the peasant woman, as I have said, byher daily toil provides the army and the peoplewith the necessary food, clothing and things offirst necessity, her sisters of the higher classes arelending all their efforts to the army and the coun-try. Organized in charity societies or individu-ally, they tend the wounded in hospitals, and inthe hospital-trains leading from the firing line;they have organized canteens in railway stations,


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COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY RICHARD G. BADGERAll Rights Reserved

L-3

Made in the United States of AmericaThe Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.


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FOREWORDThe author of the following book is a Ruma-

nian physician who was also, during and prior tothe war, a member of the Rumanian Parliament.When his country, overrun and devastated by herenemies, and completely cut off from her friends,was forced to sign an unwilling and disastrouspeace with the Central Powers, he left his homeat the last moment when it was still possible toreach the outside world, because he believed thathe could serve his country only by pleading hercause abroad. For Rumania, which possibly suf-fered more than any other country in the war,was certainly the most completely isolated of allthose that had fought the common enemy. Withina few weeks after our author's departure it wasimpossible to enter or to leave the country, andeven communication by post or telegraph wasout of the question. A small band of leaders likeDr. Lupu had escaped to represent the countryto the world, and they alone could tell iierstory.Some part of that story is printed in this book.

3


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Foreword 5"During my three months here, I have seen

many things. When the time for writing comesagain I shall tell my countrymen about them. Butone thing I must say now.

"I have wondered how the Americans were ableto achieve such memorable deeds in peace and inwar as they have accomplished. And if I havenot probed deep into the ultimate causes of theirsuccess, I believe that nevertheless I have sat-isfied myself as to the proximate causes of theirremarkable progress.

"For certain purposes the many types of in-dividuals and peoples in the world may be re-duced to two. There is the purely idealistic type,who dreams of regenerating the world into per-fection, but whose dreams have too slight founda-tion in experience and practice. The Russians ofour day are an example. Then there is the prac-tical type, strong of will, powerful in organization,but lacking in high spiritual ideal. The Germansare the corresponding example. Now the Ameri-cans exhibit both these qualities highly developedand remarkably harmonized, and this strikingcombination of traits is, I am sure, a considerablepart of the explanation of their successes. Andwith these traits they are distinguished also forwhat I can only call a certain freshness of soul, a


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6 Forewordnaivete, characteristic of strong and youngpeoples, for whom nothing is impossible."An author who speaks in this way about ourcountry after a brief acquaintance with it de-serves an interested reader when he writes abouthis own land.


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CONTENTSPAGE

RUMANIA AND THE WAR 13SOME FACTS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY . . 43WOMAN'S WORK IN RUMANIA 64PEASANT CO-OPERATION IN RUMANIA ... 83FOR THE REUNION OF ALL RUMANIANS ... 93UKRAINIA AND BESSARABIA 103MEMORANDUM OF THE RUMANIAN WAR AIMS. . 113


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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONSFACINGPAGEWith the Rumanian Army A Cavalry Patrol on

the Ice Fields FrontispieceWith the Rumanian Army Maxim Section

Driving Down a Steep Embankment . . 26With the Rumanian Army in the Field. A

Priest Blessing Regimental Colors ... 40A Rumanian Peasant Girl in National Costume 66Two Rumanian Peasant Beauties 72Ecaterina Theodoroiu 80The Crown Prince of Rumania at a MilitarySchool 86The White Guard 102


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RUMANIA AND THE WAR


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RUMANIA AND THE WARWO years ago, when I was in London, I sawin a newspaper a sketch representing a news-

paper boy in 1935 crying "Rumania coming in."That sketch depicted sarcastically the anxiety andthe puzzled state of mind of the public as to theattitude of Rumania. From 1914 until 1916 Ru-mania was the political sphinx of the time. IsRumania to come into the war? On whose side,and when ? Why has she not yet come in ? Thesequestions remained unanswered. No one was ableto say anything definite. Later on, long before1935, Rumania did enter the war on the side ofthe Allies. After some ephemeral successes atthe beginning, when her sons after three centuriesof waiting since the time of Michael the Braveentered again into Transylvania, the calvary ofher misfortunes began: the loss of Dobrudja, theretreat in Transylvania, the loss of Wallachia,hunger, and exanthematic typhoid. Instead ofthe enthusiasm which greeted the entry of Ruma-nia into the war, a sort of disillusionment and dis-appointment was felt in the West, where "failure"


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14 Rumania and the Warwas the only word used of Rumania. The long-awaited ally on whom so many hopes had beenbuilt had become a burden difficult to support anda troublesome companion in the fight. Only quitelately, during the summer of 1917, after theHomeric battles of Mareshti and Marasheshti,when a good many allied officers and soldiers hadthe opportunity to be eye-witnesses of the braveryof the Rumanian soldiers, public opinion in theWest immediately altered its ideas and sentimentstoward Rumania. And now after the Russian dis-aster, which has had a repercussion on all of us,but a tragical one on Rumania, one may say thateverybody shows sympathy and compassion forthe Rumanian people. But neither during theperiod of doubt and suspicion, nor during the timeof enthusiasm and subsequent disappointment-one could almost say of disdain perhaps not evenduring the present period of compassion, is thereal situation of Rumania known. The public atlarge do not know it and, what is more important,even those do not kflow who ought to know. Forif the real state of things in Rumania had beenknown, many mistakes could have been avoided,and the entry of Rumania into the fray could havebeen decisive for the Allies instead of being fatalfor her. The aim of this essay is to throw astronger light on the conditions of the Rumaniantragedy.


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Rumania and the War 15First of all, was it absolutely necessary for Ru-mania speaking from the point of view of strictlyRumanian interests to take part in the world

war? Yes. While other peoples of Europe hadlong ago fulfilled the national ideal of having inone state all their co-nationals, the Rumanians,after a long series of historical vicissitudes, wereat the beginning of the twentieth century in thefollowing geographical and ethnographical situ-ation: There were 7,000,000 Rumanians livingin the Kingdom of Rumania; 4,500,000 in Tran-sylvania, Banat, Bukovina, and parts of Mara-muresh and Crishana in Austria-Hungary; 2,000,-ooo in Bessarabia; 1,000,000 over the Dniester inthe governments of Kherson and Podolia in Rus-sia; 500,000 in Macedonia; and 200,000 inSerbia on the Timok Valley. More than half ofthe Rumanians are living beyond the boundariesof the Kingdom, but in its immediate neighbor-hood and in unbroken continuity, except those inMacedonia.The Rumanian in Transylvania and Hungary

is beyond the protection of the law. The Hun-garians, who vaunt themselves on having a con-stitution as old as the British, and on being themost liberal people in Europe, are suffering froma great delusion. They dream of making a greatnation of 20,000,000 Hungarians, although theynumber only 8,000,000. For this reason, they try


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1 6 Rumania and the Warto magyarize the 14,000,000 Rumanians and Serb-ians by imposing upon them the most Draconianregime ; and in the matter of inventing Draconiandevices they are unsurpassed by anybody. Inthe first place, the Rumanians are deprived of par-liamentary representation. Instead of the eightydeputies to which the proportion established inHungary for election purposes would entitle themthey have only four. The vote is not secret, andat each election there are dead and woundedamong those who vote for the Rumanian candi-date. Liberty of the press is non-existent; foras soon as one writes of Rumania, fines and im-prisonment are his portion. During the lasttwenty years about one hundred years of prisonand many hundred thousand crowns in fines havebeen imposed upon Rumanian journalists in Hun-gary. Justice is administered in the Magyar lan-guage, which the great majority of the Rumaniansdo not understand, because it is a language apart,which has no kindred with any of the Europeanlanguages. The instruction is also given in thatlanguage. The schools which the Rumanians haveestablished at great sacrifice out of their own pri-vate funds have been closed by the liberal Hun-garian Count Apponyi. Three hundred peasantswere done to death in the interval from 1902 to1912 for wearing the Rumanian national tricolor.


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Rumania and the War 17Not one Rumanian paper or book from Rumaniais allowed to enter Hungary, although there is noprohibition in Rumania for the importation ofany publication from either Hungary or elsewhere.All the public offices, large or small, are occupiedby Hungarians; all economic advantages, likebanking, credit, help in misfortune, colonization,etc., are only for Hungarian use. The name theygive to the Rumanian, "Olah," is a name of insult.This state of slavery, of vassalage to the Hun-garians, under different forms has lasted for cen-turies. Several times the Rumanians have re-volted. Since the revolutionary movements of1784 and 1848 hundreds of thousands of Ruma-nians have emigrated partly to Rumania to telltheir misfortunes to their brethren, and partly toAmerica. The latter are forming at present afew divisions which will be sent to France, in theRumanian uniform, to fight side by side with theBritish and French soldiers. Thus the Rumanianswill still be represented in the mighty army of theAllies, although a cruel fate prevents the mainbody of the Rumanian army from continuing theholy struggle.

But the emigrants left behind millions of theirbrethren in continual suffering. And these millionsof Rumanians of Transylvania are the best ele-ment of the race. From them came the first ele-


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1 8 Rumania and the Warments of culture ; they promoted the awakening ofnational sentiment which was slumbering underthe Turkish domination; they have produced thebest of our writers and poets, two of whom, Gogaand Coshbuc, belong to our own generation. Fromthe beginning of the world war they looked east-ward over the Carpathians to Rumania with dawn-ing hope, and but one thought, their liberation.And with equal longing the great mass of thepeople in Rumania shared their hope and ardentlydesired its rapid fulfilment.When, in recompense for the help given to them

by the Rumanians in their war against the Turksin 1877, and contrary to the formal engagementstaken to respect the integrity of the territory ofRumania, the ungrateful Russians for the secondtime took Bessarabia away from her, the officialpolicy of Rumania, under the leadership of thelate King Carol, was, of dire necessity, adherenceto the Triple Alliance. ,But the people, the greatmass of the nation on both sides of the Car-pathians, never understood that they must sacrificeto this Alliance the more than just claims of theRumanian race.

But besides the cry of our brothers over themountains, we could also hear the plaint of ourbrothers over the Pruth in Bessarabia. All thegallant history of four centuries of the strugglefor freedom in Moldavia is full of names of Bes-


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Rumania and the War 19sarabian heroes and Bessarabian places. Brokenby treason from the body of Moldavia in 1812,and incorporated with Russia by the Tsar Alexan-der I, Bessarabia was enduring a cruel fate. Hereevery national movement was punished not byfines, but by exile to Siberia and death. No Ru-manian schools, either private or belonging to theGovernment, existed. In the Church, only Rus-sian was permitted, and so also in the administra-tion and the courts of justice. As for national rep-resentatives, even the Russians had none. Andabove all this there was the continuous enmitywhich Russia of the Tsars has shown to the Ru-manian countries, always regarded as a prey. Inthe nineteenth century the Rumanian countrieswere six times overrun and plundered by the Mos-covite armies; and the last act of the rape of Bes-sarabia was in 1914, too fresh in everybody'smind. If one adds to this the well-known desireof Russia for the Dardanelles and Constanti-nople, that is to say, the outlet by which the wholeof the exportation of Rumania is directed, andthat Russia and Rumania, both producing thesame articles, oil and cereals, were continuallymeeting as competitors in the Western markets,one can easily see that the sincere supporters ofan intervention against Russia, were not lackingin plausible arguments.

I say with intention sincere supporters, because


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2O Rumania and the Warmuch was written and said about corruption inRumania practised by Germans and Russians inorder to influence public opinion. It is certainthat corruption existed; but the enemy boughtthose who were for sale. I remember that theGermans paid 40,000 to a journalist who hadbeen implicated in many shady affairs. Whenasked why they were lavishing money on such in-dividuals, they answered: "We have to buy the dis-honest ones; the honest ones do not take money."But though a few degenerates may have been paidfor their work, there was a small but sincere cur-rent of opinion in Rumania opposed to the popu-lar desire. It is no wonder that the Germansexploited the situation; it was obviously in theirinterest to do so. The strife between these twocurrents lasted two years. This was the painfulperiod of uncertainty. "Nothing is more diffi-cult than to make a decision," said Napoleon, whowas a man of action. How much more difficultwas it for Rumania, a little, isolated state, withthe puzzling Russian menace at her back, withthe fate of Belgium and Serbia fresh in her mem-ory, to decide to make the supreme choice onwhich the very existence of the state and of thenation were at stake!The struggle was severe. The supporters of

action on the side of the Germans had strong ar-


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Rumania and the War 21guments. We must not place our confidence in theRussians, who have always deceived and betrayedus. No matter what is the general result of thewar, on the Eastern front the Russians are boundto be beaten; and if we are with them, we shallhave to share their fate. It is true that ourbrothers of Transylvania are suffering; but thesame can be said of our brothers in Bessarabia.If the Russians are victorious and take the Dar-danelles, we shall be their economic slaves, andthen also their political slaves. Technically speak-ing, we cannot make war against Austria, becausewe have no munitions, and no possibility of bring-ing in munitions, our Western allies being too dis-tant and the way through the White Sea too long;while if we are on the side of Germany, we canbring in quickly plenty of munitions.

In conclusion they quoted the authentic opinionof the German Military Attache, von Hammer-stein, given to a Rumanian statesman. "Yourarmy is excellent; the soldiers are perfect. Youlack munitions. The command is not so good. Ifyou join us, we shall complete your command andgive you sufficient munitions. In two months'time you will be masters of Bessarabia and the Ru-manian portions of Kherson and Podolia up to theRiver Bug, including Odessa. If you go againstus, the command will be weaker still, because you


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22 Rumania and the Warwill fight together with the Russians, who haveproved to be badly commanded. You will haveno munitions because the Russians are themselveslacking, and your other allies are too far away.In three months' time your whole country will beoccupied by German armies."

I must add that at the time Rumania was en-tirely lacking in heavy and mountain artillery,airplanes, machine guns, gas masks, and all theequipment which has been found to be absolutelynecessary during the last two years of modernwarfare. In addition to this, we must not losesight of the most important fact that Rumania,having been allied to the Central Powers, hadmade all her strategical works, fortifications, etc.,solely for defense against Russia. We must alsoremember that the front on the line of the Pruthagainst Russia was only two hundred and fiftymiles, while the Carpathians and the Danube ag-gregate a front of over one thousand miles, andthat the salient of Wallachia was exposed fromthe very beginning to an attack on two fronts,which we were unable to meet adequately owingto numerical inferiority and to the lack of strategi-cal railways for quick communication on interiorlines. The arguments were so forcible and thefacts so irrefutable that reply was difficult.

But, in spite of all these arguments, the instinct


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Rumania and the War 23of the masses led them to different views. TheRumanian people had always been the oppressed,never the oppressor. They could see that in thiswar Germany was the aggressor, and that justicewas distinctly on the side of England and France.Imbued with democratic tendencies, the Ruma-nians saw that, setting aside national particular-istic sentiments, this war represented the fight be-tween two systems : the system of the divine rightof autocracy on one side, and the system of therights of the people and of democracy on theother. On this side was fighting England, motherof all constitutions, and France, descendant of therevolution, France who has helped us to accom-plish our national unity and whose culture wehave all eagerly absorbed. Even if we for ourpart were to be partially destroyed, the democ-racies would emerge triumphant in the long run,and our cause would be won. England had al-ways kept her word; she would not leave herwounded ally forever in the clutch of her enemies.Technically, the war against Germany was almostimpossible. Morally, it was all the more impos-sible to fight against England, France, and Italy,even though they were allied with the unfriendlyTsarist Russia. This, in brief, is the tragedy oftwo years of uncertainty.

I leave you to judge whether a people has ever


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24 Rumania and the Warbeen put face to face with a more difficult prob-lem: just national claims on both sides, technicalimpossibility of fighting against one side, moralimpossibility of fighting against the other. Andyet it was imperative to make a decision. Ru-mania could not remain inactive in this war, theend of which would see the settlement of allnations, without incurring the penalty of beingexcluded from the roll of honor of the nations andof renouncing forever all her ideals as unworthyof fulfilling them.The honest and sincere patriots saw all thesedifficulties, They knew that the Western nationswere conscious of them; and they believed, natur-ally enough, that the Allies would so arrange af-fairs as to yield the maximum of benefit from theintervention of Rumania. They thought and hopedthat the Allies could find a means of useful co-operation on the part of Rumania with them. Thereinforced armies of Russia, the new successfuloffensive of Brusilof on one side, the army of Sar-rail on the other, were the two supports to whichRumania looked. Her flanks being effectivelysustained, a useful offensive on her part was pos-sible. In the midst of these anxieties, of pitifuluncertainties, and expectations, on the 2yth ofAugust, 1916, the Rumanian Government de-clared war on Austria. Alea jacta! The enthu-


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Rumania and the War 25siasm was great in the hearts of all Rumanians.For the first time after many centuries they hadmade the first step toward the fulfilment of theholy ideal of national unity. But being consciousof the immensity of their task and the number ofthe difficulties in the way, they showed an emotionnot expansive in accordance with their accustomedcharacter, but grave, dignified, and restrained.Three days after the declaration of war, allthe passes of the Carpathians towards Transyl-vania were occupied, and after a few weeks one-third of Transylvania was in the hands of the Ru-manian army. I myself witnessed the great enthu-siasm of the liberated Rumanian population ofTransylvania. Women, old men, and childrencrying for joy at their liberation! Poor people!They paid dearly for their few moments of joy;for after the retreat of the Rumanian army about14,000 Rumanians were done to death by theHungarian authorities for having sided with theirkinsmen.Almost simultaneously with the first flashes ofjoy began also bitterness and painful experience.From the first days of the war Bucharest was in-cessantly bombarded by day and night by theZeppelins and airplanes, without being able to de-fend itself; and the Bulgarians, under Germanleadership, began to assault from the south, al-


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26 Rumania and the Warthough they had given assurances to the Russiansand Rumanians that they would never attack theirliberators from the Turkish rule (they gave simi-lar assurances also in 1915 to the British Govern-ment that they would not make war on the Ser-bians, and for this reason the Serbians were pre-vented from attacking the Bulgarians before theywere fully mobilized) . After two weeks of hardstruggle Turtucaia, the key to the Dobrudja, fellinto their hands. Who will relate the bravery ofthe two regiments of frontier guards who, defy-ing fate and shouting their battle cry, "We shallnot stop until we reach Sofia," pushed back tenmiles the numerically much superior Bulgaro-German hordes? Of 6,000 of them, there re-mained one hundred and sixty, after inflictingdouble those losses upon their enemies. Supremesacrifice but futile, because there were behind noreserves to replace them.

Thus, from the beginning the fight was on twofronts. In order to defend Dobrudja, where theRussians had not arrived as promised in sufficientnumber, it was found necessary to detach troopsfrom the expeditionary force in Transylvania,which, together with the brave Serbian and Czechlegions, and with feeble Russian help, had suc-ceeded in holding in check to the South of Medgi-dia the armies of Mackensen during two months.


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WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY MAXIM SECTION DRIVING DOWN ASTEEP EMBANKMENT I


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Rumania and the War 27Meanwhile, the concentration of the Austro-Hun-garian and the German troops was finished thiswas all the easier for them, since during all theRumanian campaign there was absolute inactivityon all other fronts and the Rumanian armies,still lacking in necessary material, heavy artillery,machine guns, and airplanes, were forced to re-tire in disorder into their country.

At the frontier, the peasant soldiers knelt infront of their officers and, imploring them, said:"We will all die here; but we cannot retire anyfurther and let the enemy invade the country."Three months with their breasts they held thecrests of the mountains. All the attempts of theenemy to penetrate were in vain. At a first at-tempt, in the Jiu valley, even women and boyscouts took part in the fight and the enemy was re-pulsed. During all this trying period the Ru-manians were looking round them in wonderment:"Why do not the Russians come to help us? Whydoes not Sarrail move to attack the Bulgarians inthe south?" They were at a loss; they could findno answer, and continued the fight alone. After atime the Russians came, not to lend a hand wherethe fight was raging, but to take the positions oc-cupied by the Rumanians in Moldavia, sendingthem to the firing line instead. When the fightwas hard for the Rumanians, and they wanted


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28 Rumania and the Warhelp, the Russians remained behind the front, in-different. Strange things also happened. When,for instance, Turtucaia fell, and all the Rumanianswere mourning, the Russian Commander Zaian-chikovsky and his staff were banqueting in Med-gidia.

Without help from anywhere, incessantlypressed by superior forces and armament, afterthree months of resistance the Jiu pass was forced,the hordes invaded the plains of Oltenia, and fromnow onward the great salient of Wallachia couldno longer resist, being taken as in pincers on thenorth by Falkenhayn and on the south by Macken-sen, who had crossed the Danube at several points.A last attempt to save Bucharest was made in thebattle of the river Neajlov, in the same spot wherethree hundred years ago Michael the Brave haddefeated the Turks. Unfortunately, this did notsucceed; and on the 6th of December, Bucharestitself capitulated.Now the fate of the whole of Wallachia wassealed, and in consequence it had to be evacuatedentirely. In December, 1916, the Russo-Ruma-nian Army made a stand and fortified itself on theline of the Sereth. Owing to this retreat Dob-rudja also could not be held, and had to be left toits fate. In four months the best and richest partof the country was lost, with immense quantities


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Rumania and the War 29of cereals and petroleum. The latter, however,was destroyed, together with all the plant neces-sary for its extraction and refinement, by a Britishmission. Half of the country was in the hands ofthe enemy, and the first part of the war was lost.The situation, however, was not yet desperate.We had still an army able to fight and still ourhope was unquenched.

Before going into a description of the secondpart of the war, I must insist a little on the causesof the Rumanian disaster. At that time we didnot yet possess all the data enabling us to explainit. Since then, however, some events have occur-red, and some secret information has transpired,which give us the possibility of forming a definiteopinion. The elements of this judgment are fur-nished by the declarations of the Rumanian Gov-ernment regarding the conditions on which Ru-mania came into the war, by the debates at thetrial of General Sukhomlinof, by the affair Paix-Seailles, by the Russian secret records, and bythe attitude, during its last days, of the Tsaristregime toward Rumania.The Rumanian Government, without divulgingthe secret treaties, by various publications and con-versations declared that the entry of Rumaniainto action had been demanded at the time by theAllies. But, having in view the lack of armament


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30 Rumania and the Warand the great extension of the front, Rumania hadformulated certain conditions which had to befulfilled entirely if her intervention was to haveany success. These conditions were : ( i ) an im-mediate and simultaneous offensive of the Rus-sian army, whose left wing commanded by Brusi-lof was to join the Rumanian right wing in thenortheast of Transylvania; (2) the sending ofsufficient Russian forces to protect the Dobrudjaand the Danube against the Bulgarians (an armyof only a few hundred thousand was necessary forthis operation) ; (3) and last, a simultaneous of-fensive of the army at Salonica, which was saidto be 400,000 strong. It was thought that thisarmy, advancing to the north, would destroy theBulgarians and operate the junction with the Ru-manian left wing. Instead of this, what hap-pened? Brusilof did not move at all, and thearmies under the command of the Rumanian Gen-eral Presan waited vainly for two months for theRussians to join them. In Dobrudja, instead of200,000 men, only 20,000 were sent; and thearmy of General Sarrail made at Salonica andtoward Monastir only a few demonstrations ofartillery.Why all this ? Sarrail could not move. Fromthe affair Seailles we learn that at the time, Sar-rail had no more than 50,000 to 60,000 men, an


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Rumania and the War 31army which naturally could not take an offensive.On the Russian side the position was more com-plicated. The man who had been entrusted by allthe Allies to act with Rumania was Sturmer, whoactually sent an ultimatum to the Rumanian Gov-ernment, asking them to join now or never. Itis now a well-established fact that Sturmer wasa German agent, the man of Rasputin and of theTsarina. From the proceedings of the Sukhom-linof trial we learn the consternation which wascreated in Russia and in all the Russian embassiesabroad when Sturmer was called to take the leadof the country. He was the last man whom theAllies and Rumania could have trusted. Thistraitor had already arranged the peace with Ger-many. Among other stipulations of their treaty,Moldavia was to go to Russia, and Wallachia tobe partitioned between Austro-Germany and Hun-gary. The entry of Rumania into the war andher crushing were necessary to the Russian Gov-ernment as a pretext for peace. And naturallyRussia acted consciously and earnestly towardsthat end.

This is the pure truth. And in the light of thesefacts it is easy to explain why the Russians lentus only an illusory help ; why they stayed unmovedbehind our front witnessing how we were beingcrushed, while instead of defending the Dobrudja,


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32 Rumania and the Warthey were robbing and destroying it; why, whilewe were in the agonies of death, they were ban-queting. But there are other concrete facts whichstrengthen this affirmation. In the Russian secretrecords, Polivanof, a Russian high official, writesthat what happened was to be desired, and ex-plains that if Rumania had fulfilled her nationalideals to which end Russia by treaty was boundto help her she might also have demanded theretrocession of Bessarabia, which is inhabited byRumanians. The strengthening of Rumania wasnot compatible with Russian interests. In Jan-uary and February, 1917, all the steps were takenat Jassy for the definite occupation of Moldaviaat the conclusion of the treaty between the Tsarand the Kaiser. The Russian Minister Poklev-sky, who worked for the alliance between Russiaand Rumania and was suspected of sympathieswith Rumania, was replaced by General Masolof,former Adjutant of the Tsar, who was an outsiderin diplomacy, but who knew all the intimatesecrets and plans of the Russian Court. GeneralLechitzky, the Russian Commander, declared can-didly that he received orders to make only a mili-tary occupation of Moldavia. The Russian offi-cers became very arrogant, took possession of rail-way stations, trains, and public buildings, andwere warning us that in a few weeks we should


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Rumania and the War 33see who were the real masters of the country.On the other hand, comfortable trains were placedat the disposal of the rich and intellectual classesand also the members of Parliament, who werebeing induced voluntarily to expatriate themselvesand make room for the new Russian occupants!It is hardly possible to describe the terrible timesthrough which the Rumanian population had topass then!

In the meantime the Russian Revolution hadbroken out. The joy felt in Rumania at this newsis also very difficult to describe. We were at lastfreed from the nightmare of the Tsarist occupa-tion and of a peace to our detriment; and wesaid, simpletons as we were, that in the revolutionthe Entente had gained a fourth ally. We werethinking of the French Revolution, fighting againstautocracies, and we hoped that history was aboutto repeat itself.

Meanwhile, let us see what was happening withthe Rumanian army during this interval. InMoldavia, little and poor, to which the Army andthe Government had retired during the severewinter of 1916, the maximum of suffering broughtabout by this war in any part of the world was cer-tainly reached. In addition to the normal popu-lation of the country there were living at thetime in Moldavia the Rumanian army, about


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34 Rumania and the War1,000,000 Russians, and the refugees from theDobrudja and Wallachia. The population wasthus more than doubled. The supplies, however,for this population had diminished to the vanish-ing point. Food was lacking; there was no coalor oil, so much so that even in the railway enginesthey had to burn green wood. In these conditionsit is not astonishing that epidemics soon spreadeverywhere. Exanthematic typhoid, aggravatedby starvation I have myself seen whole armycorps eating for weeks together only maize boiledin water decimated both the army and the civil-ian population. The cemetery in Jassy alone, atown of 70,000 people in normal times, receivedthat winter over 100,000 dead; over one-third ofthe medical staff (nearly three hundred doctors)succumbed to this terrible disease, and the wholepopulation of some villages disappeared. It wasdesolation and misery in their blackest form. Not-withstanding all this, courage and hope were notentirely lost.Help from far-away France and England be-gan to arrive ; armaments, clothing, medicines andthe medical staff, nurses and the military missions.The army began to be reorganized. With thespring also came the first rays of hope in the shapeof the Russian revolution. The epidemics dimin-ished somewhat, the supplies from Russia began


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Rumania and the War 35to arrive more or less regularly, and in May, whenMr. Albert Thomas inspected the Rumaniantroops and saw them so active and stalwart, heenthusiastically exclaimed: "One might say theyare real Poilus." And indeed, except for theirlanguage, they were real Poilus. They had thesame dash, the same courage, and the same con-tempt for death and enemies as their French andEnglish comrades. They were impatient to beagain led to the attack, this time well-supportedby heavy artillery, machine-guns, and airplanes;and they were eager to see their enemies out ofthe country and out of Transylvania. At thattime, in an enthusiastic assault, in two days theypushed the enemy back twenty miles! Their joyknew no bounds. The third day, however, thefatality which seems to follow the Rumanians puta stop to both their joy and their advance. InBukovina and Galicia the Russians were flying be-fore their enemies. They had evacuated Tarno-pol and were refusing to fight. The Russian revo-lution was different from the French one. Underthese circumstances, the advance of the Ruma-nians was in vain. Owing to the retreat of theRussians, which left our right wing unprotected,we could have been attacked from behind. TheRumanians had to stop. They sent forces to de-fend the north of Moldavia, left unprotected by


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36 Rumania and the Warthe Russians, and prepared for the great defen-sive which culminated in the battles of Mareshtiand Marasheshti in August. The Austro-Ger-mans, taking advantage of the retreat of the Rus-sians, were preparing to destroy the Rumanianarmy and invade Moldavia.

Hastily the Rumanian Government made prepa-rations to face all eventualities. They sent allthe gold and valuables to Moscow which ap-peared to them to be a very safe place. When theconfidential reports of the British and Frenchmilitary attaches regarding these battles are pub-lished, they will constitute the best testimony tothe valor of Rumanian soldiers. In the thick ofthe battle the Rumanians, stripped to the waist,charged the enemy with the bayonet, clubbed theirrifles, and, when they were at too close quartersthrew their rifles away and flew at the throats oftheir enemies, whom they slew furiously. Per-haps having in mind the description of these fights,Mr. Lloyd George referred to the Rumanian sol-dier as being one of the best in the world. Mr.Robert de Flers, the distinguished French writerand journalist, who was an eye-witness during thiseventful time, says : "One does not render suffi-cient account in England of the difficulties of theirperformance. When that is known, I think yourfellow-countrymen will pay them profound horn-


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Rumania and the War 37age. The reconstituted army of Rumania van-quished the army of Mackensen and reconstitutedthe Eastern front."

Since then, Rumania has been passing throughanother period of anxiety, the equal of whichcould hardly be found in history. Her brave sonsare looking with broken hearts and contempt attheir Russian comrades fraternizing with theirbitterest enemies. They hoped from day to daythat they would come to their senses, and wouldstart again the fight for honor and liberty. Butthey hoped in vain. Instead of recuperating, Rus-sia was falling into anarchy. After fraternizing,the Russians left the front and went into the in-terior of their country to start the fratricidalfight against their own kin. On their way throughMoldavia, which had fed them during a wholeyear, they were pillaging, burning and violating.And then the Rumanians were reluctantly obligedto turn their arms against their former allies, inorder to protect the little that was left to themby their old enemies. After destroying Rumania,the Russians went home and betrayed their ownpeople ; and that is how the Ukrainians were thefirst to sign an ignominious peace with the Ger-mans and bring them into their country to restoreorder. This altered entirely the position of Ru-mania, because it placed another foe at her back,


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38 Rumania and the Warsurrounding her, and cutting off her only way ofretreat and supply of ammunitions and food. Asif this tragedy were not enough, the Bolshevists,through their complete lack of political sense, de-clared war on Rumania!

Rumania is now at the mercy of her enemies.With cynicism and barbarous greed they are im-posing on her the most humiliating conditions.Hertling calls them "friendly"; and the arch-cynical Czernin declares that they are in con-formity with the principle of self-determination!Rumania is on her knees with the knife at herthroat, robbed of her richest, most beautiful, andpurely Rumanian provinces, humiliated and en-slaved economically, and forced to accept a Ger-man peace, in order to escape for the time beingfrom total destruction as a race. "With the bestarmy of the oriental front and one of the best ofthe Coalition, Rumania is at the mercy of herenemies, who are surrounding her on all sides.But when one is left alone in a coffin of lead, thebest thing is to bow to destiny!" says Mr. WilliamMartin, in the Journal de Geneve of the 28thFebruary! This is the tragedy of Rumania!To those who may ask what was the advantagebrought by Rumania to the cause of her Alliesthrough her sacrifice I will answer that the sacri-fice is a value in itself. It remains alive and intact,


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Rumania and the War 39like the great principle for which the sacrifice wasmade. We did not start the fight in the hope ofsecuring the triumph of right by our own forcealone. The monster was far too powerful to beput down by our single arm. But either by oursacrifice or by our force we planted the daggerdeep into his flanks; his wounds bled much; he wasweakened; and this rendered easier for a time thetask of our comrades from the West. Remem-ber the moral depression in Germany at the newsof the entry of Rumania on the side of the Allies,the forces which Germany was obliged to takefrom the western front in order to face our at-tack, the loss of some hundreds of thousands ofdead and wounded inflicted by us, the calm en-joyed by the western front during our fighting.Take also into consideration our own great losses,and you will understand the importance of Ruma-nia's action. The great French statesman, Mon-sieur Briand, who invited Rumania to come in atthe time when she did come in, being asked ashort time ago why he took that decision at a timeand in circumstances so unfavorable to Rumania,replied: "If I had not done that then, you and Ishould not be now conversing in Paris. " Thisreply defines sufficiently the part played by Ru-mania. If there had been unity of action, unity ofcommand, Rumania could have done more; but


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4O Rumania and the Warcriticism and recrimination may be left to history.For almost twenty centuries of its existence theRumanian people has gone through many atragedy. The most recent is under another form,a sequence of the previous ones. Being in the pathof the barbarian Asiatic invaders, the Rumaniansretired to the mountains, where they lived forgot-ten for many centuries. When the invaders set-tled down, they appeared again during the latterpart of the middle ages, and attained the sum-mit of their greatness during the reigns of Mirceathe Old and Stephen the Great. The seed of thebarbarians has not, however, disappeared. Onthe west there lived then, as they do now, the Hun-garians; on the south, the Turks and Bulgarians;on the east, the Russians and the Tartars. Thesmall nucleus of Latinity, then and now, had toface and fight them all. In his long reign of fiftyyears Stephen the Great overcame each in turn;but the permanent difficulty of the Rumanian sit-uation is expressed in prophetic words put intohis mouth:

If your foe exacts from you humiliating trials, it willthen be better for you to die by his sword that to witnessthe downfall and slavery of your country. The God ofyour fathers will, however, take pity on the tears of hisservants, and will cause one of you to rise who willestablish again for your descendants the power and gloryof past times.


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WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY IN THE FIELD. A PRIEST BLESSING REGIMENTAL COLORS


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Rumania and the War 41History continues. The descendants of the

barbarians who even now still inhabit Europe,helped now by the descendants of the Germanictribes, deadly enemies of the Romans and ofLatinity, have flown like beasts on the Rumaniannation, trying to rend it. The man dreamed of byStephen the Great has not appeared.

Nowadays, the conscience of all the nations re-places the might of the individual. If in the pastthe Rumanians were fighting alone in the Orient,ignored by all, to-day they have found support inthe conscience and the soul of the great nations ofthe west, England, America, France, and Italy.These will not tolerate their destruction; for asa faithful ally Rumania has honestly fulfilled hertask to the end. She has sacrificed on the altar ofthe common cause all her country with its riches,and over one million souls. But her greatest sor-row is that for the moment Fate forbids that sheshould do still more.

Crushed and humiliated for the time being, thepoor Rumanian nation has only one hope whichenables it to live. One day, a day not far distant,will come the time, the final hour, the hour ofvictory for the great democracies of the world.Then will be given to the peoples a just peace, notthe peace of the cynical beast and the hypocriterobber. But should the worst come to the worst,


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42 Rumania and the Warshould the democracies of the world not under-stand that Rumania's cause is their cause, andshould she be left to her executioners, the Ru-manian nation would never yield. From the tombour cry will be heard; the conscience of the worldwill have no rest. Like our ancestors in daysof yore under oppression and alien domination,we will take again the way of the forest; we willdefy them by every desperate device of the de-spairing. But we will never tolerate that our foesshould destroy our race and our national soul.

I am confident that we shall not be reduced tothat extremity. Confident in the civilization andthe progress of humanity, we are certain that theday will come when the victorious allied armieswill pass over the hideous corpse of German mili-tarism, and will give to the thirsting world, Ger-many included, the much-longed for peace, thepeace of justice and right. Then justice will bedone also for the martyred and long-enduringRumanian people. Then the new spirit of worlddemocracy, rather than the superman dreamed ofby Stephen the Great, "will rise," as he foretold,"and will establish again for your descendants thepower and glory of yore."An old Rumanian proverb says, "The Ruma-nian never dies." He will not die. Trdiasca Ro-mania! N. LUPU.


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SOME FACTS OF HISTORY ANDGEOGRAPHYHE most sensitive part of the European con-tinent is that middle portion which begins

with Poland and ends in the Balkan States. Owingto various historical events, a firmly establishedequilibrium has not yet been realized among thepeoples here. Why is it that just in this part ofEurope nearly all wars and misfortunes, includingthe present one, have started? The main cause isthat this region is the keystone between Asia andEurope.

There have been three great movements be-tween those two continents in the last two thou-sand years. The first and shortest was the Romandrive into Asia. The second, which lasted nearly1000 years, was the invasion of Rome and laterof Byzantium by Asiatic peoples. From theseinvasions resulted on the one side the fall of Romeand Byzantium, with the destruction of their em-pires, and on the other the mixture of the invaderswith the invaded, or the total disappearance ofthe Asiatics. Some groups of the invaders did

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44 Rumania and the Warnot disappear; neither were they assimilated.They form to-day distinct peoples in Mid-Europe, whose right to life cannot be denied.But in their invasion they waged cruel wars andcreated long enmities which still live to-day. Morethan that, the invaders still keep under their swayportions of the invaded peoples.The third big move began in our day. Theimmense German industrial development wantedtwo things, new and big markets and great sup-plies of raw material. Both may be provided byAsia and, by an accident of history, we are wit-nessing an inverse phenomenon: the economicpenetration of Asia by Europe. Economic domi-nation means political domination. We have beenwitnessing an effort toward the political domina-tion of Asia by the Germans. To-day, as in thepast, the way towards Asia passes through CentralEurope.Moreover the Balkan States in the last cen-tury have been victims of another attempt at con-quest. As far back as the eighteenth century, Peterthe Great left as his will for Russian autocratsthe conquest of Constantinople. The way fromRussia to Constantinople is through Rumania:hence the infinite series of wars between Russiaand Turkey was suported largely by the two Ru-manian countries, Moldavia and Wallachia. In


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Some Facts of History and Geography 45the nineteenth century alone there were six wars.Belgium and Rumania stand out as the two coun-tries on the map of Europe where the most nu-merous wars have taken place. After the Rus-sian dream of Asiatic empire came that of Ger-many, looking for a way to Asia through Constan-tinople. And to make this way safe for them-selves, the Germans promised the Bulgarians thedomination of the Balkans in spite of Bismarck'sstatement that the Balkan problem did not deservethe bones of a single German grenadier. Thehypertrophy of the German appetite has becomeacute in the last fifty years, and in the present warfor an ephemeral success, hundreds of thousandsof German grenadiers have left their bones onRumanian fields for the Balkan problem.Upon the establishment of satisfactory new con-

ditions in Mid-Europe will depend, to a very largedegree, the maintenance of future peace. If welook at an ethnographical map of Mid-Europe wesee that the Rumanian people, descendants of theEastern Roman Empire, as France and Italy areof the Western, is established in a compact masson the land surrounded by the Rivers Tisza,Dniester and Danube. Numerous Rumanianislands lie also beyond the Dniester. In theUkraine, as far as the neighborhood of Kiev,there is a dense group of Moldavians in nearly


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46 Rumania and the Warevery village. Their number may be betweensix hundred thousand and one million. In theBalkans, in the mounts of Pindus, in Thessaly,Epirus and Macedonia, there are more than halfa million Vlachs or Rumanians. And in Serbiain the Timok Valley, they number about two hun-dred thousand. A German scholar, accustomed toideas of conquest and depredation, once said thatthe Rumanian race spreads in the east and southlike an oil spot on paper. These spots are the rem-nant islands of the Eastern Roman Empire sub-merged by the waves of the invaders, Slavs, Rus-sians, Bulgars, Hungarians and Turks.As a result of the first invasion from Asia wefind at the present time the Rumanian people in thefollowing position : A homogeneous group betweenthe Tisza, the Dniester and the Danube and somedispersed groups beyond the Dniester and in theBalkans. Ever since the beginning of its history,the homogeneous group has been broken in two;one part in Transylvania, Banat and Hungary,subjected to the Hungarians, and another part inMoldavia and Wallachia (present Rumania) in-dependent and flourishing, till the arrival of theTurks in Europe, when they also fell under Turk-ish domination.

During their best epoch these countries, espe-cially Moldavia, were on good terms with the


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Some Facts of History and Geography 47Poles. Rumanian students went to the Polishuniversities, and the first Rumanian historians,Miron Costin and Ureche, were fellows of thoseuniversities. Remembrance of past associationskept friendship alive between these two peoplesthrough the centuries. In Rumania, the dispersedsons of unfortunate Poland, after her repeatedand criminal dividing among the Russians, Ger-mans and Austrians, always found shelter and wel-come. Common past remembrances and commonhate against the conquering Czardom establisheda strong bond of sympathy. This is interestingfor the near future of Mid-Europe, because thesetwo peoples together form a continuous belt fromthe Baltic to the Black Sea. Solidly establishedand fairly helped in their development, they willconstitute the surest barrier against the imperial-istic tendency of Germany.With Russia, before her hypertrophy, the Ru-manian countries were on good terms, strength-ened by the common faith, the Greek Orthodoxreligion. A Moldavian, Petru Movila, foundedthe Archbishopric of Kiev. The beautiful daugh-ters of Moldavian princes were married to Rus-sian Czars and Ukrainian hetmans, and Catherinethe Great wore dresses a la Moldave. Unhappily,because Russia's tendency toward conquest wasmenacing to the very existence of our race, the


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48 Rumania and the WarRussians began to be much hated. In 1812, Rus-sia stole Bessarabia, part of Moldavia (betweenthe Pruth and Dniester). After the CrimeanWar, in 1856, the European Powers gave backto Rumania the southern part of Bessarabia, butonce more in 1877 the Russians as a fine rewardfor the very useful help given by the Rumaniansin their new war with the Turks, took it backagain. In the south, Rumania has had good neigh-borly relations. But the Turks, during three longcenturies, have exercised upon Rumania an in-fluence contrary to progress. Through the vic-torious war of 1877, we finally liberated ourselvesfrom them.Our other southern neighbors are the Bulga-

rians and the Serbs. With the Bulgarians weformed, during the nth century, a common em-pire; the Rumano-Bulgaro Empire of the As-sanides dynasty, which was Rumanian. Until1913, when the Second Balkan War took place,nothing had occurred to disturb the friendly rela-tions between the two peoples. Then came therealization of two factors which caused embit-terment. First, although the Bulgars numbernot more than five millions, they would like todominate all the Balkans and take possession ofConstantinople ; second, the Bulgar nearness toConstantinople, to which they form the hinterland,


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Some Facts of History and Geography 49constituted a special menace. For this reasonAustria and Russia worked their most skilful in-trigues, culminating in the Balkan Wars in 1912and 1913. Russia patronized the Balkan Alliance,which included all the small peoples friendly toRussia. Rumania, of course, was excluded, andknew nothing about any agreement. Russia's planwas to weaken Turkey, and so more easily to takeConstantinople. When the Russians saw thatthe Bulgars were attacking the Serbs and that theywanted Constantinople for themselves, they in-cited Rumania to enter against the Bulgars andfrustrate their plans. But it did not suit theirplans to have Rumania destroy the Bulgars, be-cause they still believed that the Bulgarian peoplewere Russophile, and they hoped to use this friend-liness when they should become masters of Con-stantinople. Therefore they prevented the Ru-manian armies from entering Sofia, the chief townof Bulgaria.

Rumania's entry into the Balkan War was un-justly interpreted in America and England. Thetruth was that Rumania attacked a bandit who,through the defeat of Greece and Serbia, had be-come more and more dangerous for her safety.It was a great mistake that we were not allowedto annihilate the Bulgarian military force. Howmany misfortunes would have been avoided for


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50 Rumania and the Warthe Entente in the present war! If Bulgaria hadbeen rendered harmless, Rumania would not havebeen exposed in this present war, as was Serbia,to the perfidious attack by the Bulgars. Her fateand that of the whole oriental front would havebeen different.The Austrians were totally confused by theBalkan Alliance. When they discovered it, they

did all in their power to dissolve it. It was notconvenient for them as masters of millions ofSerbs, to let these people strengthen themselvesby the Alliance with the Bulgars and the Greeks.It was far from desirable to permit Russia toexert her influence upon the Alliance, because inthis way Austria's path towards Constantinopleand Salonica would be hampered. The disloca-tion of the Bulgarians was the easiest solution ofthe difficulty for Austria-Hungary. In Austria-Hungary there were no oppressed Bulgars, asthere were millions of Serbs and Rumanians. TheAustrians assured the Bulgars that they couldwithout any danger attack the Serbs and Greeksand take the spoils of conquest, because Rumaniawould be stopped by Austria-Hungary. They didnot succeed in accomplishing all that they promisedand the Austro-Bulgaro hegemony fell in 1913,to be resuscitated again in 1915, when it was easyeven for those unfamiliar with politics to see thatBulgaria would join the Central Powers.


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Some Facts of History and Geography 51With the Serbs, Rumania has never had trou-

ble. Both have endured Hungarian persecutions.Close cultural and religious relations have alwaysexisted between them. One of the most honoredRumanian princesses was a Serb and one of theruling families in Serbia had Rumanian familyconnections. There was only one obstacle tomore friendly relations between the Rumaniansand Serbs before 1913 the patronage of Serbiaby Russia. We had reason to fear the Russians.Now that Czardom and pan-Slavism have disap-peared, there is no reason for any misunderstand-ing between Rumania and Serbia.The northern and northwestern neighbors ofRumania are Austria and Hungary. When theAustrians, or rather the Hapsburgs, were men-aced by the Turks, they were friendly to us. Freedfrom the Turks, the Hapsburgs themselves beganto conquer, sometimes by war, usually by intrigueand marriage the two Imperial devices. In1777, after taking Galicia, Austria turned enviouseyes upon Bukovina, the northern part of Mol-davia. Under the pretext that she wanted onlya road to Galicia, she demanded and obtainedBukovina from the Sultan. As an argument shesent a precious cigarette-case to the corrupt Turk.It is enough to say that in Bukovina was the prin-cipal department of Moldavia, Suceava, wherethe most beautiful monasteries and hallowed his-


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52 Rumania and the Wartorical relics are still preserved, to understandthe pain inflicted on Rumania by this depreda-tion. After the annexation the Hapsburgs beganpersecution. They favored the Rutheniansagainst the Rumanians in Bukovina, although inGalicia they persecuted the Ruthenians throughthe Poles. This was the moral system of theHapsburgs. Austria is also hated by Rumaniabecause in 1865 she annexed Transylvania toHungary, thus enslaving the Rumanians of thatterritory.With the Magyars, the Rumanians have neverbeen on good terms. The Magyars are not Eu-ropeans. They came from Asia in the ninth cen-tury. Uninvited guests, they invaded Rumaniaand dominated the people. During long centu-ries they persecuted the Rumanians in Transyl-vania, making them into economic slaves. Theyeven forced them to adopt the Catholic religionand speak the Hungarian language. But all theirefforts were futile. The Rumanian national con-science became stronger with increased persecu-tions. After the union of Wallachia and Mol-davia in 1859, when the present state of Rumaniawas constituted, the Hungarians fearfully antici-pated the time when the four million Rumanians ofTransylvania would demand union with the Ru-manians of Rumania. They tried to Magyar-


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Some Facts of History and Geography 53ize the Rumanians in the shortest possible time.The Rumanians were not represented in the Hun-garian Parliament. For four million population,the Rumanians had only four deputies, while theHungarians had four hundred for eight million.The Rumanian language was not permitted inParliament nor in public life. There have been noschools for Rumanians, no offices for Rumanians.A Rumanian student whose family possesseddocuments showing that they had been in thecountry since the twelfth century asked for ascholarship to a certain institution from the gov-ernment ; instead, it was given to a new Hungariancitizen. When the student asked why he, of afamily eight centuries old in the country, did notreceive assistance, the rector answered: "In fiveyears this other man became a Hungarian; ineight centuries you have not!" Freedom of thepress does not exist. A hundred years of prisonhas been given to Rumanians in the last twentyyears for their opinions. The Rumanian parlia-ment in Hungary is in the Prison of Szegedin !In spite of all this, the Rumanians are in the ma-jority everywhere.

Germany is not an immediate neighbor of Ru-mania, but her relations have had particular sig-nificance. The old Germany, that which existedup to 1871, the sentimentalist and culture-seeking


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54 Rumania and the WarGermany of Goethe and Schiller, was loved in Ru-mania. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen-tury many Rumanian boys were in the universi-ties of Leipzig and Munich, and many Germanmerchants and professional men were establishedin Rumania. When Rumania elected as King,Prince Carol Hohenzollern, these relations becamestill closer. But almost coincident with his arrival,Prussian arrogance began to make itself felt andRumanian antipathy towards Prussia was aroused.Before the war, the Germans, in spite of the Ru-manian dislike for them, were attaining a strongeconomic hold on the country, which was the larg-est market in the Balkans for their trade. Mostof the oil business was in their hands, and thegreater part of the public debt was floated inGermany. But not because the Rumanians pre-ferred it so. Since 1863, when the last Rumanianloan was floated in England, in spite of every ef-fort, Rumania has been unable to raise a pennyanywhere else. Rumanian loans, however, werealways in British and French money, but theypassed through German hands first. The Ger-mans were our brokers and took advantage of us.Even the financiers of France did not help us.The present Premier of Rumania, Marghiloman,who was Minister of Finance in 1913 after theSecond Balkan War, went to Paris to negotiate


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Some Facts of History and Geography 55a loan of 250,000,000 francs. He did notsucceed and after some days in Berlin, the Ger-man Bank Disconto put at his disposal the moneyrequired, provided by French capital! I mentionthis fact because, whatever kind of peace we mayhave, if the Allies continue along the same lines,the Germans will again have economic and conse-quently political influence; and the German politi-cal influence means war and disaster again andagain. The humiliating conditions of the Treatyof Bucharest imposed by the Germans have left apainful scar in the Rumanian lieart.The union of all Rumanians in a single Stateis an essential condition for a democratic and last-ing world peace. For centuries they have beenfighting for it. The process of the union has al-ready begun. As a direct consequence of theRussian Revolution, Bessarabia declared herselfindependent in November, 1917, as a MoldavianRepublic; and in April, 1918, by the unanimousvote of an assembly elected by universal suffrage,she joined herself to the mother country, which forall subject Rumanians means Rumania, and notAustria-Hungary. So the wrong done in 1812by Czar Alexander the First has been repaired.

Bukovina must be returned to Rumania. Tran-sylvania, together with the territory that lies alongits western border, and the Banat must come back


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56 Rumania and the Warto Rumania. Historically, ethnographically andgeographically the right is on the Rumanian side.Transylvania never belonged to Hungary until1867 when, wrongly and against the will of thegreat majority of her inhabitants, she was annexed.Her population, even according to Hungarianstatistics, is Rumanian in majority. There arefifty-five per cent of Rumanians in Transylvaniaand the Banat, and forty-five per cent in the otherparts of Rumanian Hungary. But Hungarianstatistics are made in the interest of Hungary.First of all, they say that the Rumanians in Hun-gary show an annual increase of only five per thou-sand, while the Hungarians show ten per thou-sand. The birth rate and the death rate dependon specific qualities of race. In Rumania underthe same conditions the annual increase is fifteenper thousand. How can vital statistics be so dif-ferent in the near-by territory in Hungary? Ifwe make due allowances for discrepancies of factand also take into account the Austrian statisticsfor 1870, we may estimate the Rumanian popula-tion in Hungary probably at four and a half mil-lion. I sat in a train in Hungary alongside a Ger-man and a Hungarian. The latter thought I wasa German.

"Vainly we try, sir," he said to me, "to make anHungarian State without Hungarians. You have


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58 Rumania and the Warup Slovakia and Jugoslavia, but not the Rumaniancountries. They will assert that Transylvania isthe cradle of the Hungarians, which is not true,because they came only in the ninth century intoEurope from Asia. The real reason for theirdesire to maintain control is that Transylvania isa very rich country, possessing important depositsof coal, iron, and gold, of which the Rumanianshave been deprived. A Transylvanian folk songsays "Our mountains bear gold; we are beggingfrom door to door."

Professor Mrazek of the University of Bucha-rest makes the following statement:"A rapid examination of the economic situa-tion of the countries inhabited by the Rumaniansshows that by their union it is possible to createone of the richest countries in Europe. One ofthe most important arteries of Central Europe,the Danube, flows for more than one thousandkilometers along its southern boundary. Its rivervalleys present excellent conditions for the em-ployment of water power and so make possiblethe utilization of an immense hydraulic energy.The mineral wealth of the Carpathians of Tran-sylvania, Banat and Rumania have been till nowvery little exploited. Great coal deposits, valu-able properties in oil and gas, provide an enor-mous quantity of mineral energy. Before the


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Some Facts of History and Geography 59war started the total annual value of the mineralswas 300,000,000 francs. Arable lands cover 128,-500 square kilometers; the forests (fir, oak) covera surface of 75,983 square kilometers. The vine-yards and orchards, 7,700 square kilometers, thegardens 63,000 square kilometers. The fisheriesof the lower Danube are the richest fresh waterfisheries in Europe after those of the Volga. Ac-cording to our approximate calculation the valueof cereals only is two billions francs yearly.There are few countries in Europe which presentsuch favorable economic conditions. Situated atthe mouth of the Danube and on the uplands ofTransylvania, the fourteen million Rumanians willconstitute an economic and political factor of thegreatest importance in Central Europe."

Concerning the Banat, I know that the Serbsclaim it in whole or in part. But I think theirpretensions are exaggerated. The majority ofthe province is Rumanian. There are two or threehundred thousand Serbs, but there are just asmany or more Rumanians in the Timok Valley inMacedonia, part of which should go to Serbia.It is not right that the ethnographical principleshould be applied only to Rumanians and notequally to Serbs. The future Serbian states, in-cluding Serbia, Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, Herze-govina, and, perhaps, Montenegro, will be so


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60 Rumania and the Wargreat that a small portion of the Banat is notworth endangering the friendly relations betweenSerbs and Rumanians.

If America does not re-enter her isolation, ifshe will help us with her capital, her technicalknowledge and her organized energy, we shallquickly become a strong country, the surest guar-antee of democracy against any kind of Germanaggression in the center of Europe. The mostcommon slander against Rumania heard in Amer-ica is that we are not a democratic people. Firstof all, we are a peasant people. We have noaristocracy. In the Rumanian constitution, anytitles except that of Crown Prince are prohibited,and in the interest of the country we can sacrificeeven that. The various Rumanians who callthemselves princes and counts abroad have noright to bear these titles. Our constitution is anexact copy of the Belgian, too exact a copy, per-haps. Our misfortune was that we inherited agroup, a very limited group, of landlords, of whomwe could not rid ourselves, who did much wrongto the country. We tried to oust them in 1907by a revolution, but at every sign of restlessnessthe Russian and Austro-Hungarian autocraciesshowed themselves ready to interfere and to forceus to surrender our independence. Russia andAustria-Hungary were the moral support of the


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Some Facts of History and Geography 6 1landlords. Now that Czardom has perished andthe Hapsburgs are to perish with their phantomcountry, Austria-Hungary, the landlords will haveno power. They have been apprehensive for sometime, and in 1917 they passed two bills, one foruniversal suffrage, and the other a new agrarianmeasure which gave to the peasants two millionhectares of land. The Bessarabians and theTransylvanians are also peasant people who willincrease the forces of democracy. The Rumanianpeasants are vivid, intelligent, active and diligent.The German, Meyer Luebka, says in his encyclo-pedia that the Rumanians have remarkable tech-nical ability. An English physician who was inRumania during the war says: "The Rumanianpeasant belongs to a gentle and refined race. Heis intelligent and possesses qualities of heart whichyou would not suspect. If the present moral andintellectual welfare are cultivated as well as thematerial conditions, I am sure that he will pro-duce a race so elevated as to contrast strangelywith other people who surround him."A strong Rumanian democratic state will havea strong community of interest with the Serbs,Poles and Czechs. These three countries shouldbe sufficient to form with us a barrier against anyaggressive power. But when time has elapsed,when the miseries of war are forgotten, the wrongs


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62 Rumania and the Warof the past repaired, and the selfishness of variouspeoples diminished, it may be possible that eventhe Bulgarian and Hungarian peoples can be in-cluded in this alliance. We must not forget thattheir feelings and their loyalty were corrupted bytheir rulers and their aristocracies.And so with the Russians. With the Ukraine

Republic, it is to our interest to be on the mostfriendly terms. One of the most important re-sults of this war ought to be the disappearanceof the old diplomacy and of all the autocratic dy-nasties. The Russian Revolution has committedmany sins. In a cataclysm which destroys in oneyear a dynasty of one thousand years, you cannotexpect perfect order. The Revolution is nonethe less responsible for having delivered the worldfrom the darkest and most insidious of autocra-cies. The despotism which has existed in Russiahas perished and the strong push of the Russianstowards Constantinople is also a thing of the past.This city must be a neutral city with an interna-tional administration in which America will playa large role, directing our first steps towards anew, large and productive life.The essential condition for a lasting peace isthe creation in Central Europe of strong newstates on national bases. These states, throughtheir representatives, on October 26, 1918, en-


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Some Facts of History and Geography 63tered into agreement in historic IndependenceHall in the city of Philadelphia in this country.The oppression of centuries and the stifling of na-tional aspirations will soon be a nightmare ofthe past for all the small states of Central Europe.They can develop their own individuality withoutthe restraining tyranny of Hapsburg and Hohen-zollern overlords. They can bridge the distanceto the proud centuries when they helped to makehistory. In the past, even under unhappy condi-tions, they offered the world the full blown flow-ers of a rich and freely developed culture in lit-erature, art and music. How much more maythey not give the world in the future ! Their fed-eration will make the strongest fortress againstGerman invasion. They will take the place ofAustria-Hungary, which must disappear from theEuropean map.


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WOMAN'S WORK IN RUMANIAPOSSIBLY a better title for this chapter wouldbe the work of the Rumanian women; be-cause Rumanian women are to be found not onlyin the kingdom of Rumania, but also in vast re-gions all around Rumania, in Transylvania, inBessarabia, in Bukovina and the Banat, in theMacedonian mountains, and also in the Westernpart of the Ukrainian Republic. I must, however,ask you not to fear that my remarks will be madelonger on account of this fact. The Rumaniannation in all the manifestations of its life has thischaracteristic, that, although it has suffered manyvicissitudes and has been subject to much oppres-sion from foreign powers, it has kept in generallines the same language and the same customs.Therefore, to speak of the women of the kingdomof Rumania means to speak of all the Rumanianwomen of all countries inhabited by Rumanians.

In all times and with all peoples the womenhave had their part in martyrdom. ProfessorGraham Wallace, in "The Great Society," quotesfrom the Medea of Euripides: "Of all beings

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Woman's Work in Rumania 65born to life and intelligence, women are the mostunhappy." This psychological fact, profoundlytrue even with happy nations, has a deeper mean-ing in the case of oppressed peoples. In theircase the martyrdom is intensified, and as in allother similar cases, it produces heroic characters,

whether the heroes and heroines bear famousnames or remain unknown among the great massof the people who daily work and suffer.Let us see now what is the special character,the physiognomy, and the leading interests andoccupations of the Rumanian woman.

Let us go together on a Sunday afternoon to aRumanian village. On open ground under theshade of an old oak, to the accompaniment of aviolin and a "cobza" (a kind of guitar), theweekly dance of the village takes place. Thereyou can see all the lads and all the lasses of thevillage, and maybe some from the surroundingcountry. They are dancing the Rumanian na-tional dance, "the hora," which the Rumanianbard Cosbuc describes as follows :

To the left, three stately paces,To the right, three paces more;Hand in hand then, deftly, laces,Hands, their freedom then, restore.Proud as charger paws the groundBeating feet make earth resound

Steadily and slow.


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66 Rumania and the WarI am indebted to the kindness of my friend Mr.

Grimshaw, of the London School of Economics,for the translation of this and other poems whichI shall quote.We can quietly watch the girls dancing withthe children playing around them, and the womenholding the babies in their arms and looking on.The girls are of medium height, some of themtall with slender waists; most of them of darkcomplexion with large dark or hazel eyes,although you can see also some fair girls withluxuriant light hair falling over their shoulders^plaited and tied with a knot of ribbon, and withblue eyes like the clear sky over their heads.Their demeanor is shy and modest; from time totime a lad gets hold of a handkerchief which, ifgiven voluntarily, means accepted love; that iswhy the girl protests and wants it back. Theirdress, as is usual with the eternal feminine, fol-lows the rules of aesthetics and varies with theregion. In the mountain districts we find the realnational costume, which is very picturesque, com-posed of an embroidered blouse of various pat-terns and colors, and a skirt composed of twopieces like two aprons of black woollen cloth, onein front, the other behind, tightly moulded to thefigure like the drapery of an antique statue.Around the waist is an embroidered woollen belt.


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A RUMANIAN PEASANT GIRL IN NATIONAL COSTUME


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Woman's Work in Rumania 67What is interesting in the study of this dress isthat the wearer makes it all herself. She weavesthe fine cloth of cotton yarn, spun specially for herin the Lancashire mills. When the roll of clothis finished, balancing it on her head as the womenof antiquity did their amphorae, she carries it tothe spring in the meadow, where, after washingit several times and drying it on the grass, shemakes it as white as snow. She also washes thewool, and then cards it in readiness for her distaff,which she calls her "furca." The "furca" andthe "fusul," or bobbin, are her companions whileshe is waiting for the cloth to dry. How manytimes, on the uplands in the mountains under thecool shadow of the fir trees and to the babblingmurmur of the spring mountain waters, have Iseen this poetic picture of Rumanian life !The Rumanian peasant-woman so tastefully de-signs her blouse and skirt and embroiders themwith patterns so charming and so harmoniouslyarranged and with such fine shades of color, thatduring recent years the refined Rumanian aris-tocracy Fas introduced the national blouse asfashionable attire in society. The RumanianWomen's Association of Bucharest has organ-ized this home industry and in various shops theysell the refined product of the peasant women'sclever hands. Until quite recently Liberty's was


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68 Rumania and the Warselling this kind of blouse. I do not knowwhether its origin was clearly known, because veryoften goods exported from Rumania arrived inEngland under the name of Austro-Hungarian orBulgarian goods. Madame Maria Cozma, apatriotic Rumanian lady from Transylvania, themother-in-law of our great poet Goga, andMadam Elise Bratano, have collected in artisticalbums a good many of these patterns, which arethe native and wonderful product of the artisticgenius of the Rumanian race. This work hasbeen continually embellished and improved by theRumanian women from generation to generationin the course of long centuries of work and suf-fering. This artistic work was the only means ofalleviating their anxieties and of elevating theirsouls.The Rumanian Minister of Commerce and In-

dustry has also accumulated lately a rich collec-tion of Rumanian patterns and embroideries, andhas organized an annual exhibition of this art.On the plains, where the women have less sparetime because they work harder, their physique

and their customs are somewhat different. Thecomplexion is less pure and is more sunburned.The waist is less slender, the figure altogethermore sturdy. But their eyes, which are the mir-ror of the soul, are soft, loyal and clear; their


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WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY A CAVALRY PATROL ON THE ICE FIELDS


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Woman's Work in Rumania 69eyes are large, humid, glinting, their dress,although maintaining the national design, isspoiled by garments made of materials of foreignindustry which lack the charm and the picturesque-ness of the Rumanian peasant dress.When the sun begins to set, the gay crowd goesback home, and there immediately begins theworking week for the girl. What does she notdo? She helps her mother with the cooking, inmaking the bread and polenta, in milking the cows,if they have any, in looking after the poultry, inbringing up and taking care of her youngerbrothers and sisters, in keeping their home cleanand nice. She breeds silk worms, she makes thesilk threads and weaves the silk cloth; she makesbutter and various kinds of cheese, she cuts andsews the clothes for the family; in short, sheknows and practises the multiple arts of homelife. A girl of 16 or 18, even though some-times she does not know how to read and write,is a living encyclopedia in all these arts. At thisage the girls usually get married. Among thepoorer classes, who form of course the majority,the marriage usually is a marriage of inclination,and the girls, who are prettier, more intelligent,more diligent and more domesticated, naturallyhave more opportunities in this respect. Onefact is certain, that with very few exceptions they


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70 Rumania and the Warall marry. It is possible that this state of thingsis brought about because in Rumania the numberof women is approximately equal to that of .men,and in Moldavia and Bessarabia, there are evenmore men than women. Once married, the girl,possessing these qualities which I have justenumerated, becomes a good housewife; to quotean old northern-English popular song: "She lovesher husband and she keeps her house clean." Inthe family she plays an important part, sometimeseven greater than that of her husband. This, Iam given to understand, is by no means unknownin other lands. It is crystallized in the Rumanianfolk saying: "Where are you from?" "Wheremy wife is from." The number of children givesthe measure of the honour of the family. ARumanian proverb says: "The multitude of chil-dren is the happiness of the Rumanian." A mar-ried woman considers herself unhappy and god-forsaken if she is childless. She employs allsorts of means in order to have children. Shedrinks orchid infusions, she eats rabbits becauserabbits are prolific, she wears round her waist asilk belt which has been kept for 12 days onthe church altar, and as a last expedient, she hasrecourse to the wizards and witches. However,she need not have recourse to such extreme meansvery often, because the strength of the Rumanian


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Woman's Work in Rumania 71race lies, in part, in its high birth-rate. Whilstthe average birth-rate throughout the world is30 per thousand inhabitants yearly, in Rumaniait is 43 per thousand. This helps to explain whythe Rumanian race has resisted through the cen-turies the most terrible calamities of very variedcharacter. The fact is embodied in the Rumanianproverb: "Romanul nu piere" "The Rumaniannever dies." It is not only for this reason thatthe Rumanian woman plays such an importantrole, but also for her moral qualities of which Iwill speak later on.The Rumanian woman is a good mother. Sheloves and takes care of her children, no matterhow many she has, with an equal solicitude. Hercare is that they may be clean, intelligent ancjpretty. Beauty is a factor dear to the Rumanianpeople, who have natural artistic inclinations. Toillustrate this, I am going to give you some ofthe lullabies of the Rumanian folk-lore. This isone for girls :

Nani, Nani, Little Girl,Mother's darling flower!She will rock you in your cradle,Wash you in the fresh spring water,Make you lovely as the sunshine.Nani, Nani, little Love!Grow you like a flower!


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72 Rumania and the WarTall and slender as the rushes,White as is the mountain daisy,Soft as breast of turtle-dove,Lovely as a Star!

And here is one for boys :Nani, Nani, Chick of mine!Heaven make you happy!Make you witching-eyed and handsomeLike the shining sun;Then may pretty girls adore you,Flowers strew your way.

With all this, however, the life of the Rumanianpeasant woman is a long martyrdom; besides do-ing all the housekeeping she has to nurse andbring up her children (feeding the babies with thebottle is an unknown process among the Rumanianpeasant women and is very little used even inthe middle classes). The following song illus-trates this better:

Comes a little child to her;As she works she rears him;With her foot she rocks his cradle,Twisting still with busy fingersHemp-yarn from the ever-ladenDistaff, at her waist; to her bosomClose she holds him, as her free armLays and lights the household fire.

As if all these duties were not enough, shealso helps her husband with his work in the fields.


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TWO RUMANIAN PEASANT BEAUTIES


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Woman*s Work in Rumania 73She is the first to get up at three o'clock in themorning to light the fire, and cook the meals forthe whole day, which she takes to her husband inthe fields, where she remains all day helping himto till the soil, to sow, to reap, to dig and plough.I do not know any woman who works more thanthe Rumanian peasant woman.As I write these words, the men of Rumaniaare completing their second year in the war, wherea great many of them have died for the accom-plishment of a great and high ideal, the reunionof all Rumanians; and the women's share of thework has been greatly increased. I shall alwayskeep in mind the picture of the peasant womanholding her baby to her bosom with one arm, andwith the other handling the shafts of the plough.She has all the charge of the family in the absenceof her husband, at the front or fallen in the war.The Rumanian woman is hospitable and good-hearted. She will share everything with otherswith a real pleasure, and she feels great satisfac-tion when she can do some good. Mrs. LucyGarnett in her trave

rumania and the war ([c1919])

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