78 Rumania and the War 
 
 the Pope, Sixtus IV. After each war in which 
 he was victorious he built a beautiful church. 
 These churches still exist in various parts of the 
 country, and have been used as places of worship 
 up to the present time. Thus he built 47 
 churches. In the inspiration of his mother he 
 found his highest moral stimulus. This is what 
 a popular legend says about this heroine : 
 
 "In this old fortress built on the side of a 
 mountain, the Mother of the Prince keeps watch 
 as a sentinel of honor. Voichitza, the young wife 
 of the Prince, is also there, sweet and suave, as 
 a white carnation, sighing for her glorious and 
 much-loved lord, who returns not from the com- 
 bat. The Princess, her mother-in-law, consoles 
 and cheers her. The clock has just struck mid- 
 night, when Voichitza hears the fanfare of the 
 trumpet and the knocking at the gate. She knows 
 it is her husband, and her heart goes out to him. 
 Both the princesses rise quickly, and soon the 
 voice 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 too 
 strong for us, and my little army is devastated. 
 Open the gates, for the Turks are surrounding 
 us, the wind is piercing, and my wounds are pain- 
 ful.' Voitchitza rushes to the window, but her 
 mother-in-law holds her back, and bidding her 
 
Woman 's Work in Rumania 79 
 
 remain where she is, descends the stairs, orders 
 the castle gates to be opened, and appears before 
 her son, tall, majestic, severe the absolute per- 
 sonification of dignity and grandeur. 'What do 
 you say, stranger? My Stephen is far away! 
 His arm is sowing death and annihilation. I am 
 his mother and he is my son! If you are really 
 Stephen, I am not your mother. If heaven does 
 not wish to make my last days sorrowful, and if 
 you are really Stephen, you will not enter here, 
 vanquished, against my will. Fly to the battle- 
 field! Die for your country! Your tomb shall 
 be strewn with flowers!' And closing the door, 
 she remounts the stairs ; and calm and serene, she 
 consoles and wipes away the tears of the young 
 Princess Voichitza." 
 
 The dignified descendants of those women of 
 the past are also in the present times keeping high 
 their inheritance and their fruitful mission. 
 Whilst the peasant woman, as I have said, by 
 her daily toil provides the army and the people 
 with the necessary food, clothing and things of 
 first necessity, her sisters of the higher classes are 
 lending all their efforts to the army and the coun- 
 try. Organized in charity societies or individu- 
 ally, they tend the wounded in hospitals, and in 
 the hospital-trains leading from the firing line; 
 they have organized canteens in railway stations, 
 
RUMANIA AND THE WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 NICHOLAS LUPU, M.D. 
 
 1 ^ 
 
 Member of the Rumanian Parliament 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 JEAN RADOU 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 L-3 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The author of the following book is a Ruma- 
 nian physician who was also, during and prior to 
 the war, a member of the Rumanian Parliament. 
 When his country, overrun and devastated by her 
 enemies, and completely cut off from her friends, 
 was forced to sign an unwilling and disastrous 
 peace with the Central Powers, he left his home 
 at the last moment when it was still possible to 
 reach the outside world, because he believed that 
 he could serve his country only by pleading her 
 cause abroad. For Rumania, which possibly suf- 
 fered more than any other country in the war, 
 was certainly the most completely isolated of all 
 those that had fought the common enemy. Within 
 a few weeks after our author's departure it was 
 impossible to enter or to leave the country, and 
 even communication by post or telegraph was 
 out of the question. A small band of leaders like 
 Dr. Lupu had escaped to represent the country 
 to the world, and they alone could tell iier 
 story. 
 
 Some part of that story is printed in this book. 
 3 
 
4 Foreword 
 
 Dr. Lupu travelled in England, France, Italy, and 
 America, speaking and writing of Rumania. The 
 articles here collected represent some of the dis- 
 courses and essays thus delivered or published in 
 the allied countries. Their author was in America 
 when the armistice was signed, promising a 
 brighter future for his land as for all others. The 
 rest of his story can better be told in the words 
 of a letter of the author, which, though not written 
 for publication, forms an appropriate introduction 
 for his book to the American public. 
 
 "When I sailed for America three months ago, 
 I expected to stay here longer. The deeds of the 
 valiant American boys were so heroic that they 
 brought a rapid close of the war in victory. 
 Through their achievement the path is once more 
 open to Rumania, and I am in a hurry to go home 
 in order that I may be of service in this dark 
 hour of my country's history. But I shall come 
 back to America. One who has been here once, 
 and has been inspired by the spirit of America, has 
 to come back. It is as it used to be in Rome. Pope 
 Adrian IV, when receiving visitors at the Vatican, 
 used to ask them how long they were staying in 
 the Eternal City. If the reply was one week, 
 he would say 'adieu' at their departure, but if the 
 answer was three months or more he always said 
 'au revoir.' So it is with me. 
 
Foreword 5 
 
 "During my three months here, I have seen 
 many things. When the time for writing comes 
 again I shall tell my countrymen about them. But 
 one thing I must say now. 
 
 "I have wondered how the Americans were able 
 to achieve such memorable deeds in peace and in 
 war as they have accomplished. And if I have 
 not probed deep into the ultimate causes of their 
 success, I believe that nevertheless I have sat- 
 isfied myself as to the proximate causes of their 
 remarkable 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 of 
 our day are an example. Then there is the prac- 
 tical type, strong of will, powerful in organization, 
 but lacking in high spiritual ideal. The Germans 
 are the corresponding example. Now the Ameri- 
 cans exhibit both these qualities highly developed 
 and remarkably harmonized, and this striking 
 combination of traits is, I am sure, a considerable 
 part of the explanation of their successes. And 
 with these traits they are distinguished also for 
 what I can only call a certain freshness of soul, a 
 
6 Foreword 
 
 naivete, characteristic of strong and young 
 peoples, for whom nothing is impossible." 
 
 An author who speaks in this way about our 
 country after a brief acquaintance with it de- 
 serves an interested reader when he writes about 
 his own land. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RUMANIA AND THE WAR 13 
 
 SOME FACTS OF HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY . . 43 
 
 WOMAN'S WORK IN RUMANIA 64 
 
 PEASANT CO-OPERATION IN RUMANIA ... 83 
 
 FOR THE REUNION OF ALL RUMANIANS ... 93 
 
 UKRAINIA AND BESSARABIA 103 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE RUMANIAN WAR AIMS. . 113 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 With the Rumanian Army A Cavalry Patrol on 
 the Ice Fields Frontispiece 
 
 With the Rumanian Army Maxim Section 
 Driving Down a Steep Embankment . . 26 
 
 With the Rumanian Army in the Field. A 
 
 Priest Blessing Regimental Colors ... 40 
 
 A Rumanian Peasant Girl in National Costume 66 
 
 Two Rumanian Peasant Beauties 72 
 
 Ecaterina Theodoroiu 80 
 
 The Crown Prince of Rumania at a Military 
 School 86 
 
 The White Guard 102 
 
RUMANIA AND THE WAR 
 
RUMANIA AND THE WAR 
 
 WO years ago, when I was in London, I saw 
 in a newspaper a sketch representing a news- 
 paper boy in 1935 crying "Rumania coming in." 
 That sketch depicted sarcastically the anxiety and 
 the puzzled state of mind of the public as to the 
 attitude of Rumania. From 1914 until 1916 Ru- 
 mania was the political sphinx of the time. Is 
 Rumania to come into the war? On whose side, 
 and when ? Why has she not yet come in ? These 
 questions remained unanswered. No one was able 
 to say anything definite. Later on, long before 
 1935, Rumania did enter the war on the side of 
 the Allies. After some ephemeral successes at 
 the beginning, when her sons after three centuries 
 of waiting since the time of Michael the Brave 
 entered again into Transylvania, the calvary of 
 her misfortunes began: the loss of Dobrudja, the 
 retreat in Transylvania, the loss of Wallachia, 
 hunger, and exanthematic typhoid. Instead of 
 the 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" 
 
14 Rumania and the War 
 
 was the only word used of Rumania. The long- 
 awaited ally on whom so many hopes had been 
 built had become a burden difficult to support and 
 a troublesome companion in the fight. Only quite 
 lately, during the summer of 1917, after the 
 Homeric battles of Mareshti and Marasheshti, 
 when a good many allied officers and soldiers had 
 the opportunity to be eye-witnesses of the bravery 
 of the Rumanian soldiers, public opinion in the 
 West immediately altered its ideas and sentiments 
 toward 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 that 
 everybody shows sympathy and compassion for 
 the Rumanian people. But neither during the 
 period of doubt and suspicion, nor during the time 
 of enthusiasm and subsequent disappointment- 
 one could almost say of disdain perhaps not even 
 during the present period of compassion, is the 
 real situation of Rumania known. The public at 
 large do not know it and, what is more important, 
 even those do not kflow who ought to know. For 
 if the real state of things in Rumania had been 
 known, many mistakes could have been avoided, 
 and the entry of Rumania into the fray could have 
 been decisive for the Allies instead of being fatal 
 for her. The aim of this essay is to throw a 
 stronger light on the conditions of the Rumanian 
 tragedy. 
 
Rumania and the War 15 
 
 First of all, was it absolutely necessary for Ru- 
 mania speaking from the point of view of strictly 
 Rumanian interests to take part in the world 
 war? Yes. While other peoples of Europe had 
 long ago fulfilled the national ideal of having in 
 one state all their co-nationals, the Rumanians, 
 after a long series of historical vicissitudes, were 
 at the beginning of the twentieth century in the 
 following geographical and ethnographical situ- 
 ation: There were 7,000,000 Rumanians living 
 in 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 in 
 the governments of Kherson and Podolia in Rus- 
 sia; 500,000 in Macedonia; and 200,000 in 
 Serbia on the Timok Valley. More than half of 
 the Rumanians are living beyond the boundaries 
 of the Kingdom, but in its immediate neighbor- 
 hood and in unbroken continuity, except those in 
 Macedonia. 
 
 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 the 
 most liberal people in Europe, are suffering from 
 a great delusion. They dream of making a great 
 nation of 20,000,000 Hungarians, although they 
 number only 8,000,000. For this reason, they try 
 
1 6 Rumania and the War 
 
 to magyarize the 14,000,000 Rumanians and Serb- 
 ians by imposing upon them the most Draconian 
 regime ; and in the matter of inventing Draconian 
 devices they are unsurpassed by anybody. In 
 the first place, the Rumanians are deprived of par- 
 liamentary representation. Instead of the eighty 
 deputies to which the proportion established in 
 Hungary for election purposes would entitle them 
 they have only four. The vote is not secret, and 
 at each election there are dead and wounded 
 among those who vote for the Rumanian candi- 
 date. Liberty of the press is non-existent; for 
 as soon as one writes of Rumania, fines and im- 
 prisonment are his portion. During the last 
 twenty years about one hundred years of prison 
 and many hundred thousand crowns in fines have 
 been imposed upon Rumanian journalists in Hun- 
 gary. Justice is administered in the Magyar lan- 
 guage, which the great majority of the Rumanians 
 do not understand, because it is a language apart, 
 which has no kindred with any of the European 
 languages. The instruction is also given in that 
 language. The schools which the Rumanians have 
 established at great sacrifice out of their own pri- 
 vate funds have been closed by the liberal Hun- 
 garian Count Apponyi. Three hundred peasants 
 were done to death in the interval from 1902 to 
 1912 for wearing the Rumanian national tricolor. 
 
Rumania and the War 17 
 
 Not one Rumanian paper or book from Rumania 
 is allowed to enter Hungary, although there is no 
 prohibition in Rumania for the importation of 
 any publication from either Hungary or elsewhere. 
 All the public offices, large or small, are occupied 
 by Hungarians; all economic advantages, like 
 banking, credit, help in misfortune, colonization, 
 etc., are only for Hungarian use. The name they 
 give 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 of 
 1784 and 1848 hundreds of thousands of Ruma- 
 nians have emigrated partly to Rumania to tell 
 their misfortunes to their brethren, and partly to 
 America. The latter are forming at present a 
 few divisions which will be sent to France, in the 
 Rumanian uniform, to fight side by side with the 
 British and French soldiers. Thus the Rumanians 
 will still be represented in the mighty army of the 
 Allies, although a cruel fate prevents the main 
 body of the Rumanian army from continuing the 
 holy struggle. 
 
 But the emigrants left behind millions of their 
 brethren in continual suffering. And these millions 
 of Rumanians of Transylvania are the best ele- 
 ment of the race. From them came the first ele- 
 
1 8 Rumania and the War 
 
 ments of culture ; they promoted the awakening of 
 national sentiment which was slumbering under 
 the Turkish domination; they have produced the 
 best of our writers and poets, two of whom, Goga 
 and Coshbuc, belong to our own generation. From 
 the 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 the 
 people in Rumania shared their hope and ardently 
 desired its rapid fulfilment. 
 
 When, in recompense for the help given to them 
 by the Rumanians in their war against the Turks 
 in 1877, and contrary to the formal engagements 
 taken to respect the integrity of the territory of 
 Rumania, the ungrateful Russians for the second 
 time took Bessarabia away from her, the official 
 policy of Rumania, under the leadership of the 
 late King Carol, was, of dire necessity, adherence 
 to the Triple Alliance. ,But the people, the great 
 mass of the nation on both sides of the Car- 
 pathians, never understood that they must sacrifice 
 to this Alliance the more than just claims of the 
 Rumanian race. 
 
 But besides the cry of our brothers over the 
 mountains, we could also hear the plaint of our 
 brothers over the Pruth in Bessarabia. All the 
 gallant history of four centuries of the struggle 
 for freedom in Moldavia is full of names of Bes- 
 
Rumania and the War 19 
 
 sarabian heroes and Bessarabian places. Broken 
 by treason from the body of Moldavia in 1812, 
 and incorporated with Russia by the Tsar Alexan- 
 der I, Bessarabia was enduring a cruel fate. Here 
 every national movement was punished not by 
 fines, but by exile to Siberia and death. No Ru- 
 manian schools, either private or belonging to the 
 Government, 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. And 
 above all this there was the continuous enmity 
 which Russia of the Tsars has shown to the Ru- 
 manian countries, always regarded as a prey. In 
 the nineteenth century the Rumanian countries 
 were 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's 
 mind. If one adds to this the well-known desire 
 of Russia for the Dardanelles and Constanti- 
 nople, that is to say, the outlet by which the whole 
 of the exportation of Rumania is directed, and 
 that Russia and Rumania, both producing the 
 same articles, oil and cereals, were continually 
 meeting as competitors in the Western markets, 
 one can easily see that the sincere supporters of 
 an intervention against Russia, were not lacking 
 in plausible arguments. 
 
 I say with intention sincere supporters, because 
 
2O Rumania and the War 
 
 much was written and said about corruption in 
 Rumania practised by Germans and Russians in 
 order to influence public opinion. It is certain 
 that corruption existed; but the enemy bought 
 those who were for sale. I remember that the 
 Germans paid 40,000 to a journalist who had 
 been implicated in many shady affairs. When 
 asked 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 paid 
 for 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 Germans 
 exploited the situation; it was obviously in their 
 interest to do so. The strife between these two 
 currents lasted two years. This was the painful 
 period of uncertainty. "Nothing is more diffi- 
 cult than to make a decision," said Napoleon, who 
 was a man of action. How much more difficult 
 was it for Rumania, a little, isolated state, with 
 the puzzling Russian menace at her back, with 
 the fate of Belgium and Serbia fresh in her mem- 
 ory, to decide to make the supreme choice on 
 which the very existence of the state and of the 
 nation were at stake! 
 
 The struggle was severe. The supporters of 
 action on the side of the Germans had strong ar- 
 
Rumania and the War 21 
 
 guments. We must not place our confidence in the 
 Russians, who have always deceived and betrayed 
 us. No matter what is the general result of the 
 war, on the Eastern front the Russians are bound 
 to be beaten; and if we are with them, we shall 
 have to share their fate. It is true that our 
 brothers of Transylvania are suffering; but the 
 same can be said of our brothers in Bessarabia. 
 If the Russians are victorious and take the Dar- 
 danelles, we shall be their economic slaves, and 
 then also their political slaves. Technically speak- 
 ing, we cannot make war against Austria, because 
 we 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 can 
 bring in quickly plenty of munitions. 
 
 In conclusion they quoted the authentic opinion 
 of the German Military Attache, von Hammer- 
 stein, given to a Rumanian statesman. "Your 
 army is excellent; the soldiers are perfect. You 
 lack munitions. The command is not so good. If 
 you join us, we shall complete your command and 
 give you sufficient munitions. In two months' 
 time you will be masters of Bessarabia and the Ru- 
 manian portions of Kherson and Podolia up to the 
 River Bug, including Odessa. If you go against 
 us, the command will be weaker still, because you 
 
22 Rumania and the War 
 
 will fight together with the Russians, who have 
 proved to be badly commanded. You will have 
 no munitions because the Russians are themselves 
 lacking, and your other allies are too far away. 
 In three months' time your whole country will be 
 occupied 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 the 
 equipment which has been found to be absolutely 
 necessary during the last two years of modern 
 warfare. In addition to this, we must not lose 
 sight of the most important fact that Rumania, 
 having been allied to the Central Powers, had 
 made all her strategical works, fortifications, etc., 
 solely for defense against Russia. We must also 
 remember that the front on the line of the Pruth 
 against Russia was only two hundred and fifty 
 miles, while the Carpathians and the Danube ag- 
 gregate a front of over one thousand miles, and 
 that the salient of Wallachia was exposed from 
 the very beginning to an attack on two fronts, 
 which we were unable to meet adequately owing 
 to numerical inferiority and to the lack of strategi- 
 cal railways for quick communication on interior 
 lines. The arguments were so forcible and the 
 facts so irrefutable that reply was difficult. 
 
 But, in spite of all these arguments, the instinct 
 
Rumania and the War 23 
 
 of the masses led them to different views. The 
 Rumanian people had always been the oppressed, 
 never the oppressor. They could see that in this 
 war Germany was the aggressor, and that justice 
 was 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 right 
 of autocracy on one side, and the system of the 
 rights of the people and of democracy on the 
 other. On this side was fighting England, mother 
 of all constitutions, and France, descendant of the 
 revolution, France who has helped us to accom- 
 plish our national unity and whose culture we 
 have all eagerly absorbed. Even if we for our 
 part 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 her 
 wounded ally forever in the clutch of her enemies. 
 Technically, the war against Germany was almost 
 impossible. Morally, it was all the more impos- 
 sible to fight against England, France, and Italy, 
 even though they were allied with the unfriendly 
 Tsarist Russia. This, in brief, is the tragedy of 
 two years of uncertainty. 
 
 I leave you to judge whether a people has ever 
 
24 Rumania and the War 
 
 been put face to face with a more difficult prob- 
 lem: just national claims on both sides, technical 
 impossibility of fighting against one side, moral 
 impossibility of fighting against the other. And 
 yet it was imperative to make a decision. Ru- 
 mania could not remain inactive in this war, the 
 end of which would see the settlement of all 
 nations, without incurring the penalty of being 
 excluded from the roll of honor of the nations and 
 of renouncing forever all her ideals as unworthy 
 of fulfilling them. 
 
 The honest and sincere patriots saw all these 
 difficulties, They knew that the Western nations 
 were 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 the 
 intervention of Rumania. They thought and hoped 
 that the Allies could find a means of useful co- 
 operation on the part of Rumania with them. The 
 reinforced armies of Russia, the new successful 
 offensive of Brusilof on one side, the army of Sar- 
 rail on the other, were the two supports to which 
 Rumania looked. Her flanks being effectively 
 sustained, a useful offensive on her part was pos- 
 sible. In the midst of these anxieties, of pitiful 
 uncertainties, and expectations, on the 2yth of 
 August, 1916, the Rumanian Government de- 
 clared war on Austria. Alea jacta! The enthu- 
 
Rumania and the War 25 
 
 siasm was great in the hearts of all Rumanians. 
 For the first time after many centuries they had 
 made the first step toward the fulfilment of the 
 holy ideal of national unity. But being conscious 
 of the immensity of their task and the number of 
 the difficulties in the way, they showed an emotion 
 not expansive in accordance with their accustomed 
 character, but grave, dignified, and restrained. 
 
 Three days after the declaration of war, all 
 the 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 of 
 Transylvania. Women, old men, and children 
 crying for joy at their liberation! Poor people! 
 They paid dearly for their few moments of joy; 
 for after the retreat of the Rumanian army about 
 14,000 Rumanians were done to death by the 
 Hungarian authorities for having sided with their 
 kinsmen. 
 
 Almost simultaneously with the first flashes of 
 joy began also bitterness and painful experience. 
 From the first days of the war Bucharest was in- 
 cessantly bombarded by day and night by the 
 Zeppelins and airplanes, without being able to de- 
 fend itself; and the Bulgarians, under German 
 leadership, began to assault from the south, al- 
 
26 Rumania and the War 
 
 though they had given assurances to the Russians 
 and Rumanians that they would never attack their 
 liberators 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 they 
 were fully mobilized) . After two weeks of hard 
 struggle Turtucaia, the key to the Dobrudja, fell 
 into their hands. Who will relate the bravery of 
 the two regiments of frontier guards who, defy- 
 ing fate and shouting their battle cry, "We shall 
 not stop until we reach Sofia," pushed back ten 
 miles the numerically much superior Bulgaro- 
 German hordes? Of 6,000 of them, there re- 
 mained one hundred and sixty, after inflicting 
 double those losses upon their enemies. Supreme 
 sacrifice but futile, because there were behind no 
 reserves to replace them. 
 
 Thus, from the beginning the fight was on two 
 fronts. In order to defend Dobrudja, where the 
 Russians had not arrived as promised in sufficient 
 number, it was found necessary to detach troops 
 from the expeditionary force in Transylvania, 
 which, together with the brave Serbian and Czech 
 legions, 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. 
 
WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY MAXIM SECTION DRIVING DOWN A 
 STEEP EMBANKMENT I 
 
Rumania and the War 27 
 
 Meanwhile, the concentration of the Austro-Hun- 
 garian and the German troops was finished this 
 was all the easier for them, since during all the 
 Rumanian campaign there was absolute inactivity 
 on 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 in 
 front of their officers and, imploring them, said: 
 "We will all die here; but we cannot retire any 
 further and let the enemy invade the country." 
 Three months with their breasts they held the 
 crests of the mountains. All the attempts of the 
 enemy to penetrate were in vain. At a first at- 
 tempt, in the Jiu valley, even women and boy 
 scouts 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? Why 
 does not Sarrail move to attack the Bulgarians in 
 the south?" They were at a loss; they could find 
 no answer, and continued the fight alone. After a 
 time the Russians came, not to lend a hand where 
 the fight was raging, but to take the positions oc- 
 cupied by the Rumanians in Moldavia, sending 
 them to the firing line instead. When the fight 
 was hard for the Rumanians, and they wanted 
 
28 Rumania and the War 
 
 help, the Russians remained behind the front, in- 
 different. Strange things also happened. When, 
 for instance, Turtucaia fell, and all the Rumanians 
 were mourning, the Russian Commander Zaian- 
 chikovsky and his staff were banqueting in Med- 
 gidia. 
 
 Without help from anywhere, incessantly 
 pressed by superior forces and armament, after 
 three months of resistance the Jiu pass was forced, 
 the hordes invaded the plains of Oltenia, and from 
 now onward the great salient of Wallachia could 
 no longer resist, being taken as in pincers on the 
 north 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 the 
 battle of the river Neajlov, in the same spot where 
 three hundred years ago Michael the Brave had 
 defeated the Turks. Unfortunately, this did not 
 succeed; and on the 6th of December, Bucharest 
 itself capitulated. 
 
 Now the fate of the whole of Wallachia was 
 sealed, and in consequence it had to be evacuated 
 entirely. In December, 1916, the Russo-Ruma- 
 nian Army made a stand and fortified itself on the 
 line of the Sereth. Owing to this retreat Dob- 
 rudja also could not be held, and had to be left to 
 its fate. In four months the best and richest part 
 of the country was lost, with immense quantities 
 
Rumania and the War 29 
 
 of cereals and petroleum. The latter, however, 
 was destroyed, together with all the plant neces- 
 sary for its extraction and refinement, by a British 
 mission. Half of the country was in the hands of 
 the 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 our 
 hope was unquenched. 
 
 Before going into a description of the second 
 part of the war, I must insist a little on the causes 
 of the Rumanian disaster. At that time we did 
 not yet possess all the data enabling us to explain 
 it. Since then, however, some events have occur- 
 red, and some secret information has transpired, 
 which give us the possibility of forming a definite 
 opinion. 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 the 
 trial of General Sukhomlinof, by the affair Paix- 
 Seailles, by the Russian secret records, and by 
 the attitude, during its last days, of the Tsarist 
 regime toward Rumania. 
 
 The Rumanian Government, without divulging 
 the secret treaties, by various publications and con- 
 versations declared that the entry of Rumania 
 into action had been demanded at the time by the 
 Allies. But, having in view the lack of armament 
 
30 Rumania and the War 
 
 and the great extension of the front, Rumania had 
 formulated certain conditions which had to be 
 fulfilled entirely if her intervention was to have 
 any 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 the 
 northeast of Transylvania; (2) the sending of 
 sufficient Russian forces to protect the Dobrudja 
 and the Danube against the Bulgarians (an army 
 of only a few hundred thousand was necessary for 
 this operation) ; (3) and last, a simultaneous of- 
 fensive of the army at Salonica, which was said 
 to be 400,000 strong. It was thought that this 
 army, advancing to the north, would destroy the 
 Bulgarians and operate the junction with the Ru- 
 manian left wing. Instead of this, what hap- 
 pened? Brusilof did not move at all, and the 
 armies under the command of the Rumanian Gen- 
 eral Presan waited vainly for two months for the 
 Russians to join them. In Dobrudja, instead of 
 200,000 men, only 20,000 were sent; and the 
 army of General Sarrail made at Salonica and 
 toward Monastir only a few demonstrations of 
 artillery. 
 
 Why all this ? Sarrail could not move. From 
 the affair Seailles we learn that at the time, Sar- 
 rail had no more than 50,000 to 60,000 men, an 
 
Rumania and the War 31 
 
 army which naturally could not take an offensive. 
 On the Russian side the position was more com- 
 plicated. The man who had been entrusted by all 
 the Allies to act with Rumania was Sturmer, who 
 actually sent an ultimatum to the Rumanian Gov- 
 ernment, asking them to join now or never. It 
 is now a well-established fact that Sturmer was 
 a German agent, the man of Rasputin and of the 
 Tsarina. From the proceedings of the Sukhom- 
 linof trial we learn the consternation which was 
 created in Russia and in all the Russian embassies 
 abroad when Sturmer was called to take the lead 
 of the country. He was the last man whom the 
 Allies and Rumania could have trusted. This 
 traitor had already arranged the peace with Ger- 
 many. Among other stipulations of their treaty, 
 Moldavia was to go to Russia, and Wallachia to 
 be partitioned between Austro-Germany and Hun- 
 gary. The entry of Rumania into the war and 
 her crushing were necessary to the Russian Gov- 
 ernment as a pretext for peace. And naturally 
 Russia acted consciously and earnestly towards 
 that end. 
 
 This is the pure truth. And in the light of these 
 facts it is easy to explain why the Russians lent 
 us only an illusory help ; why they stayed unmoved 
 behind our front witnessing how we were being 
 crushed, while instead of defending the Dobrudja, 
 
32 Rumania and the War 
 
 they were robbing and destroying it; why, while 
 we were in the agonies of death, they were ban- 
 queting. But there are other concrete facts which 
 strengthen this affirmation. In the Russian secret 
 records, Polivanof, a Russian high official, writes 
 that what happened was to be desired, and ex- 
 plains that if Rumania had fulfilled her national 
 ideals to which end Russia by treaty was bound 
 to help her she might also have demanded the 
 retrocession of Bessarabia, which is inhabited by 
 Rumanians. The strengthening of Rumania was 
 not compatible with Russian interests. In Jan- 
 uary and February, 1917, all the steps were taken 
 at Jassy for the definite occupation of Moldavia 
 at the conclusion of the treaty between the Tsar 
 and the Kaiser. The Russian Minister Poklev- 
 sky, who worked for the alliance between Russia 
 and Rumania and was suspected of sympathies 
 with Rumania, was replaced by General Masolof, 
 former Adjutant of the Tsar, who was an outsider 
 in diplomacy, but who knew all the intimate 
 secrets and plans of the Russian Court. General 
 Lechitzky, 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, and 
 were warning us that in a few weeks we should 
 
Rumania and the War 33 
 
 see who were the real masters of the country. 
 On the other hand, comfortable trains were placed 
 at the disposal of the rich and intellectual classes 
 and also the members of Parliament, who were 
 being induced voluntarily to expatriate themselves 
 and make room for the new Russian occupants! 
 It is hardly possible to describe the terrible times 
 through which the Rumanian population had to 
 pass then! 
 
 In the meantime the Russian Revolution had 
 broken out. The joy felt in Rumania at this news 
 is also very difficult to describe. We were at last 
 freed from the nightmare of the Tsarist occupa- 
 tion and of a peace to our detriment; and we 
 said, simpletons as we were, that in the revolution 
 the Entente had gained a fourth ally. We were 
 thinking of the French Revolution, fighting against 
 autocracies, and we hoped that history was about 
 to repeat itself. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us see what was happening with 
 the Rumanian army during this interval. In 
 Moldavia, little and poor, to which the Army and 
 the Government had retired during the severe 
 winter of 1916, the maximum of suffering brought 
 about 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 the 
 time in Moldavia the Rumanian army, about 
 
34 Rumania and the War 
 
 1,000,000 Russians, and the refugees from the 
 Dobrudja and Wallachia. The population was 
 thus more than doubled. The supplies, however, 
 for this population had diminished to the vanish- 
 ing point. Food was lacking; there was no coal 
 or oil, so much so that even in the railway engines 
 they had to burn green wood. In these conditions 
 it is not astonishing that epidemics soon spread 
 everywhere. Exanthematic typhoid, aggravated 
 by starvation I have myself seen whole army 
 corps eating for weeks together only maize boiled 
 in water decimated both the army and the civil- 
 ian population. The cemetery in Jassy alone, a 
 town of 70,000 people in normal times, received 
 that winter over 100,000 dead; over one-third of 
 the medical staff (nearly three hundred doctors) 
 succumbed to this terrible disease, and the whole 
 population of some villages disappeared. It was 
 desolation and misery in their blackest form. Not- 
 withstanding all this, courage and hope were not 
 entirely lost. 
 
 Help from far-away France and England be- 
 gan to arrive ; armaments, clothing, medicines and 
 the medical staff, nurses and the military missions. 
 The army began to be reorganized. With the 
 spring also came the first rays of hope in the shape 
 of the Russian revolution. The epidemics dimin- 
 ished somewhat, the supplies from Russia began 
 
Rumania and the War 35 
 
 to arrive more or less regularly, and in May, when 
 Mr. Albert Thomas inspected the Rumanian 
 troops and saw them so active and stalwart, he 
 enthusiastically exclaimed: "One might say they 
 are real Poilus." And indeed, except for their 
 language, they were real Poilus. They had the 
 same dash, the same courage, and the same con- 
 tempt for death and enemies as their French and 
 English comrades. They were impatient to be 
 again led to the attack, this time well-supported 
 by heavy artillery, machine-guns, and airplanes; 
 and they were eager to see their enemies out of 
 the country and out of Transylvania. At that 
 time, in an enthusiastic assault, in two days they 
 pushed the enemy back twenty miles! Their joy 
 knew no bounds. The third day, however, the 
 fatality which seems to follow the Rumanians put 
 a stop to both their joy and their advance. In 
 Bukovina 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. Under 
 these circumstances, the advance of the Ruma- 
 nians was in vain. Owing to the retreat of the 
 Russians, which left our right wing unprotected, 
 we could have been attacked from behind. The 
 Rumanians had to stop. They sent forces to de- 
 fend the north of Moldavia, left unprotected by 
 
36 Rumania and the War 
 
 the Russians, and prepared for the great defen- 
 sive which culminated in the battles of Mareshti 
 and Marasheshti in August. The Austro-Ger- 
 mans, taking advantage of the retreat of the Rus- 
 sians, were preparing to destroy the Rumanian 
 army and invade Moldavia. 
 
 Hastily the Rumanian Government made prepa- 
 rations to face all eventualities. They sent all 
 the gold and valuables to Moscow which ap- 
 peared to them to be a very safe place. When the 
 confidential reports of the British and French 
 military attaches regarding these battles are pub- 
 lished, they will constitute the best testimony to 
 the valor of Rumanian soldiers. In the thick of 
 the battle the Rumanians, stripped to the waist, 
 charged the enemy with the bayonet, clubbed their 
 rifles, and, when they were at too close quarters 
 threw their rifles away and flew at the throats of 
 their 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 writer 
 and journalist, who was an eye-witness during this 
 eventful time, says : "One does not render suffi- 
 cient account in England of the difficulties of their 
 performance. When that is known, I think your 
 fellow-countrymen will pay them profound horn- 
 
Rumania and the War 37 
 
 age. The reconstituted army of Rumania van- 
 quished the army of Mackensen and reconstituted 
 the Eastern front." 
 
 Since then, Rumania has been passing through 
 another period of anxiety, the equal of which 
 could hardly be found in history. Her brave sons 
 are looking with broken hearts and contempt at 
 their Russian comrades fraternizing with their 
 bitterest enemies. They hoped from day to day 
 that they would come to their senses, and would 
 start again the fight for honor and liberty. But 
 they 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 fratricidal 
 fight against their own kin. On their way through 
 Moldavia, which had fed them during a whole 
 year, they were pillaging, burning and violating. 
 And then the Rumanians were reluctantly obliged 
 to turn their arms against their former allies, in 
 order to protect the little that was left to them 
 by their old enemies. After destroying Rumania, 
 the Russians went home and betrayed their own 
 people ; and that is how the Ukrainians were the 
 first to sign an ignominious peace with the Ger- 
 mans and bring them into their country to restore 
 order. This altered entirely the position of Ru- 
 mania, because it placed another foe at her back, 
 
38 Rumania and the War 
 
 surrounding her, and cutting off her only way of 
 retreat and supply of ammunitions and food. As 
 if 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 her 
 throat, robbed of her richest, most beautiful, and 
 purely Rumanian provinces, humiliated and en- 
 slaved economically, and forced to accept a Ger- 
 man peace, in order to escape for the time being 
 from total destruction as a race. "With the best 
 army of the oriental front and one of the best of 
 the Coalition, Rumania is at the mercy of her 
 enemies, who are surrounding her on all sides. 
 But when one is left alone in a coffin of lead, the 
 best thing is to bow to destiny!" says Mr. William 
 Martin, in the Journal de Geneve of the 28th 
 February! This is the tragedy of Rumania! 
 
 To those who may ask what was the advantage 
 brought by Rumania to the cause of her Allies 
 through her sacrifice I will answer that the sacri- 
 fice is a value in itself. It remains alive and intact, 
 
Rumania and the War 39 
 
 like the great principle for which the sacrifice was 
 made. We did not start the fight in the hope of 
 securing the triumph of right by our own force 
 alone. The monster was far too powerful to be 
 put down by our single arm. But either by our 
 sacrifice or by our force we planted the dagger 
 deep into his flanks; his wounds bled much; he was 
 weakened; and this rendered easier for a time the 
 task of our comrades from the West. Remem- 
 ber the moral depression in Germany at the news 
 of the entry of Rumania on the side of the Allies, 
 the forces which Germany was obliged to take 
 from the western front in order to face our at- 
 tack, the loss of some hundreds of thousands of 
 dead 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 at 
 the time when she did come in, being asked a 
 short time ago why he took that decision at a time 
 and in circumstances so unfavorable to Rumania, 
 replied: "If I had not done that then, you and I 
 should not be now conversing in Paris. " This 
 reply defines sufficiently the part played by Ru- 
 mania. If there had been unity of action, unity of 
 command, Rumania could have done more; but 
 
4O Rumania and the War 
 
 criticism and recrimination may be left to history. 
 For almost twenty centuries of its existence the 
 Rumanian people has gone through many a 
 tragedy. The most recent is under another form, 
 a sequence of the previous ones. Being in the path 
 of the barbarian Asiatic invaders, the Rumanians 
 retired to the mountains, where they lived forgot- 
 ten for many centuries. When the invaders set- 
 tled down, they appeared again during the latter 
 part of the middle ages, and attained the sum- 
 mit of their greatness during the reigns of Mircea 
 the Old and Stephen the Great. The seed of the 
 barbarians has not, however, disappeared. On 
 the 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. The 
 small nucleus of Latinity, then and now, had to 
 face and fight them all. In his long reign of fifty 
 years Stephen the Great overcame each in turn; 
 but the permanent difficulty of the Rumanian sit- 
 uation is expressed in prophetic words put into 
 his mouth: 
 
 If your foe exacts from you humiliating trials, it will 
 then be better for you to die by his sword that to witness 
 the downfall and slavery of your country. The God of 
 your fathers will, however, take pity on the tears of his 
 servants, and will cause one of you to rise who will 
 establish again for your descendants the power and glory 
 of past times. 
 
WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY IN THE FIELD. A PRIEST BLESSING REGIMENTAL COLORS 
 
Rumania and the War 41 
 
 History continues. The descendants of the 
 barbarians who even now still inhabit Europe, 
 helped now by the descendants of the Germanic 
 tribes, deadly enemies of the Romans and of 
 Latinity, have flown like beasts on the Rumanian 
 nation, trying to rend it. The man dreamed of by 
 Stephen the Great has not appeared. 
 
 Nowadays, the conscience of all the nations re- 
 places the might of the individual. If in the past 
 the Rumanians were fighting alone in the Orient, 
 ignored by all, to-day they have found support in 
 the conscience and the soul of the great nations of 
 the west, England, America, France, and Italy. 
 These will not tolerate their destruction; for as 
 a faithful ally Rumania has honestly fulfilled her 
 task to the end. She has sacrificed on the altar of 
 the 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 she 
 should do still more. 
 
 Crushed and humiliated for the time being, the 
 poor Rumanian nation has only one hope which 
 enables it to live. One day, a day not far distant, 
 will come the time, the final hour, the hour of 
 victory for the great democracies of the world. 
 Then will be given to the peoples a just peace, not 
 the peace of the cynical beast and the hypocrite 
 robber. But should the worst come to the worst, 
 
42 Rumania and the War 
 
 should the democracies of the world not under- 
 stand that Rumania's cause is their cause, and 
 should she be left to her executioners, the Ru- 
 manian nation would never yield. From the tomb 
 our cry will be heard; the conscience of the world 
 will have no rest. Like our ancestors in days 
 of yore under oppression and alien domination, 
 we will take again the way of the forest; we will 
 defy them by every desperate device of the de- 
 spairing. But we will never tolerate that our foes 
 should destroy our race and our national soul. 
 
 I am confident that we shall not be reduced to 
 that extremity. Confident in the civilization and 
 the progress of humanity, we are certain that the 
 day will come when the victorious allied armies 
 will pass over the hideous corpse of German mili- 
 tarism, and will give to the thirsting world, Ger- 
 many included, the much-longed for peace, the 
 peace of justice and right. Then justice will be 
 done also for the martyred and long-enduring 
 Rumanian people. Then the new spirit of world 
 democracy, rather than the superman dreamed of 
 by Stephen the Great, "will rise," as he foretold, 
 "and will establish again for your descendants the 
 power and glory of yore." 
 
 An old Rumanian proverb says, "The Ruma- 
 nian never dies." He will not die. Trdiasca Ro- 
 mania! N. LUPU. 
 
SOME FACTS OF HISTORY AND 
 GEOGRAPHY 
 
 HE most sensitive part of the European con- 
 tinent is that middle portion which begins 
 with Poland and ends in the Balkan States. Owing 
 to various historical events, a firmly established 
 equilibrium has not yet been realized among the 
 peoples here. Why is it that just in this part of 
 Europe nearly all wars and misfortunes, including 
 the present one, have started? The main cause is 
 that this region is the keystone between Asia and 
 Europe. 
 
 There have been three great movements be- 
 tween those two continents in the last two thou- 
 sand years. The first and shortest was the Roman 
 drive into Asia. The second, which lasted nearly 
 1000 years, was the invasion of Rome and later 
 of Byzantium by Asiatic peoples. From these 
 invasions resulted on the one side the fall of Rome 
 and Byzantium, with the destruction of their em- 
 pires, and on the other the mixture of the invaders 
 with the invaded, or the total disappearance of 
 the Asiatics. Some groups of the invaders did 
 
 43 
 
44 Rumania and the War 
 
 not 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 and 
 created long enmities which still live to-day. More 
 than that, the invaders still keep under their sway 
 portions of the invaded peoples. 
 
 The third big move began in our day. The 
 immense German industrial development wanted 
 two things, new and big markets and great sup- 
 plies of raw material. Both may be provided by 
 Asia and, by an accident of history, we are wit- 
 nessing an inverse phenomenon: the economic 
 penetration of Asia by Europe. Economic domi- 
 nation means political domination. We have been 
 witnessing an effort toward the political domina- 
 tion of Asia by the Germans. To-day, as in the 
 past, the way towards Asia passes through Central 
 Europe. 
 
 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, Peter 
 the Great left as his will for Russian autocrats 
 the conquest of Constantinople. The way from 
 Russia to Constantinople is through Rumania: 
 hence the infinite series of wars between Russia 
 and Turkey was suported largely by the two Ru- 
 manian countries, Moldavia and Wallachia. In 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 45 
 
 the 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 the 
 domination of the Balkans in spite of Bismarck's 
 statement that the Balkan problem did not deserve 
 the bones of a single German grenadier. The 
 hypertrophy of the German appetite has become 
 acute in the last fifty years, and in the present war 
 for an ephemeral success, hundreds of thousands 
 of German grenadiers have left their bones on 
 Rumanian fields for the Balkan problem. 
 
 Upon the establishment of satisfactory new con- 
 ditions in Mid-Europe will depend, to a very large 
 degree, the maintenance of future peace. If we 
 look at an ethnographical map of Mid-Europe we 
 see that the Rumanian people, descendants of the 
 Eastern Roman Empire, as France and Italy are 
 of the Western, is established in a compact mass 
 on the land surrounded by the Rivers Tisza, 
 Dniester and Danube. Numerous Rumanian 
 islands lie also beyond the Dniester. In the 
 Ukraine, as far as the neighborhood of Kiev, 
 there is a dense group of Moldavians in nearly 
 
46 Rumania and the War 
 
 every village. Their number may be between 
 six hundred thousand and one million. In the 
 Balkans, in the mounts of Pindus, in Thessaly, 
 Epirus and Macedonia, there are more than half 
 a million Vlachs or Rumanians. And in Serbia 
 in the Timok Valley, they number about two hun- 
 dred thousand. A German scholar, accustomed to 
 ideas of conquest and depredation, once said that 
 the Rumanian race spreads in the east and south 
 like 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 we 
 find at the present time the Rumanian people in the 
 following position : A homogeneous group between 
 the Tisza, the Dniester and the Danube and some 
 dispersed groups beyond the Dniester and in the 
 Balkans. 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 in 
 Moldavia and Wallachia (present Rumania) in- 
 dependent and flourishing, till the arrival of the 
 Turks 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 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 47 
 
 Poles. Rumanian students went to the Polish 
 universities, and the first Rumanian historians, 
 Miron Costin and Ureche, were fellows of those 
 universities. Remembrance of past associations 
 kept friendship alive between these two peoples 
 through the centuries. In Rumania, the dispersed 
 sons of unfortunate Poland, after her repeated 
 and criminal dividing among the Russians, Ger- 
 mans and Austrians, always found shelter and wel- 
 come. Common past remembrances and common 
 hate against the conquering Czardom established 
 a strong bond of sympathy. This is interesting 
 for the near future of Mid-Europe, because these 
 two peoples together form a continuous belt from 
 the Baltic to the Black Sea. Solidly established 
 and fairly helped in their development, they will 
 constitute 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 Orthodox 
 religion. A Moldavian, Petru Movila, founded 
 the Archbishopric of Kiev. The beautiful daugh- 
 ters of Moldavian princes were married to Rus- 
 sian Czars and Ukrainian hetmans, and Catherine 
 the Great wore dresses a la Moldave. Unhappily, 
 because Russia's tendency toward conquest was 
 menacing to the very existence of our race, the 
 
48 Rumania and the War 
 
 Russians began to be much hated. In 1812, Rus- 
 sia stole Bessarabia, part of Moldavia (between 
 the Pruth and Dniester). After the Crimean 
 War, in 1856, the European Powers gave back 
 to Rumania the southern part of Bessarabia, but 
 once more in 1877 the Russians as a fine reward 
 for the very useful help given by the Rumanians 
 in their new war with the Turks, took it back 
 again. In the south, Rumania has had good neigh- 
 borly relations. But the Turks, during three long 
 centuries, have exercised upon Rumania an in- 
 fluence contrary to progress. Through the vic- 
 torious war of 1877, we finally liberated ourselves 
 from them. 
 
 Our other southern neighbors are the Bulga- 
 rians and the Serbs. With the Bulgarians we 
 formed, during the nth century, a common em- 
 pire; the Rumano-Bulgaro Empire of the As- 
 sanides dynasty, which was Rumanian. Until 
 1913, when the Second Balkan War took place, 
 nothing had occurred to disturb the friendly rela- 
 tions between the two peoples. Then came the 
 realization of two factors which caused embit- 
 terment. First, although the Bulgars number 
 not more than five millions, they would like to 
 dominate all the Balkans and take possession of 
 Constantinople ; second, the Bulgar nearness to 
 Constantinople, to which they form the hinterland, 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 49 
 
 constituted a special menace. For this reason 
 Austria and Russia worked their most skilful in- 
 trigues, culminating in the Balkan Wars in 1912 
 and 1913. Russia patronized the Balkan Alliance, 
 which included all the small peoples friendly to 
 Russia. Rumania, of course, was excluded, and 
 knew nothing about any agreement. Russia's plan 
 was to weaken Turkey, and so more easily to take 
 Constantinople. When the Russians saw that 
 the Bulgars were attacking the Serbs and that they 
 wanted Constantinople for themselves, they in- 
 cited Rumania to enter against the Bulgars and 
 frustrate their plans. But it did not suit their 
 plans to have Rumania destroy the Bulgars, be- 
 cause they still believed that the Bulgarian people 
 were 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 town 
 of Bulgaria. 
 
 Rumania's entry into the Balkan War was un- 
 justly interpreted in America and England. The 
 truth 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 allowed 
 to annihilate the Bulgarian military force. How 
 many misfortunes would have been avoided for 
 
50 Rumania and the War 
 
 the Entente in the present war! If Bulgaria had 
 been rendered harmless, Rumania would not have 
 been exposed in this present war, as was Serbia, 
 to the perfidious attack by the Bulgars. Her fate 
 and that of the whole oriental front would have 
 been different. 
 
 The Austrians were totally confused by the 
 Balkan Alliance. When they discovered it, they 
 did all in their power to dissolve it. It was not 
 convenient for them as masters of millions of 
 Serbs, to let these people strengthen themselves 
 by the Alliance with the Bulgars and the Greeks. 
 It was far from desirable to permit Russia to 
 exert her influence upon the Alliance, because in 
 this way Austria's path towards Constantinople 
 and Salonica would be hampered. The disloca- 
 tion of the Bulgarians was the easiest solution of 
 the difficulty for Austria-Hungary. In Austria- 
 Hungary there were no oppressed Bulgars, as 
 there were millions of Serbs and Rumanians. The 
 Austrians assured the Bulgars that they could 
 without any danger attack the Serbs and Greeks 
 and take the spoils of conquest, because Rumania 
 would be stopped by Austria-Hungary. They did 
 not succeed in accomplishing all that they promised 
 and the Austro-Bulgaro hegemony fell in 1913, 
 to be resuscitated again in 1915, when it was easy 
 even for those unfamiliar with politics to see that 
 Bulgaria would join the Central Powers. 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 51 
 
 With the Serbs, Rumania has never had trou- 
 ble. Both have endured Hungarian persecutions. 
 Close cultural and religious relations have always 
 existed between them. One of the most honored 
 Rumanian princesses was a Serb and one of the 
 ruling families in Serbia had Rumanian family 
 connections. There was only one obstacle to 
 more friendly relations between the Rumanians 
 and Serbs before 1913 the patronage of Serbia 
 by 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 of 
 Rumania are Austria and Hungary. When the 
 Austrians, or rather the Hapsburgs, were men- 
 aced by the Turks, they were friendly to us. Freed 
 from the Turks, the Hapsburgs themselves began 
 to conquer, sometimes by war, usually by intrigue 
 and marriage the two Imperial devices. In 
 1777, after taking Galicia, Austria turned envious 
 eyes upon Bukovina, the northern part of Mol- 
 davia. Under the pretext that she wanted only 
 a road to Galicia, she demanded and obtained 
 Bukovina from the Sultan. As an argument she 
 sent a precious cigarette-case to the corrupt Turk. 
 It is enough to say that in Bukovina was the prin- 
 cipal department of Moldavia, Suceava, where 
 the most beautiful monasteries and hallowed his- 
 
52 Rumania and the War 
 
 torical relics are still preserved, to understand 
 the pain inflicted on Rumania by this depreda- 
 tion. After the annexation the Hapsburgs began 
 persecution. They favored the Ruthenians 
 against the Rumanians in Bukovina, although in 
 Galicia they persecuted the Ruthenians through 
 the Poles. This was the moral system of the 
 Hapsburgs. Austria is also hated by Rumania 
 because in 1865 she annexed Transylvania to 
 Hungary, thus enslaving the Rumanians of that 
 territory. 
 
 With the Magyars, the Rumanians have never 
 been on good terms. The Magyars are not Eu- 
 ropeans. They came from Asia in the ninth cen- 
 tury. Uninvited guests, they invaded Rumania 
 and dominated the people. During long centu- 
 ries they persecuted the Rumanians in Transyl- 
 vania, making them into economic slaves. They 
 even forced them to adopt the Catholic religion 
 and speak the Hungarian language. But all their 
 efforts 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 Rumania 
 was constituted, the Hungarians fearfully antici- 
 pated the time when the four million Rumanians of 
 Transylvania would demand union with the Ru- 
 manians of Rumania. They tried to Magyar- 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 53 
 
 ize 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 the 
 Hungarians had four hundred for eight million. 
 The Rumanian language was not permitted in 
 Parliament nor in public life. There have been no 
 schools for Rumanians, no offices for Rumanians. 
 A Rumanian student whose family possessed 
 documents showing that they had been in the 
 country since the twelfth century asked for a 
 scholarship to a certain institution from the gov- 
 ernment ; instead, it was given to a new Hungarian 
 citizen. When the student asked why he, of a 
 family eight centuries old in the country, did not 
 receive assistance, the rector answered: "In five 
 years this other man became a Hungarian; in 
 eight centuries you have not!" Freedom of the 
 press does not exist. A hundred years of prison 
 has been given to Rumanians in the last twenty 
 years 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 existed 
 up to 1871, the sentimentalist and culture-seeking 
 
54 Rumania and the W ar 
 
 Germany 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 German 
 merchants and professional men were established 
 in Rumania. When Rumania elected as King, 
 Prince Carol Hohenzollern, these relations became 
 still closer. But almost coincident with his arrival, 
 Prussian arrogance began to make itself felt and 
 Rumanian antipathy towards Prussia was aroused. 
 Before the war, the Germans, in spite of the Ru- 
 manian dislike for them, were attaining a strong 
 economic hold on the country, which was the larg- 
 est market in the Balkans for their trade. Most 
 of the oil business was in their hands, and the 
 greater part of the public debt was floated in 
 Germany. But not because the Rumanians pre- 
 ferred it so. Since 1863, when the last Rumanian 
 loan was floated in England, in spite of every ef- 
 fort, Rumania has been unable to raise a penny 
 anywhere else. Rumanian loans, however, were 
 always in British and French money, but they 
 passed 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 the 
 Second Balkan War, went to Paris to negotiate 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 55 
 
 a loan of 250,000,000 francs. He did not 
 succeed and after some days in Berlin, the Ger- 
 man Bank Disconto put at his disposal the money 
 required, provided by French capital! I mention 
 this fact because, whatever kind of peace we may 
 have, 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 and 
 again. The humiliating conditions of the Treaty 
 of Bucharest imposed by the Germans have left a 
 painful scar in the Rumanian lieart. 
 
 The union of all Rumanians in a single State 
 is an essential condition for a democratic and last- 
 ing world peace. For centuries they have been 
 fighting for it. The process of the union has al- 
 ready begun. As a direct consequence of the 
 Russian Revolution, Bessarabia declared herself 
 independent in November, 1917, as a Moldavian 
 Republic; and in April, 1918, by the unanimous 
 vote of an assembly elected by universal suffrage, 
 she joined herself to the mother country, which for 
 all subject Rumanians means Rumania, and not 
 Austria-Hungary. So the wrong done in 1812 
 by Czar Alexander the First has been repaired. 
 
 Bukovina must be returned to Rumania. Tran- 
 sylvania, together with the territory that lies along 
 its western border, and the Banat must come back 
 
56 Rumania and the War 
 
 to Rumania. Historically, ethnographically and 
 geographically the right is on the Rumanian side. 
 Transylvania never belonged to Hungary until 
 1867 when, wrongly and against the will of the 
 great majority of her inhabitants, she was annexed. 
 Her population, even according to Hungarian 
 statistics, is Rumanian in majority. There are 
 fifty-five per cent of Rumanians in Transylvania 
 and the Banat, and forty-five per cent in the other 
 parts of Rumanian Hungary. But Hungarian 
 statistics 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 depend 
 on specific qualities of race. In Rumania under 
 the same conditions the annual increase is fifteen 
 per thousand. How can vital statistics be so dif- 
 ferent in the near-by territory in Hungary? If 
 we make due allowances for discrepancies of fact 
 and also take into account the Austrian statistics 
 for 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 was 
 a German. 
 
 "Vainly we try, sir," he said to me, "to make an 
 Hungarian State without Hungarians. You have 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 57 
 
 just passed the River Tisza. Well, till we reach 
 the Carpathians, twenty-four hours from now, you 
 will hear only Rumanian spoken. There are five 
 million Rumanians and it is impossible to dena- 
 tionalize them !" 
 
 Every man is called a Hungarian who in an- 
 swer to a question says ighen (yes), in spite of 
 the fact that it is the only Hungarian word he 
 knows. There are, it is true, more than half a 
 million Hungarians who have been brought into 
 the country through colonization and in one of- 
 ficial capacity or another. Most of these people 
 will return to their homes in Hungary when their 
 terms of office expire. The single compact group 
 are the Szekelers in the central part of Transyl- 
 vania numbering about four hundred and fifty 
 thousand. Their economic life is strictly bound 
 up with that of the Rumanians surrounding them. 
 A just peace must provide for them guarantees 
 for free religious and cultural development, and 
 Rumania will gladly agree to such terms. Besides 
 the homogeneous group of Rumanians there still 
 will remain important groups of them in the 
 Ukraine, Macedonia and the Timok Valley, whose 
 rights we shall desire to see respected. We shall 
 do the same for our foreign minorities. 
 
 The Hungarians will fight to the last against 
 giving Transylvania to Rumania. They will give 
 
58 Rumania and the War 
 
 up Slovakia and Jugoslavia, but not the Rumanian 
 countries. They will assert that Transylvania is 
 the cradle of the Hungarians, which is not true, 
 because they came only in the ninth century into 
 Europe from Asia. The real reason for their 
 desire to maintain control is that Transylvania is 
 a very rich country, possessing important deposits 
 of coal, iron, and gold, of which the Rumanians 
 have been deprived. A Transylvanian folk song 
 says "Our mountains bear gold; we are begging 
 from 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 Rumanians 
 shows that by their union it is possible to create 
 one of the richest countries in Europe. One of 
 the most important arteries of Central Europe, 
 the Danube, flows for more than one thousand 
 kilometers along its southern boundary. Its river 
 valleys present excellent conditions for the em- 
 ployment of water power and so make possible 
 the utilization of an immense hydraulic energy. 
 The mineral wealth of the Carpathians of Tran- 
 sylvania, Banat and Rumania have been till now 
 very little exploited. Great coal deposits, valu- 
 able properties in oil and gas, provide an enor- 
 mous quantity of mineral energy. Before the 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 59 
 
 war started the total annual value of the minerals 
 was 300,000,000 francs. Arable lands cover 128,- 
 500 square kilometers; the forests (fir, oak) cover 
 a surface of 75,983 square kilometers. The vine- 
 yards and orchards, 7,700 square kilometers, the 
 gardens 63,000 square kilometers. The fisheries 
 of the lower Danube are the richest fresh water 
 fisheries in Europe after those of the Volga. Ac- 
 cording to our approximate calculation the value 
 of cereals only is two billions francs yearly. 
 There are few countries in Europe which present 
 such favorable economic conditions. Situated at 
 the mouth of the Danube and on the uplands of 
 Transylvania, the fourteen million Rumanians will 
 constitute an economic and political factor of the 
 greatest importance in Central Europe." 
 
 Concerning the Banat, I know that the Serbs 
 claim it in whole or in part. But I think their 
 pretensions are exaggerated. The majority of 
 the province is Rumanian. There are two or three 
 hundred thousand Serbs, but there are just as 
 many or more Rumanians in the Timok Valley in 
 Macedonia, part of which should go to Serbia. 
 It is not right that the ethnographical principle 
 should be applied only to Rumanians and not 
 equally to Serbs. The future Serbian states, in- 
 cluding Serbia, Croatia, Slavonia, Bosnia, Herze- 
 govina, and, perhaps, Montenegro, will be so 
 
60 Rumania and the War 
 
 great that a small portion of the Banat is not 
 worth endangering the friendly relations between 
 Serbs and Rumanians. 
 
 If America does not re-enter her isolation, if 
 she will help us with her capital, her technical 
 knowledge and her organized energy, we shall 
 quickly become a strong country, the surest guar- 
 antee of democracy against any kind of German 
 aggression in the center of Europe. The most 
 common slander against Rumania heard in Amer- 
 ica is that we are not a democratic people. First 
 of all, we are a peasant people. We have no 
 aristocracy. In the Rumanian constitution, any 
 titles except that of Crown Prince are prohibited, 
 and in the interest of the country we can sacrifice 
 even that. The various Rumanians who call 
 themselves princes and counts abroad have no 
 right to bear these titles. Our constitution is an 
 exact copy of the Belgian, too exact a copy, per- 
 haps. Our misfortune was that we inherited a 
 group, a very limited group, of landlords, of whom 
 we could not rid ourselves, who did much wrong 
 to the country. We tried to oust them in 1907 
 by a revolution, but at every sign of restlessness 
 the Russian and Austro-Hungarian autocracies 
 showed themselves ready to interfere and to force 
 us to surrender our independence. Russia and 
 Austria-Hungary were the moral support of the 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 6 1 
 
 landlords. Now that Czardom has perished and 
 the Hapsburgs are to perish with their phantom 
 country, Austria-Hungary, the landlords will have 
 no power. They have been apprehensive for some 
 time, and in 1917 they passed two bills, one for 
 universal suffrage, and the other a new agrarian 
 measure which gave to the peasants two million 
 hectares of land. The Bessarabians and the 
 Transylvanians are also peasant people who will 
 increase the forces of democracy. The Rumanian 
 peasants 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 in 
 Rumania during the war says: "The Rumanian 
 peasant belongs to a gentle and refined race. He 
 is intelligent and possesses qualities of heart which 
 you would not suspect. If the present moral and 
 intellectual welfare are cultivated as well as the 
 material conditions, I am sure that he will pro- 
 duce a race so elevated as to contrast strangely 
 with other people who surround him." 
 
 A strong Rumanian democratic state will have 
 a strong community of interest with the Serbs, 
 Poles and Czechs. These three countries should 
 be sufficient to form with us a barrier against any 
 aggressive power. But when time has elapsed, 
 when the miseries of war are forgotten, the wrongs 
 
62 Rumania and the War 
 
 of the past repaired, and the selfishness of various 
 peoples diminished, it may be possible that even 
 the Bulgarian and Hungarian peoples can be in- 
 cluded in this alliance. We must not forget that 
 their feelings and their loyalty were corrupted by 
 their rulers and their aristocracies. 
 
 And so with the Russians. With the Ukraine 
 Republic, it is to our interest to be on the most 
 friendly terms. One of the most important re- 
 sults of this war ought to be the disappearance 
 of the old diplomacy and of all the autocratic dy- 
 nasties. The Russian Revolution has committed 
 many sins. In a cataclysm which destroys in one 
 year a dynasty of one thousand years, you cannot 
 expect perfect order. The Revolution is none 
 the less responsible for having delivered the world 
 from the darkest and most insidious of autocra- 
 cies. The despotism which has existed in Russia 
 has perished and the strong push of the Russians 
 towards Constantinople is also a thing of the past. 
 This city must be a neutral city with an interna- 
 tional administration in which America will play 
 a large role, directing our first steps towards a 
 new, large and productive life. 
 
 The essential condition for a lasting peace is 
 the creation in Central Europe of strong new 
 states on national bases. These states, through 
 their representatives, on October 26, 1918, en- 
 
Some Facts of History and Geography 63 
 
 tered into agreement in historic Independence 
 Hall in the city of Philadelphia in this country. 
 The oppression of centuries and the stifling of na- 
 tional aspirations will soon be a nightmare of 
 the past for all the small states of Central Europe. 
 They can develop their own individuality without 
 the restraining tyranny of Hapsburg and Hohen- 
 zollern overlords. They can bridge the distance 
 to the proud centuries when they helped to make 
 history. 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 may 
 they not give the world in the future ! Their fed- 
 eration will make the strongest fortress against 
 German invasion. They will take the place of 
 Austria-Hungary, which must disappear from the 
 European map. 
 
WOMAN'S WORK IN RUMANIA 
 
 POSSIBLY a better title for this chapter would 
 be the work of the Rumanian women; be- 
 cause Rumanian women are to be found not only 
 in the kingdom of Rumania, but also in vast re- 
 gions all around Rumania, in Transylvania, in 
 Bessarabia, in Bukovina and the Banat, in the 
 Macedonian mountains, and also in the Western 
 part of the Ukrainian Republic. I must, however, 
 ask you not to fear that my remarks will be made 
 longer on account of this fact. The Rumanian 
 nation in all the manifestations of its life has this 
 characteristic, that, although it has suffered many 
 vicissitudes and has been subject to much oppres- 
 sion from foreign powers, it has kept in general 
 lines the same language and the same customs. 
 Therefore, to speak of the women of the kingdom 
 of Rumania means to speak of all the Rumanian 
 women of all countries inhabited by Rumanians. 
 In all times and with all peoples the women 
 have had their part in martyrdom. Professor 
 Graham Wallace, in "The Great Society," quotes 
 from the Medea of Euripides: "Of all beings 
 
 6 4 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 65 
 
 born to life and intelligence, women are the most 
 unhappy." This psychological fact, profoundly 
 true even with happy nations, has a deeper mean- 
 ing in the case of oppressed peoples. In their 
 case the martyrdom is intensified, and as in all 
 other similar cases, it produces heroic characters, 
 whether the heroes and heroines bear famous 
 names or remain unknown among the great mass 
 of the people who daily work and suffer. 
 
 Let us see now what is the special character, 
 the physiognomy, and the leading interests and 
 occupations of the Rumanian woman. 
 
 Let us go together on a Sunday afternoon to a 
 Rumanian village. On open ground under the 
 shade of an old oak, to the accompaniment of a 
 violin and a "cobza" (a kind of guitar), the 
 weekly dance of the village takes place. There 
 you can see all the lads and all the lasses of the 
 village, and maybe some from the surrounding 
 country. They are dancing the Rumanian na- 
 tional dance, "the hora," which the Rumanian 
 bard 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 ground 
 Beating feet make earth resound 
 Steadily and slow. 
 
66 Rumania and the War 
 
 I am indebted to the kindness of my friend Mr. 
 Grimshaw, of the London School of Economics, 
 for the translation of this and other poems which 
 I shall quote. 
 
 We can quietly watch the girls dancing with 
 the children playing around them, and the women 
 holding the babies in their arms and looking on. 
 The girls are of medium height, some of them 
 tall with slender waists; most of them of dark 
 complexion with large dark or hazel eyes, 
 although you can see also some fair girls with 
 luxuriant light hair falling over their shoulders^ 
 plaited and tied with a knot of ribbon, and with 
 blue eyes like the clear sky over their heads. 
 Their demeanor is shy and modest; from time to 
 time a lad gets hold of a handkerchief which, if 
 given voluntarily, means accepted love; that is 
 why the girl protests and wants it back. Their 
 dress, as is usual with the eternal feminine, fol- 
 lows the rules of aesthetics and varies with the 
 region. In the mountain districts we find the real 
 national costume, which is very picturesque, com- 
 posed of an embroidered blouse of various pat- 
 terns and colors, and a skirt composed of two 
 pieces like two aprons of black woollen cloth, one 
 in front, the other behind, tightly moulded to the 
 figure like the drapery of an antique statue. 
 Around the waist is an embroidered woollen belt. 
 
A RUMANIAN PEASANT GIRL IN NATIONAL COSTUME 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 67 
 
 What is interesting in the study of this dress is 
 that the wearer makes it all herself. She weaves 
 the fine cloth of cotton yarn, spun specially for her 
 in the Lancashire mills. When the roll of cloth 
 is finished, balancing it on her head as the women 
 of antiquity did their amphorae, she carries it to 
 the spring in the meadow, where, after washing 
 it several times and drying it on the grass, she 
 makes it as white as snow. She also washes the 
 wool, and then cards it in readiness for her distaff, 
 which she calls her "furca." The "furca" and 
 the "fusul," or bobbin, are her companions while 
 she is waiting for the cloth to dry. How many 
 times, on the uplands in the mountains under the 
 cool shadow of the fir trees and to the babbling 
 murmur of the spring mountain waters, have I 
 seen this poetic picture of Rumanian life ! 
 
 The Rumanian peasant-woman so tastefully de- 
 signs her blouse and skirt and embroiders them 
 with patterns so charming and so harmoniously 
 arranged and with such fine shades of color, that 
 during recent years the refined Rumanian aris- 
 tocracy Fas introduced the national blouse as 
 fashionable attire in society. The Rumanian 
 Women's Association of Bucharest has organ- 
 ized this home industry and in various shops they 
 sell the refined product of the peasant women's 
 clever hands. Until quite recently Liberty's was 
 
68 Rumania and the War 
 
 selling this kind of blouse. I do not know 
 whether its origin was clearly known, because very 
 often goods exported from Rumania arrived in 
 England under the name of Austro-Hungarian or 
 Bulgarian goods. Madame Maria Cozma, a 
 patriotic Rumanian lady from Transylvania, the 
 mother-in-law of our great poet Goga, and 
 Madam Elise Bratano, have collected in artistic 
 albums a good many of these patterns, which are 
 the native and wonderful product of the artistic 
 genius of the Rumanian race. This work has 
 been continually embellished and improved by the 
 Rumanian women from generation to generation 
 in the course of long centuries of work and suf- 
 fering. This artistic work was the only means of 
 alleviating their anxieties and of elevating their 
 souls. 
 
 The Rumanian Minister of Commerce and In- 
 dustry has also accumulated lately a rich collec- 
 tion of Rumanian patterns and embroideries, and 
 has organized an annual exhibition of this art. 
 
 On the plains, where the women have less spare 
 time because they work harder, their physique 
 and their customs are somewhat different. The 
 complexion is less pure and is more sunburned. 
 The waist is less slender, the figure altogether 
 more sturdy. But their eyes, which are the mir- 
 ror of the soul, are soft, loyal and clear; their 
 
WITH THE RUMANIAN ARMY A CAVALRY PATROL ON THE ICE FIELDS 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 69 
 
 eyes are large, humid, glinting, their dress, 
 although maintaining the national design, is 
 spoiled by garments made of materials of foreign 
 industry which lack the charm and the picturesque- 
 ness of the Rumanian peasant dress. 
 
 When the sun begins to set, the gay crowd goes 
 back home, and there immediately begins the 
 working week for the girl. What does she not 
 do? She helps her mother with the cooking, in 
 making the bread and polenta, in milking the cows, 
 if they have any, in looking after the poultry, in 
 bringing up and taking care of her younger 
 brothers and sisters, in keeping their home clean 
 and nice. She breeds silk worms, she makes the 
 silk threads and weaves the silk cloth; she makes 
 butter and various kinds of cheese, she cuts and 
 sews the clothes for the family; in short, she 
 knows and practises the multiple arts of home 
 life. 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 this 
 age the girls usually get married. Among the 
 poorer 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, naturally 
 have more opportunities in this respect. One 
 fact is certain, that with very few exceptions they 
 
70 Rumania and the War 
 
 all marry. It is possible that this state of things 
 is brought about because in Rumania the number 
 of women is approximately equal to that of .men, 
 and in Moldavia and Bessarabia, there are even 
 more men than women. Once married, the girl, 
 possessing these qualities which I have just 
 enumerated, becomes a good housewife; to quote 
 an old northern-English popular song: "She loves 
 her husband and she keeps her house clean." In 
 the family she plays an important part, sometimes 
 even greater than that of her husband. This, I 
 am given to understand, is by no means unknown 
 in other lands. It is crystallized in the Rumanian 
 folk saying: "Where are you from?" "Where 
 my wife is from." The number of children gives 
 the measure of the honour of the family. A 
 Rumanian 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 all 
 sorts of means in order to have children. She 
 drinks orchid infusions, she eats rabbits because 
 rabbits are prolific, she wears round her waist a 
 silk belt which has been kept for 12 days on 
 the church altar, and as a last expedient, she has 
 recourse to the wizards and witches. However, 
 she need not have recourse to such extreme means 
 very often, because the strength of the Rumanian 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 71 
 
 race lies, in part, in its high birth-rate. Whilst 
 the average birth-rate throughout the world is 
 30 per thousand inhabitants yearly, in Rumania 
 it is 43 per thousand. This helps to explain why 
 the Rumanian race has resisted through the cen- 
 turies the most terrible calamities of very varied 
 character. The fact is embodied in the Rumanian 
 proverb: "Romanul nu piere" "The Rumanian 
 never dies." It is not only for this reason that 
 the Rumanian woman plays such an important 
 role, but also for her moral qualities of which I 
 will speak later on. 
 
 The Rumanian woman is a good mother. She 
 loves and takes care of her children, no matter 
 how many she has, with an equal solicitude. Her 
 care is that they may be clean, intelligent ancj 
 pretty. Beauty is a factor dear to the Rumanian 
 people, who have natural artistic inclinations. To 
 illustrate this, I am going to give you some of 
 the lullabies of the Rumanian folk-lore. This is 
 one 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! 
 
72 Rumania and the War 
 
 Tall 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 handsome 
 
 Like the shining sun; 
 
 Then may pretty girls adore you, 
 
 Flowers strew your way. 
 
 With all this, however, the life of the Rumanian 
 peasant woman is a long martyrdom; besides do- 
 ing all the housekeeping she has to nurse and 
 bring up her children (feeding the babies with the 
 bottle is an unknown process among the Rumanian 
 peasant women and is very little used even in 
 the 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 fingers 
 Hemp-yarn from the ever-laden 
 Distaff, at her waist; to her bosom 
 Close she holds him, as her free arm 
 Lays and lights the household fire. 
 
 As if all these duties were not enough, she 
 also helps her husband with his work in the fields. 
 
TWO RUMANIAN PEASANT BEAUTIES 
 
Woman* s Work in Rumania 73 
 
 She is the first to get up at three o'clock in the 
 morning to light the fire, and cook the meals for 
 the whole day, which she takes to her husband in 
 the fields, where she remains all day helping him 
 to till the soil, to sow, to reap, to dig and plough. 
 I do not know any woman who works more than 
 the Rumanian peasant woman. 
 
 As I write these words, the men of Rumania 
 are completing their second year in the war, where 
 a great many of them have died for the accom- 
 plishment of a great and high ideal, the reunion 
 of all Rumanians; and the women's share of the 
 work has been greatly increased. I shall always 
 keep in mind the picture of the peasant woman 
 holding her baby to her bosom with one arm, and 
 with the other handling the shafts of the plough. 
 She has all the charge of the family in the absence 
 of her husband, at the front or fallen in the war. 
 
 The Rumanian woman is hospitable and good- 
 hearted. She will share everything with others 
 with a real pleasure, and she feels great satisfac- 
 tion when she can do some good. Mrs. Lucy 
 Garnett in her travels through Macedonia, de- 
 scribed in her book "The Women of Turkey," 
 was received so well and with so much sympathy 
 by the Rumanians living in those parts, that she 
 says that the principal characteristic of the Ru- 
 manians is their hospitality, which contrasts strik- 
 
74 Rumania and the War 
 
 ingly with the lack of hospitality shown by the 
 other races living in Macedonia. 
 
 The Rumanian woman has an inborn vivid in- 
 telligence. She is quick to learn and understand. 
 I remember the surprise of some English friends 
 of mine, who were living in Rumania, when they 
 saw that their servant, a Rumanian girl who could 
 not read or write, in a few months' time knew 
 English so well that she could converse fluently in 
 that language. 
 
 Owing to excessive work, to many cares, many 
 children and worries, and perhaps also owing to 
 bad social and hygienic conditions, the Rumanian 
 peasant woman usually ages quickly. It is pain- 
 ful to see how rapidly the features of a splendid 
 girl alter, for within ten or fifteen years after 
 marriage she is likely to have the appearance of 
 an old woman. I am convinced that this is not 
 in the character of the race but is only due to 
 certain conditions which could be changed. 
 
 The Rumanian woman is imbued with a high 
 patriotic feeling. It could be said that her love 
 of her nation, her national language, traditions, 
 and customs, has insured the existence of the Ru- 
 manian race. During the period of the barbarian 
 invasions and also in more recent times when, ow- 
 ing to the international injustice still ruling the 
 world, the Rumanian race has been divided and 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 75 
 
 subject to various persecutions in Russia, Hun- 
 gary, Austria, and Macedonia, it has been espe- 
 cially the woman who has contributed to keep 
 intact the characteristics of the race. She never 
 marries a foreigner, or if sometimes this does 
 happen, she succeeds through her charms and her 
 attraction in nationalizing her husband, and her 
 children are certain to follow the nationality and 
 creed of the mother. This phenomenon is well 
 known and the nationalities concerned are much 
 afraid of it. The Hungarians in their mad idea 
 of forming a Hungarian State of twenty million 
 Hungarians, although there are only six million 
 real Hungarians, speaking an impossible Asiatic 
 language, and unable to assimilate European peo- 
 ples within their pseudo-civilization, have estab- 
 lished kindergartens for Rumanian children at 
 the age of three, taking the children by force 
 from the arms of their mothers in order to teach 
 them the language of Arpad. Vain efforts! 
 
 When the long awaited Rumanian army entered 
 into Transylvania, the Rumanian women and 
 girls whose husbands and brothers were fighting 
 on the side of Austria-Hungary for a cause which 
 was not theirs, met them with enthusiasm, and 
 showed them the best roads and the unknown 
 pathways by which they could the more easily go 
 forward. When Fate compelled them to retire, 
 
76 Rumania and the War 
 
 many of these feminine mentors paid with their 
 lives for their brave acts of patriotism. More 
 than 14,000 Rumanians, including men and 
 women, were condemned to death or to prison 
 by the Hungarian military courts, for their patri- 
 otic sentiments. 
 
 The great Rumanian patriot and writer, Bal- 
 cesco, who died in exile at Palermo, says: "When 
 the Rumanians revolted against the Hungarians 
 in Transylvania in 1848, the Rumanian women 
 were not behind the men either in courage or in 
 national feeling; they shared with their husbands 
 all the dangers. From the peaks of the moun- 
 tains they threw a torrent of stones which de- 
 stroyed the lines of their enemies. Their songs 
 were no longer songs of longing and of glee, but 
 songs full of patriotism and national sentiment. 
 I heard in the ruins of the Abrud a town laid 
 waste by fire in a tragic night of May, 1849 a 
 young and beautiful mountain girl singing a sweet 
 and melancholy song. But the song was about a 
 happy young Rumanian girl by the name of 
 Florea, who was happy to be a Rumanian of Latin 
 origin, happy not to know and never to have 
 spoken Hungarian, loving only all that is Ru- 
 manian, and swearing never to love a Hungarian 
 so long as one Rumanian was left in the world. 
 This song, full of sentiment, that rosy and beau- 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 77 
 
 tiful virgin, the burnt dark ruins of the Abrud, 
 which were around me, the tombs of the Hun- 
 garians which I could see near by, all these made 
 a powerful impression upon me. It seemed as 
 if I was having a vision. I thought I could see 
 the genius of Rumanian nationality hovering over 
 the tombs of their enemies and singing a resur- 
 rection song." 
 
 In the history of the Rumanian principalities, 
 the wives of the ruling princes and the wives of 
 the state dignitaries were renowned for their 
 piety, courage, dignity and patriotism. On the 
 walls of the most beautiful piece of ecclesiastical 
 architecture in the Near East, the cloister of 
 Curtea de Argesh, one may see the picture of the 
 Prince Neagoe Bessarab and his wife Despina 
 offering to God and to the Rumanian people the 
 church built by them. But outstanding among all 
 the heroines of the past is the mother of Stephen 
 the Great, Prince of Moldavia at that time a 
 country three times as great as at present. In 
 the 47 years of his long reign he carried on with 
 success as many wars against his neighbours, 
 Hungarians, Poles, Tartars, Russians and Turks. 
 His brilliant and repeated successes against the 
 Turks, then the invaders of Europe who were 
 threatening even Rome, brought him the title of 
 u The Hero of Christendom," given to him by 
 
78 Rumania and the War 
 
 the Pope, Sixtus IV. After each war in which 
 he was victorious he built a beautiful church. 
 These churches still exist in various parts of the 
 country, and have been used as places of worship 
 up to the present time. Thus he built 47 
 churches. In the inspiration of his mother he 
 found his highest moral stimulus. This is what 
 a popular legend says about this heroine : 
 
 "In this old fortress built on the side of a 
 mountain, the Mother of the Prince keeps watch 
 as a sentinel of honor. Voichitza, the young wife 
 of the Prince, is also there, sweet and suave, as 
 a white carnation, sighing for her glorious and 
 much-loved lord, who returns not from the com- 
 bat. The Princess, her mother-in-law, consoles 
 and cheers her. The clock has just struck mid- 
 night, when Voichitza hears the fanfare of the 
 trumpet and the knocking at the gate. She knows 
 it is her husband, and her heart goes out to him. 
 Both the princesses rise quickly, and soon the 
 voice 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 too 
 strong for us, and my little army is devastated. 
 Open the gates, for the Turks are surrounding 
 us, the wind is piercing, and my wounds are pain- 
 ful.' Voitchitza rushes to the window, but her 
 mother-in-law holds her back, and bidding her 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 79 
 
 remain where she is, descends the stairs, orders 
 the castle gates to be opened, and appears before 
 her son, tall, majestic, severe the absolute per- 
 sonification of dignity and grandeur. 'What do 
 you say, stranger? My Stephen is far away! 
 His arm is sowing death and annihilation. I am 
 his mother and he is my son ! If you are really 
 Stephen, I am not your mother. If heaven does 
 not wish to make my last days sorrowful, and if 
 you are really Stephen, you will not enter here, 
 vanquished, against my will. Fly to the battle- 
 field! Die for your country! Your tomb shall 
 be strewn with flowers!' And closing the door, 
 she remounts the stairs ; and calm and serene, she 
 consoles and wipes away the tears of the young 
 Princess Voichitza." 
 
 The dignified descendants of those women of 
 the past are also in the present times keeping high 
 their inheritance and their fruitful mission. 
 Whilst the peasant woman, as I have said, by 
 her daily toil provides the army and the people 
 with the necessary food, clothing and things of 
 first necessity, her sisters of the higher classes are 
 lending all their efforts to the army and the coun- 
 try. Organized in charity societies or individu- 
 ally, they tend the wounded in hospitals, and in 
 the hospital-trains leading from the firing line; 
 they have organized canteens in railway stations, 
 
8o Rumania and the War 
 
 in villages and towns where they distribute re- 
 freshments to the soldiers and encourage them 
 with the smile or the kind word which contributes 
 so much to uplift and maintain the morale so 
 necessary in such trying times. Amongst them 
 are a few hundred Rumanian woman-doctors who 
 are giving enormous help to hospitals. 
 
 In the literary realm there are many women 
 who have lifted high the renown of Rumanian 
 literature, both in Rumania and abroad. In the 
 past generation we have had two great names in 
 Rumanian literature : Matilda Poni and Veronica 
 Micle, the latter being contemporary with and 
 a good friend of the greatest of the Rumanian 
 poets, Eminesco. From this generation I must 
 mention Mile. Vacaresco, who writes equally well 
 in Rumanian and French. Mile. Vacaresco is 
 faithfully continuing the traditions of her ances- 
 tor Enachitza Vacaresco, who lived in the i8th 
 century, and whose last will and testament read 
 as follows: 
 
 "To my descendants the Vacaresco I leave this inherit- 
 ance: To preserve the Rumanian language, and the love 
 of their Fatherland." 
 
 In the foreground of Rumanian womanhood there 
 stands clearly detached our gracious and charm- 
 ing Queen Marie, the most precious gift the Brit- 
 
ECATERINA THEODOROIU THE JEANNE D ARC OF RUMANIA, WHO, 
 
 AFTER HEROIC DEEDS, FELL AT THE HEAD OF HER BATTALION 
 
 IN THE BATTLE OF MARASESTI 
 
Woman's Work in Rumania 8 1 
 
 ish people have ever made to their Rumanian ally. 
 Beautiful like a fairy, she is not content only with 
 her literary work in which she, a dignified fol- 
 lower of Carmen Sylva, excels; but being of an 
 active and daring temperament, she expresses in 
 deeds her charitable sentiments, I shall never 
 forget how in 1913, during the Rumanian cam- 
 paign in Bulgaria, when I was the chief physician 
 of a hospital for cholera of 3,000 beds in barracks 
 at Zimnicen, Queen Marie was the first to enter 
 fearlessly the barracks of my patients to give them 
 assistance and encourage them, and she never for- 
 got to leave flowers behind when she left. In 
 the present war she has not only seen and spoken 
 individually with the wounded, but she has been 
 to her. whole people an example of courage and of 
 moral elevation, in the midst of the most terrible 
 circumstances through which a nation has ever 
 passed. 
 
 When we think that two-thirds of the country 
 is still occupied by the most cruel and barbarous 
 enemies ; that those in the occupied territory know 
 nothing about their people gone to the war, of 
 whom many will never come back; that owing to 
 deadly epidemics of typhoid and to hunger (for 
 many months all days have been meatless days for 
 poor and rich alike), and to the difficult condi- 
 tions of the retreat, nearly one million of the 
 
82 Rumania and the War 
 
 seven million inhabitants of Rumania have died 
 (I know villages in which there is not a single in- 
 habitant left, not even a child) ; that our great 
 eastern ally betrayed us from the beginning, look- 
 ing on without concern from 20 miles behind the 
 firing line, and that quite recently, after a second 
 betrayal, they declared war on us; only then can 
 one understand the anxieties through which our 
 people is passing at present. There is no escape 
 anywhere. Serbia had at least one way of retreat 
 open to the Adriatic. Through this opening she 
 was able to send her soldiers to fight side by side 
 with the real Western Allies, and their children 
 to France and Italy and England to be taken care 
 of. Rumania had no such opportunity! She is 
 trapped, and there is no possibility of helping her 
 in any way. But the Rumanian says : "Go d is all- 
 powerful!" 
 
 Believing in the inherent justice of things and 
 in the true God, who is not the God of war in- 
 voked by the Kaiser as his ally, but the God of 
 goodness and justice, let us hope that the day 
 will come which will bring to the Rumanian peo- 
 ple united together, happier times and a better 
 reward for their labors and sufferings. 
 
PEASANT CO-OPERATION IN RUMANIA 
 
 HP HE American labourer knows little about the 
 * Rumanian peasant; and generally speaking, 
 American opinion is badly informed about Ru- 
 mania. The reasons are various and I will not 
 insist upon them. Certainly, those who have suf- 
 fered most from this state of things are the Ru- 
 manians themselves, because not only have they 
 remained unknown to the great American nation, 
 but what is worse, other interested peoples have 
 slandered them, have put them in a bad light, have 
 misinterpreted their acts both before and since 
 Rumania's entry into the war. In certain circles 
 of America the Rumanian people arouse almost 
 no interest at all. 
 
 Nevertheless, on account of certain native qual- 
 ities, of intelligence, skill, liveliness, industry and 
 because of his many sufferings, the Rumanian 
 peasant from the Danube and from the Car- 
 pathians merits the full sympathy and attention 
 of the American nation. 
 
 Among other remarkable achievements exclu- 
 sively the work of this peasant is the creation of 
 
 83 
 
84 Rumania and the War 
 
 the Popular Banks and Agrarian Co-operative 
 Societies in Rumania. 
 
 No more than twenty years ago the Rumanian 
 peasant was suffering painfully from lack of credit. 
 In order to satisfy his various wants and pay the 
 expenditures for installation, for his family, for 
 taxes, etc., he was obliged to borrow money from 
 the landowner by mortgaging his work for the 
 next summer or summers, and in order to repay 
 he was obliged to sell his labour in winter for 
 practically nothing. For instance, while for 
 ploughing an acre the peasant received in spring 
 or autumn 8 francs, if he was paid before and dur- 
 ing the winter he received only 2 francs ; for har- 
 vesting an acre, instead of 16 francs, the summer 
 price, he received 4 francs! The peasant, being 
 pressed by want and not being able to find credit 
 anywhere, was forced to submit to the iron 
 law of the landowners. When he tried to 
 escape from their grip and sought money from 
 the cereal merchant, the buyer of his crop, 
 he fell from the frying pan into the fire. 
 This man in his turn paid ridiculoulsy low 
 prices in advance for the crop scarcely a 
 third of the market value of the products. For 
 instance, 20 or 30 francs were regularly paid for 
 a half-ton of corn, the summer price of which 
 would be from 80 to 100 francs. In this manner 
 
Peasant Co-operation in Rumania 85 
 
 the peasant was always between the devil and the 
 deep sea. These circumstances became intoler- 
 able and the peasant saw that there was no escape 
 except by his own efforts. Helped by the teachers 
 and priests of the villages, he laid the first foun- 
 dation of the Popular Banks. 
 
 Only two Banks were founded in the first year 
 in the districts of Gorj and Prahova, but three 
 years afterwards, in 1900, their number was 47 
 and their subsequent development is shown in the 
 following table : 
 
 Year Number of Banks Capital 
 
 1906 2,000 Francs 20,000,000 
 
 1911 3,000 100,000,000 
 
 1916 4,000 300,000,000 
 
 Perhaps the best example is the Bank "Gilor- 
 tul," in the village Novaci (Gorj District). 
 Founded in 1901 with 70 members and 3,000 
 francs capital, it reached in 1915 a membership 
 of 4,000 with a capital of 1,000,000 francs, and a 
 turnover of 20,000,00 francs yearly in a small vil- 
 lage situated in the beautiful mountains of 
 Oltenia ! 
 
 Now every village possesses its own Bank. 
 Their capital is obtained by obliging each member 
 to invest a certain sum in the beginning, paid in 
 instalments from his savings year by year after 
 
86 Rumania and the War 
 
 the sale of his crop. He has no right to with- 
 draw this capital before a fixed time and under 
 special conditions. He receives dividends vary- 
 ing between 6 and 10 per cent. To avoid the 
 entrance into the Banks of big capitalists, the sum 
 subscribed by each member cannot amount to 
 more than 5,000 francs. Besides this fixed cap- 
 ital there are interest-bearing deposits, the amount 
 of which is not limited and for which the Banks 
 pay 5 per cent. The control of the Bank is in the 
 hands of a Committee elected each year in a 
 peasant assembly. All members of the Commit- 
 tee are peasants. Every member can borrow 
 money from the Bank at an interest varying from 
 7 to 12 per cent. He requires for that the guar- 
 antee of one of his fellow-villagers or some pledge 
 or security. The interest might appear high to 
 the American people, but considering the scarcity 
 of capital in Rumania and the former conditions 
 described, the new conditions created by the Banks 
 are a great amelioration. Some banks have more 
 capital than they can employ, others have less and 
 want more. Hence, all the Banks of a District 
 are federated and through a Central Institution 
 they support one another. Another Central Insti- 
 tution in Bucharest, named "Casa Centrala a 
 Bancilor Populare si Co-operativelor Satesti" 
 (The Central House of Popular Banks and Co- 
 
THE CROWN PRINCE OF RUMANIA AT A MILITARY SCHOOL. THE CROWN PRINCE OF RUMANIA 
 (THE NEAREST FIGURE TO THE CAMERA WITH GUN) LEARNING TO USE A MACHINE- 
 GUN AT A MILITARY SCHOOL 
 
Peasant Co-operation in Rumania 87 
 
 operative Societies), directs the whole of the 
 federations and of the banks. This institution is 
 the principal centre of credit and exercises its 
 control by means of its various inspectors. 
 
 Past now are the times of usury. The peasant 
 is out of its clutches. His work is justly paid 
 now, his crop is rightly sold and bought. But 
 that was only the first step. The community has 
 at its disposal a large capital which can be em- 
 ployed for its use, and in fact it was quickly 
 utilised in that direction where the peasant's needs 
 were more pressing. And so we come to the 
 foundation of the Agrarian Co-operative Societies. 
 
 Some explanation is necessary before entering 
 upon this matter. 
 
 Rumania inherited from past generations a 
 complex agrarian situation. The new bills voted 
 by the Parliament last spring correct it in part, but 
 as they have not yet been applied, the peasant has 
 had to deal with it himself. What was that 
 situation? Half of the arable land in the whole 
 of the country belongs to some three or four thou- 
 sand landowners, and only the other half is owned 
 by the 6,000,000 peasants who, in the absence of 
 manufacturing industries, are forced to live on 
 and from this land. The greater part of the 
 landowners are absentees ; they do not work their 
 land but hire it for terms varying between five and 
 
88 Rumania and the War 
 
 ten years to different speculators who exploit the 
 land and also the peasant without reason or pity. 
 
 Possessing a higher spirit of organisation, a 
 greater daring and self-confidence derived from 
 their experience in the Popular Banks, and what is 
 essential, possessing now capital, the peasants ap- 
 peared as competitors with the speculators and 
 suddenly they defeated and replaced them. The 
 Co-operative Societies were always able to pay a 
 higher rent than the speculators and, through 
 their intensive cultivation and organised labour, 
 to produce increased and more varied crops of 
 better quality than could the former. The land- 
 owner himself is now eager to contract with the 
 peasants instead of the exploiters; of course he 
 wants and obtains higher rent. 
 
 The following figures will show the develop- 
 ment of the Agricultural Co-operative Societies: 
 
 In 1905 there were 37 Societies with 4,503 members 
 having hired 82,000 acres and paying 1,259,946 francs 
 rent. 
 
 In 1916 the number of acres was over 1,000,000 and 
 the rent paid about 13,000,000 francs and the member- 
 ship was 100,000. 
 
 The co-operative societies are managed by 
 Committees, as are the Popular Banks. The 
 Committees are elected yearly by the peasants. 
 Financially they are supported by the Popular 
 
Peasant Co-operation in Rumania 89 
 
 Banks in the beginning, and afterwards, if neces- 
 sary. But after two or three years they have 
 their own capital. For the technical part there is 
 for every Society an Agricultural Engineer of 
 special scientific training and practical experience. 
 He arranges the plans of rotative culture, the 
 selection of seeds and live stock, and indicates and 
 supervises the execution of the work in accordance 
 with scientific principles. Every Society has at 
 its disposal its own machinery and breeding stock. 
 The land is divided into big estates suitable for 
 every kind of culture and every variety of crop. 
 In each of those estates every peasant possesses 
 such an extent of land as he and his family are 
 able to work, taking care at the same time that 
 all members of the Society are satisfied. The 
 selling of the crop is done collectively. In this 
 way the peasants succeeded as I said in increasing 
 the crops, in making them better and more varied. 
 A general improvement may be observed in the 
 villages where there are co-operative societies. 
 The houses are better built, the people better 
 dressed and nourished, the live stock more abun- 
 dant and better selected. The following descrip- 
 tion made by one of the best agriculturalists of the 
 country summarizes what I have described : 
 
 "The land Perisoru, District of Braila, was 
 rented to the speculator Gaetan for 80,000 francs 
 
90 Rumania and the War 
 
 a year; the co-operative society 'A.I.Cuza' took it 
 and paid 163,000 francs. In 1916 that society 
 sold 1750 tons of wheat, 600 tons of barley, 600 
 tons of corn, besides what each peasant sold of his 
 own property (apart from that of the society). 
 The land Filiu, in the same District, for which 
 the same speculator Gaetan paid 80,000 francs 
 yearly, was rented by the society 'Tudor Vladi- 
 mirescu' at the rate of 120,000 francs. The land 
 Bordeiul Verde, let to another speculator at 
 120,000 francs, passed to the society *L C. 
 Bratianu' which pays 214,000 francs. In spite of 
 these high rents the peasant prospered enormously. 
 The houses are vastly improved, food is better, 
 the machinery and the live stock have been in- 
 creased. The society of Perisoru possesses a re- 
 serve fund of 200,000 francs and has subscribed 
 100,000 francs to the National War Loan. 
 
 u That fact could not have been explained other- 
 wise than by the increase of production. Truly, 
 according to collected statistics, in the best years 
 the production was 24 hectolitres per hectare (2 
 acres), when the land belonged to the speculator, 
 and 40 hectolitres per hectare when it was peasant 
 property. The society increased and improved 
 the live stock. The landowners in the neighbour- 
 hood brought their mares to the stallions of the 
 society." 
 
Peasant Co-operation in Rumania 91 
 
 There are also other kinds of co-operative 
 societies. Amongst them I mention the societies 
 for forest exploitation, the milk societies and so- 
 cieties of consumers. The latter only have not 
 succeeded. The competition of private traders 
 and the want of skilled and trained personnel 
 were the causes of failure. Of course the man- 
 agers, who must necessarily possess a special 
 knowledge of many details, could not be recruited 
 from among the peasants; they had to be chosen 
 among the specialists; but these were just those 
 who had failed in private business and conse- 
 quently were not of the best type. 
 
 In any case, from what I have described it ap- 
 pears that the beginning of Rumanian co-opera- 
 tion is exceedingly encouraging and the time is 
 not far distant when all the agricultural activity 
 of the country will be established on a co-opera-* 
 tive basis. Besides the increase of the individual 
 and collective wealth, a powerful political idea 
 resulted from the system. The various meetings 
 held annually by the organisation of the Banks 
 and co-operative societies educated the peasants 
 in the interests of the community; and the success 
 obtained increased not only their capital but their 
 confidence and daring also. They were now ready 
 to be an important political factor and the new 
 franchise Bill, giving universal vote, is partly in- 
 
92 Rumania and the War 
 
 spired by the proof of capacity which the people 
 have already given. 
 
 Note then, American fellow co-operatists, that 
 even your little comrade from the Danubian plains 
 and Carpathian mountains, although in extremely 
 difficult conditions, has done wonderful work in 
 co-operation. 
 
 When will the time come, when the Rumanian 
 co-operative societies will sell directly to foreign 
 consumers' societies their abundant goods and on 
 the other hand when great foreign co-operative 
 societies will provide the Rumanians with all the 
 agricultural machinery and manufactured goods 
 which they require? 
 
FOR THE REUNION OF ALL RU- 
 MANIANS 
 
 AMONG all the small nations which entered 
 the great war, Rumania is the least known; 
 about her very little is heard. During her fight 
 and her tragical situation after the Russian col- 
 lapse, all sympathies were directed towards her. 
 But quickly afterward, she was forgotten, and 
 now when her fate is to be decided, people know 
 less than ever concerning her condition. 
 
 It seems to us that she deserves more attention, 
 not only because she fought so bravely and suf- 
 fered so much, but also on account of her great 
 possibilities in the near future. Various English, 
 French and American missions that were sent to 
 Rumania's help, came back unanimously with ex- 
 cellent impressions of the qualities of the Ru- 
 manian peasantry, and all assert that this people, 
 if united with all its racial kin now under Austro- 
 Hungarian oppression, is capable of a great and 
 rapid development. 
 
 Various in-born qualities, vivid intelligence, 
 diligence, the hospitality of her inhabitants, com- 
 
 93 
 
94 Rumania and the War 
 
 bined with the great richness of the territories 
 inhabited by them, make it possible that in the 
 centre of Europe this Latin people may exert an 
 influence for equilibrium and sane democracy. 
 
 Rumania entered the war in 1916 by her own 
 will, not forced like Belgium and Serbia. We can 
 say more : Having seen the disasters of those two 
 countries, and in spite of the mistrust which 
 Russia gave her cause to feel, she nevertheless 
 joined the Entente at a time when success was far 
 distant. 
 
 Rumania had brethren living under oppression 
 on both sides. The Russian Czars had taken and 
 retaken Bessarabia twice in a century, and in 
 Hungary and Austria other brethren had been 
 oppressed for centuries. She could easily enter 
 the war on either side. She preferred the then 
 more dangerous side the Germans were then at 
 the top of their success. 
 
 Two factors pushed Rumania towards the 
 Entente; the racial feeling (Rumanians, like the 
 French and Italians, are a Latin-speaking people) , 
 and the democratic temper. I say expressly 
 democratic temper although in spite of the demo- 
 cratic constitution and the profound democratic 
 feeling of the masses, Rumania was ruled by non- 
 democratic elements. But the war was made by 
 the people, and against the landlord's will. The 
 
For the Reunion of All Rumanians 95 
 
 temper of the people decided the war, and Ru- 
 mania took her place in the struggle. When the 
 German drive was strongest on Verdun, through 
 Rumania's intervention the Germans were obliged 
 to remove some thirty divisions, which were 
 directed towards Rumania, and the Verdun front 
 was delivered. 
 
 Rumania's share of misfortune was great. In 
 the Rumanian Kingdom there are only graves. 
 One million died by starvation and disease. The 
 last letter I received from my brother said: "No 
 meat can be sold, and all days are meatless. 
 Bread is a mixture of oats and sago and can only 
 be had five times a week. A pair of old shoes 
 costs $150, and an old overcoat $200. A gen- 
 eral epidemic of yellow jaundice is over the coun- 
 try and even the royal family are suffering from 
 it. But we could stand all this if only we could 
 have some hope for the future." Since then the 
 conditions are worse. In Transylvania and Hun- 
 gary, 15,000 intellectuals, priests and teachers, 
 were hanged by the Hungarians, being accused of 
 taking the part of the Rumanians during the inva- 
 sion. 300,000 Rumanians living near the Ru- 
 manian boundary were removed into Hungary 
 and on their estates were put Hungarians. In 
 Bulgaria there were 30,000 Rumanian prisoners. 
 Only 10,000 returned home. The others died 
 
96 Rumania and the War 
 
 of starvation or were killed in the public places, 
 having their heads covered with bags and knocked 
 off with clubs ! Innumerable have been the suf- 
 ferings of the Rumanians during the present war. 
 The so-called "peace treaty" of Bucharest took 
 from Rumania all the Carpathians, the Dobrudja, 
 more than 500,000 co-nationals, all the riches in 
 oil and minerals, and prohibited Rumanians by 
 treaty from ever mentioning in books or speech 
 the fact that they have brethren in Transylvania ! 
 
 In spite of so many misfortunes the spirit in 
 the country is still high. Isolated from their 
 natural friends, receiving no help of any kind, 
 suffering long under German military occupation 
 and under the Rumanian Junker Government, im- 
 posed by the Germans, the people remained loyal 
 to their cause. They suffered in silence, but they 
 did not lose their hope and they are anxiously 
 awaiting the hour of their liberation and of the 
 fulfillment of their ideals. 
 
 I, myself, saw two Rumanian officers who after 
 the treaty imposed on the country, left the army 
 and with great risks in passing through the Ger- 
 man and Bolshevist lines arrived at Moscow on 
 foot. From there they came to France, where 
 they entered the French army. A friend writes 
 me from Paris that "at the first news of the 
 Entente's victories, people in Bucharest cried 
 
For the Reunion of All Rumanians 97 
 
 'Down with the Germans !' They sang the Mar- 
 seillaise and shot upon the German Guard. Many 
 of them were killed and imprisoned." 
 
 If on the Rumanian side the attitude was and 
 is clear, we cannot reproach her for the treaty 
 to which she was forced by the Russian betrayal; 
 but it seems that on the side of the Allies and 
 especially of America some misunderstanding has 
 existed. 
 
 Some time ago, the Congress passed a Bill for 
 the creation of a Slavic legion in America. It is 
 specified that Slavs comprise : Czechs, Jugo-Slavs 
 and Ruthenians. Let me say that Ruthenians did 
 not demand that favor. In spite of the fact that 
 there are in America nearly 200,000 Rumanians 
 from Transylvania (the oppressed country) , they 
 were not included in the Bill. And they were 
 anxious to fight for their own cause. I worked 
 two months for the passage of the Bill, but my 
 efforts were vain. 
 
 Senator Lodge, in his speech of 23rd August, 
 spoke about an independent Poland, a Jugo-Slav 
 and Czecho-Slovak Independent State, but for 
 restoration of Rumania only. He spoke about 
 the Italians in Trieste rejoining Italy, but said 
 nothing about the Rumanians in Hungary rejoin- 
 ing Rumania. 
 
 The tenth point of the President's speech on 
 
98 Rumania and the War 
 
 the 8th January mentions the federalization of 
 Austria-Hungary. No people of Austria likes 
 forced federation, and federation in and with 
 Austria-Hungary is a forced federation. Aus- 
 tria-Hungary is now ready to federate (against 
 the wills of her peoples) and Hungary does more; 
 she says that she is also oppressed and separates 
 from Austria, in order to be more free to oppress 
 the Rumanians, the Serbs and the Slovaks. 
 
 Various prominent people with whom I have dis- 
 cussed the Rumanian problem have asked me if 
 Rumania formerly possessed Transylvania. But 
 Transylvania was not possessed in the past even 
 by Hungary. Until 1865 Transylvania was an 
 independent principality, ruled by the Unio Tres 
 Nationum (Magyars, Szekelers and Germans), 
 who represented 500,000 people. Then fearing 
 Rumania's development, the Assembly of Tran- 
 sylvania, composed of one hundred deputies rep- 
 resenting the half million oppressors, and thir- 
 teen Rumanians representing the majority of three 
 millions oppressed, voted the union with Hungary. 
 The thirteen Rumanians voted against. The 
 union with Hungary was made in order to 
 Magyarise the Rumanians. But they have not 
 succeeded in the last fifty years, in spite of their 
 efforts. Such an illegal act has no value and if 
 Rumania did not possess Transylvania, Hungary 
 also did not. 
 
For the Reunion of All Rumanians 99 
 
 Another question put to me has been about the 
 number of Hungarians living in Transylvania and 
 other Rumanian countries. I can reply that even 
 according to the Hungarian statistics which are 
 untrustworthy, the Rumanian element is in a 
 majority everywhere in comparison with the other 
 three nationalities, mixed with them. 
 
 So, historically, geographically, ethnograph- 
 ically, the right is on the Rumanian side. 
 
 Now I cannot see the reason for such an atti- 
 tude on the part of official America. I know 
 only that without the Union of the Rumanians 
 from Transylvania, Banat, Hungary and Buco- 
 wina, with those from Rumania and Bessarabia, 
 there cannot be a just and lasting peace in the 
 centre of Europe. Through various revolutions, 
 drowned in blood, in the i6th, i8th and I9th 
 centuries, through various wars, memoranda, pro- 
 tests and writings, the Rumanians from every- 
 where have always demanded their Union. 
 
 The very existence of the Rumanian nation 
 cannot be assured without the realization of this 
 aspiration. The normal development of Ru- 
 mania cannot be accomplished without the fulfil- 
 ment of its national ideal. The peace of the 
 world will not be assured, because after the right 
 settlement for all other nations, we could not suf- 
 fer that only we in Europe should be unjustly 
 treated. And the first State where the army 
 
ioo Rumania and the War 
 
 police instituted by the League of Nations should 
 interfere, would be Rumania, to help the Hun- 
 garians to oppress us more ! 
 
 If, as the President said in his address to the 
 Senate on February n, 1918: "What is at stake 
 now is the peace of the world. What we are 
 striving for is a new international order based 
 upon the broad and universal principles of right 
 and justice," then peace and a new international 
 order, against our race and nation, against our 
 rights, cannot be. 
 
 Instead of working for the complete democrati- 
 zation of our country we shall be forced to fight 
 in revolutions for our oppressed brothers. 
 
 And there are strong elements for democracy 
 in Rumania. First of all, there are the peasants 
 themselves. If till the present time the landlords 
 have dominated, because sustained morally by the 
 autocratic forces of Russia and Austria, now they 
 will disappear like a mist. In the last twenty 
 years, the peasants by their own efforts have cre- 
 ated 4000 popular banks in order to escape the 
 usury of the landlords, and rented for the co- 
 operative societies, which are highly developed 
 among us, more than two million acres. 
 
 Owing to this and to the splendid deeds of the 
 soldiers in this war for the Allied Cause, even the 
 landlord governing class voted the reform of a 
 
For the Reunion of All Rumanians. IGI 
 
 new franchise based on universal suffrage, and a 
 new agrarian bill giving to the peasants four mil- 
 lion acres. Not satisfied with that, fifteen depu- 
 ties, sustained by the great masses, formed a new 
 party, the Labor Party, which, with the aid of 
 the peasants, will be the governing party of to- 
 morrow. Our great help will come also from 
 Bessarabia and Transylvania. 
 
 Bessarabia, a pure Rumanian province, which 
 joined with Rumania of her free will last April, 
 has a very democratic constitution. In her As- 
 sembly, elected by universal man and woman vote, 
 are represented all the national minority groups. 
 Her independence (declared last November) was 
 not recognized by the Allies, although they recog- 
 nized the Ukrainians and the Finns. But if evi- 
 dence is not to be contradicted she will be recog- 
 nized and will be a dominant factor in the demo- 
 cratic life of the future Rumania. 
 
 The Transylvanians, who always fought 
 against the oppression of the Hungarian Counts 
 and Barons, who are deprived of their own nobil- 
 ity, are a people of peasants and purely demo- 
 cratic. In 1848, when they revolted against the 
 Hungarians, they assembled to the number of 
 40,000 on the "Field of Freedom" near the town 
 of Blaj and took the oath: u to defend our Ru- 
 manian language and rights, defend liberty, equal- 
 
102 Rumania and the War 
 
 ity and fraternity; in accordance with those princi- 
 ples to respect the nationalities of all the inhabi- 
 tants of Transylvania, claiming from them equal 
 respect for our own nationality. I will not at- 
 tempt to oppress anybody but neither will I suffer 
 the oppression of anybody. I will co-operate in 
 the furtherance of the good of mankind, of the 
 Rumanian Nation and of the Fatherland. So 
 help me God and bring salvation to my soul." 
 
 And the Transylvanians of to-day are the dig- 
 nified sons of those of 1848. 
 
 America, who defends the rights of all the op- 
 pressed, whose creation is based upon justice and 
 rights, who through Lincoln defended the cause 
 of the colored people, cannot be deaf to our just 
 demands. 
 
 America will help us to create an integral Ru- 
 mania, which necessarily will be a strong 
 Democracy and a factor for tranquillity in tihs 
 very disturbed part of Europe. 
 
 America is not bound by a treaty with Rumania, 
 like the other Powers of the Entente, but she is 
 bound by her ideal of justice, stronger than any 
 treaty, and according to her ideal, she cannot do 
 us injustice. 
 
THE WHITE GUARD SO CALLED BECAUSE, HAVING EXHAUSTED 
 THEIR AMMUNITION, THE SOLDIERS ATTACKED AND ROUTED 
 THE ENEMY WITH CLUBBED RIFLES , ,, 
 
UKRAINIA AND BESSARABIA 
 
 / T S HE determination arrived at by the free 
 - choice of the Moldavian people of Bess- 
 arabia to attach themselves again to Rumania, 
 from which they have been separated for a hun- 
 dred years by violence and treachery, has given 
 rise to lively protests in various states and to pro- 
 found mistrust in circles of political opinion. 
 Some of these protests are easily understood. 
 The Bulgarians and the Hungarians, for example, 
 cannot regard with favour, after having imposed 
 upon us a peace of plunder, our finding strength 
 for new life in the union of Bessarabia with Ru- 
 mania. The coincidence of the decision of Bess- 
 arabia with the peace imposed by Germany has 
 caused an understandable confusion, and this act, 
 so important for us Rumanians, has been re- 
 garded with a certain distrust. 
 
 But what is indeed incomprehensible is the fact 
 that the most energetic protests come from the 
 Ukrainians themselves. These people, like the 
 Moldavians of Bessarabia, have been victims of a 
 perfidious conquest by Tsarist Russia. Now that 
 
 103 
 
IO4 Rumania and the War 
 
 Tsarism has disappeared, let us hope forever, 
 does the Socialist republic of the Ukraine intend 
 to profit by the unjust conquest of the Russian 
 autocracy? In refusing to Bessarabia the liberty 
 freely to express its will, Ukrainia saps the very 
 foundation of its own existence. For the liberty 
 of Ukrainia, just as much as that of Bessarabia, 
 derives from the application of the principles of 
 the Russian revolution "the right of peoples to 
 govern themselves." 
 
 Upon what, then, is the protest of Ukrainia 
 based? It cannot be upon historical arguments. 
 From the constitution of the Rumanian people 
 down to 1812, Bessarabia was an integral part 
 of Moldavia. The very name of Bessarabia did 
 not exist before 1812. It was given to it only 
 in order to destroy the memory of its name as a 
 Moldavian province. Upon ethnic arguments? 
 But in a population of about three millions in 
 Bessarabia there are two millions who are Ru- 
 manian Moldavians and only 210,000 who are 
 Ukrainians. These latter are scattered over the 
 whole extent of the country and mingled with the 
 rest of the population. 
 
 One cannot conceive a territorial arrangement 
 abandoning to Ukrainia that part of Bessarabia 
 which borders upon it. Bessarabia is a geo- 
 graphic unity clearly determined by its national 
 
Ukrainia and Bessarabia 105 
 
 boundaries, the Dniester, the Pruth and the sea. 
 But what is most important is that beyond the 
 Dniester, in Ukrainia itself, there are compact 
 masses of Rumanians, much more important 
 numerically than the Ukrainians in Bessarabia. 
 To be just, therefore, it would be necessary that 
 certain important parts of Ukrainia should be at- 
 tached to Bessarabia, in exchange for narrow re- 
 gions in the north of the latter, which would pass 
 to Ukrainia. 
 
 Assuredly this solution would hardly suit the 
 Ukrainians. For us the protest of Ukrainia 
 has a moral significance for the future. If it is 
 upheld, it will bring in its train bad relations 
 between that country and ourselves. Beyond the 
 question of the interests of our common enemies, I 
 can see no motive for rivalry between the Ukrain- 
 ians and the Rumanians. Our peasants resemble 
 theirs in their way of living, their customs, and 
 their religion so closely that a rapprochement 
 between them would be very easy to make. I 
 believe, moreover, that the minority composed of 
 210,000 Ukrainians in Bessarabia could serve to 
 promote such a rapprochement, and that the 
 manner in which they will be treated by us will be 
 a pledge and a guarantee of like treatment for the 
 Rumanian elements in Ukrainia elements much 
 more considerable than is generally thought. To 
 
io6 Rumania and the War 
 
 see the real importance of these Rumanian groups 
 it will be sufficient to recall that the departments 
 of Tiraspol and Ananiev in the government of 
 Cherson, the government of Podolia, the region 
 of Biltzi, and all the left bank of the Dniester are 
 completely Rumanian. And further, the majority 
 of the inhabitants of the villages as far as the 
 Bug, are Moldavians. Purely Rumanian village 
 names such as Perisori, Mosnegii, Slobozi, are 
 found far to the east beyond the Dniester. Ru- 
 manian officers collecting provisions in these re- 
 gions have been surprised to find themselves 
 understood when speaking Moldavian by all the 
 peasants. At Ekaterinoslav there is a Moldavian 
 community of over two thousand persons, and 
 entire hamlets as far as the district of Kiev are 
 equally Moldavian. I myself in passing through 
 Russia have been surprised to meet, far to the 
 east of the Dniester, peasants who spoke Ruma- 
 nian. 
 
 The existence of these considerable Rumanian 
 masses, which, according to experts, attain the 
 figure of one and a half millions, and the existence 
 of 210,000 Ukrainians in Bessarabia, should be 
 powerful motives to lead us to understand rather 
 than to hate each other. Reciprocal guarantees 
 for every freedom of religion, of instruction and 
 of civic life will be the most solid base upon which 
 
Ukrainia and Bessarabia 107 
 
 to found good relations between them and us. 
 Let us hope that it will be so. And in this con- 
 nection it may be useful to cite certain statistics 
 for the regions concerned. 
 
 THE POPULATION OF BESSARABIA 
 
 The Journal de la Societe de Statistlque de 
 Paris of May, 1918, in an article about the coun- 
 tries taken away from Russia, and dealing with 
 the peoples that inhabited those countries, gives 
 the following figures regarding Bessarabia : 
 
 ''Bessarabia (45,000 sq. kil.) whose popula- 
 tion amounted in 1912 to 2,540,000 inhabitants, 
 had in 1897 only 1,935,000. At this latter date 
 the division according to the mother language 
 was as follows : 
 
 Moldavians and Rumanians 920,000 
 
 Russians 548,000 
 
 Little Russians .... 390,000 
 
 Greater Russians ..156,000 
 
 White Russians. . . . 2,000 
 
 Jews 228,000 
 
 Bulgarians 182,000 
 
 Germans 60,000 
 
 Turks 56,000 
 
 Poles 12,000 
 
 These statistics are bad from three points of 
 view: first, they are too old; secondly, there is no 
 indication of the sources from which they are 
 
io8 Rumania and the War 
 
 derived; thirdly, they are inexact. The compila- 
 tion of statistics is a delicate matter which re- 
 quires much work, much intelligence, and, above 
 all, honesty. These three qualities, especially the 
 last, were unknown in the old Russian bureau- 
 cratic regime, under which these data were com- 
 piled. We believe that it is our duty to rectify 
 them. 
 
 The most recent and by far the most complete 
 figures about Bessarabia are given by Alexis Nour 
 in his ethnographical map of Bessarabia, made in 
 1916, according to the following sources: 
 
 a) Material regarding nationalities in Bessarabia 
 
 collected by the Zemstvos of Bessarabia in 1906- 
 1909; 
 
 b) The data provided by the annual statistics of 
 
 Bessarabia in 1914; 
 
 c) Maps of the Russian General Staff; 
 
 d) Various other maps of Bessarabia published in 
 
 Russia and Germany; 
 
 e) Various Russian studies about Bessarabia. 
 
 f) Personal inquiries. 
 
 This work is done conscientiously and the au- 
 thor cannot be suspected of partiality. The fig- 
 ures given below are, we think, the nearest the 
 truth : 
 
 Total Area 44,000 (sq. kilometers) 
 
 Total Population . . .3,000,000 inhabitants 
 in round numbers 
 
Ukrainia and Bessarabia 109 
 
 divided according to mother language : 
 
 Rumanian Moldavian 2,000,000 
 
 Russified Rumanians 75 ,000 
 
 Jews 270,000 
 
 Gypsies 65,000 
 
 Armenians 18,000 
 
 Ukrainians 210,000 
 
 Russians 85,000 
 
 Lithovenes (Old Russia) 40,000 
 
 Cossacks 35,000 
 
 Bulgarians (Colonists) 60,000 
 
 Gagaoutz (Christian Turks) ... 30,000 
 
 Germans (Colonists) 70,000 
 
 Poles 20,000 
 
 Greeks 10,000 
 
 French 2,000 
 
 Other nationalities 10,000 
 
 From these figures it is seen clearly that two 
 thirds of the Bessarabian population are Ruma- 
 nians; indeed a larger proportion than that, if we 
 take into account the Jews, Gypsies, and Armeni- 
 ans, who live in great masses in Rumania itself, 
 using the Rumanian language in their everyday 
 life and affairs, sharing Rumanian sentiments, and 
 having no aspiration to found a state of their own 
 in these regions. We may conclude safely that 
 more than two-thirds of the population of Bess- 
 arabia is then Rumanian. 
 
 Anyhow, the group of Russians, even by putting 
 together all kinds of Russians, cannot exceed 
 
no Rumania and the War 
 
 370,000 in number; that is to say, a little more 
 than 10 per cent of the total population. 
 
 For these reasons we are surprised that in 
 the Revue des Sciences Politiques of April, 1918, 
 M. F. P. Renaut, in an article otherwise well-dis- 
 posed toward the Rumanians, calls Bessarabia a 
 "province roumano-ruthene" In regard to the 
 small number of Ruthenians (Little Russians) in 
 comparison with the Rumanians this epithet seems 
 to us all the more unjustifiable since M. Renaut 
 himself says a little further on in the same article : 
 u ln this province the Russian and even the Slav 
 influences did not penetrate." He adds that "the 
 Rumanian population is very dense there," and 
 that only near the boundaries of Vodolii and on 
 the Black Sea littoral did the Ruthenians succeed 
 in establishing themselves. In the same article, 
 certainly by mistake, the river Pruth is described 
 as a river "essentially Wallachian," while it is 
 essentially Moldavian, because this river from its 
 source to its confluence with the Danube drains 
 exclusively the soil of ancient Moldavia. 
 
 The author adds again, that because the Ru- 
 manians are in the majority, the Catholic faith 
 is predominant. Now the Rumanians of Bess- 
 arabia, like their brothers of Rumania, belong 
 to the Greek-orthodox church. Only a part of 
 the Transylvanians are Catholics. 
 
Ukrainia and Bessarabia ill 
 
 One may say of Bessarabia that being on the 
 one hand isolated from Rumania as by a Chinese 
 wall by numerous Russian frontier guards, and 
 on the other hand being a boundary province of 
 the vast Russia, she has been nearly unknown. 
 Therefore we have as many different sets of sta- 
 tistics as there are different books on the subject. 
 Anyhow, if we put aside the statistics, and if we 
 ask a Russian in good faith, be he Bolshevist or 
 Tsarist (if there are still any), what kind of a 
 population inhabits Bessarabia, he will without 
 any hesitation reply "Moldavian." Thru igno- 
 rance or intention he will say that Moldavian is 
 not the same thing as Rumanian. To elucidate 
 this problem we suggest the following experiment : 
 take at random a peasant from any far east of 
 Bessarabia whose father and grandfathers have 
 had no contact during a whole century with the 
 Rumanians (due to the rigorous Russian meas- 
 ures) ; put this man in the presence of another 
 peasant from the far west of Transylvania or the 
 Banat whose ancestors suffered for a thousand 
 years the Hungarian yoke; if these two simple 
 and uncultivated men are not able to understand 
 one another without the slightest difficulty, using 
 the same Rumanian language, we are willing to 
 renounce all our national aspirations! 
 
 Bessarabia is a part that was torn from bleeding 
 
H2 Rumania and the War 
 
 Moldavia in 1812. It is a Rumanian province, as 
 it always was, and has remained such, in spite of 
 vicissitudes, because of the strong vitality of the 
 Rumanian race. When the right of self-determi- 
 nation is recognized for all ethnical groups, it is 
 sad to see that there is some hesitation in approv- 
 ing the decision of the Bessarabian diet. This 
 popular assemly which undoubtedly represents the 
 clear conscience of the masses, decided emphati- 
 cally for the return of Bessarabia to the mother 
 country. Why is not hearty approval given to this 
 just aspiration and decision? 
 
 We have not, however, lost all our hope. We 
 are convinced that soon the hour of justice will 
 come. 
 
MEMORANDUM OF THE RUMANIAN 
 WAR AIMS SUBMITTED TO THE 
 INTER-ALLIED LABOR CON- 
 FERENCE, LONDON, 
 FEBRUARY, 1918 
 
 RUMANIA'S entry into the war was not actu- 
 ated by ambitions for territorial expansion or 
 for the acquisition of markets. Exclusively agri- 
 cultural in character, Rumania possessed secure 
 outlets for her products; and her growing eco- 
 nomic prosperity was never more flourishing than 
 in the first years of the war. As far as they were 
 concerned the propertied classes might hence have 
 preferred to continue in a lucrative neutrality. But 
 in the consciousness of the masses there was a deep 
 sense of sore injustice, for five millions, and the 
 best, of their fellow-nationals were languishing 
 under foreign rule. A century-long oppression 
 in the east and in the west had balked the blossom- 
 ing of the rich qualities with which the Rumanians 
 are endowed and had stultified the contribution 
 which they should have been able to make to the 
 common life of mankind. It was therefore under 
 
 "3 
 
H4 Rumania and the War 
 
 the impulsion of their national instinct that the 
 Rumanians joined in the war. After two years 
 of European war they could not but have been 
 fully aware of the dreadful risks they were incur- 
 ring, but they meant by such conscious sacrifice to 
 purchase a right to have their cause heard and 
 judged at the court of the civilized peoples of the 
 world. 
 
 The efforts of the Rumanian people towards 
 national unity reach far back into the centuries. 
 That has been the ideal which guided and strength- 
 ened them through the many vicissitudes of which 
 their history is full. That ideal was realized for 
 a short time at the end of the sixteenth century 
 by Michael the Brave, who united under his rule 
 Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania. But not 
 only was it found impossible to perpetuate that 
 achievement, on account of the power of the Turks 
 and of the ungenerous policies of the neighboring 
 Christian princes; Moldavia, moreover, was sub- 
 sequently robbed of its two most fertile provinces, 
 Bucowina and Bessarabia; the autonomous Duchy 
 of Transylvania was subjected by Austria to the 
 Magyars; while Wallachia and what remained of 
 Moldavia were leading a precarious existence un- 
 der Turkish suzerainty and an equally sordid Rus- 
 sian protectorate. 
 
 Under the influences of the ideals set up by the 
 
Memorandum of the Rumanian War Alms 115 
 
 French Revolution, 'the two Rumanian provinces 
 of Wallachia and Moldavia merged about the 
 middle of the last century into the independent 
 kingdom of Rumania, which so developed within 
 a short half-century as to prove that it was re- 
 ceptive ground for the ideals of western civiliza- 
 tion. But the Rumanians derived little joy from 
 their proud prosperity when they looked around 
 them. In the east the most fertile part of Mol- 
 davia, Bessarabia, was withering under the rule 
 of the Tsars; in the west the Magyars were in- 
 flicting infinite moral tortures upon the people of 
 Transylvania; while northwards, in Bucowina, 
 the traditional Austrian policy was slowly but 
 surely disintegrating the national consciousness 
 of the Rumanian population. That situation viti- 
 ated the atmosphere into which the young Ru- 
 manian polity was developing, and no Rumanian 
 could accept it as the settled order of things. Since 
 those in whose hands lay the fate of the subject 
 Rumanians showed no signs of being willing to 
 grant reform, the Rumanians could not possibly 
 have let pass the opportunity of enforcing a 
 redress of the situation which was afforded by 
 the outbreak of the war. So flagrant was the 
 situation that in a conversation which took place 
 earlier in the war between the Austrian Minister at 
 Bucharest, Count Czernin, and M. Take Jonescu 
 
n6 Rumania and the War 
 
 the former bluntly exclaimed : u You will go to war 
 with us. That is an understood thing. It is both 
 your interest and your duty." 
 
 Rumania was faced at once with the difficulty of 
 having claims upon both groups of belligerents. 
 But though action on the side of the Central Pow- 
 ers offered technically infinitely easier and wider 
 possibilities, the Rumanians had no hesitation in 
 choosing the more difficult task because it was the 
 sacred task of establishing justice which the west- 
 ern democracies and her sister-nations, England, 
 France and Italy, had taken upon them. Rumania 
 took that course in spite of the distrust in which 
 she held Russia. Six times during the nineteenth 
 century did the armies of the Czar invade and 
 batten upon the Rumanian lands. But the Ru- 
 manians entertained no mistrust towards the Rus- 
 sian people, and the writer can bear testimony to 
 the way in which the Russian Revolution found 
 assistance at the hands of the Rumanians, who 
 gave refuge to its leaders, circulated their writings, 
 and aided them in many ways. Notwithstanding 
 some of the mistakes committed towards her by 
 revolutionary Russia, Rumania will never forget 
 that the high principles which the revolution ap- 
 plied made possible the first step in the process of 
 liberation of the Rumanian people. The principle 
 of self-determination proclaimed by the revolution 
 
Memorandum of the Rumanian War Aims 117 
 
 allowed the two million Rumanians of Bessarabia 
 to awake to new life, and organize themselves on 
 an autonomous and democratic basis in the "Mol- 
 davian Republic." 
 
 There shall be no mention made here of the 
 horrible sufferings which the Rumanians have gone 
 through during the war, nor shall they be urged 
 in justification of any claim from which an unjust 
 arrangement might be bequeathed to the future. 
 In the words of that great citizen of the world, 
 President Wilson : "What is at stake now is the 
 peace of the world. What we are striving for is 
 a new international order based upon the broad 
 and universal principles of right and justice, . . . 
 national aspirations must be respected; peoples 
 may now be dominated and governed only by 
 their own consent." The situation which allows 
 four million Rumanians, living in compact masses 
 and in direct contact with their co-nationals within 
 the Kingdom, to be dominated by a small foreign 
 minority, to be left without national representa- 
 tion, without national schools, and without secure 
 rights, is as unjust as it must be ominous for any 
 prospect of lasting peace. That is recognised even 
 by the extreme wing of the Rumanian socialists. 
 In an open letter addressed to the Dutch-Scandi- 
 navian Committee on January 26th, 1918, Com- 
 rade Dr. Rakowsky urges that u the Transylva- 
 
n8 Rumania and the War 
 
 nian question is essentially the national question 
 of Hungary and the cause of many past and pos- 
 sibly also of future conflicts ; and it is a question of 
 such consequence that it cannot possibly be disre- 
 garded in any proposals for a lasting peace." 
 
 The fundamental condition of a lasting peace 
 has been accepted to be the principle of self-deter- 
 mination. The untiring demands of the Ru- 
 manians of Hungary for national independence 
 are too well known to need repetition here. It 
 should only be pointed out that the Transylvanian 
 prisoners of war in Russia petitioned the Russian 
 provisional Government for permission to fight 
 for the liberation of Transylvania, and that sev- 
 eral thousands of them have voluntarily joined the 
 ranks of the much-tried Rumanian army. 
 
 The fundamental aim of the labor world is that 
 the settlement shall be such as will provide a clean 
 ground for the ripening of democracy. Now it 
 is obvious that the four million Rumanians of 
 Transylvania whose democratic sentiments have 
 been hardened by the most tyrannic oppression 
 must necessarily constitute an important demo- 
 cratic factor; and that incorporated with Ru- 
 mania they would infuse a new democratic spirit 
 into the not irreproachable political life of that 
 kingdom. A united Rumanian state, almost half 
 of whose population would be composed of people 
 
Memorandum of the Rumanian War Aims 119 
 
 who have stood the test and trials of oligarchical 
 despotism, would be a factor of stability and demo- 
 cratic progress in Eastern Europe. 
 
 A Rumanian state formed on such a basis would 
 include various national minorities. It is the 
 hope of all of us that the civilized world will no 
 longer know racial and national feuds; but there 
 are in addition cogent reasons why the fate of 
 those national minorities need not be viewed with 
 concern. The Rumanians will be bound to give 
 them full possibilities of development in order to 
 secure similar advantages for the several Ru- 
 manian minorities which will remain outside the 
 boundaries of the new state; in Ukrainia (in the 
 government of Korson and in Podolia) ; in Ser- 
 bia (in the Timok Valley) ; in Bulgaria (on the 
 right bank of the Danube) ; and in Macedonia, 
 with its half-million Rumanians. But their in- 
 dependence is most of all assured by the fact 
 that the much-oppressed Rumanian nation has 
 never shown leanings towards oppression. This 
 statement finds corroboration in ancient and in 
 recent history. When in 1848 the Transylvanians 
 rose to shake off Magyar despotism, 40,000 of 
 them assembled outside the town of Blaj, and 
 each and all of them took the oath "to defend our 
 Rumanian language and rights, defend liberty, 
 equality and fraternity; in accordance with those 
 
I2O Rumania and the War 
 
 principles to respect the nationalities of all the in- 
 habitants of Transylvania, claiming from them 
 equal respect for my own nationality. I will not 
 attempt to oppress anybody, but neither will I 
 suffer the oppression of anybody. I will co-oper- 
 ate in the furtherance of the good of mankind, 
 of the Rumanian nation, and of the Fatherland. 
 So help me God and bring deliverance to my soul." 
 That worthy tradition of our revolutionary 
 forefathers has found expression and application 
 in the acts of the new Moldavian Republic, which 
 has given itself an unqualified democratic consti- 
 tution. Among the 150 members of the Provi- 
 sional Assembly (Council of the Land) there are 
 fifteen Ukrainians, thirteen Jews, five Bulgarians, 
 etc. ; and the Proclamation which sets out in de- 
 tail the immediate function which the Assembly 
 is called upon to fill provides by Article 7 that 
 it shall: "insure full equality of rights to all the 
 peoples living in the territory of the Moldavian 
 Republic, giving them cultural, national, and per- 
 sonal autonomy." 
 
 In conclusion, as a question of justice, for Labor 
 cannot sanction oppression; of principle, because 
 self-determination is the essence of our ideals; as 
 well as of policy, because we cannot better further 
 democracy than by reducing strife-bringing na- 
 
Memorandum of the Rumanian War Aims 121 
 
 tional problems: for all these reasons, and in- 
 spired by no other sentiment than love and chanty 
 for the world of man, we consider that the future 
 Rumanian state should comprise the following 
 provinces: 
 
 1. The Rumanian Kingdom within the bounda- 
 ries which obtained before the Peace of Bucharest 
 of 1913. The territory then acquired by Ruma- 
 nia in southern Dobrudja must be restored to Bul- 
 garia. But the Bulgarian claim to the whole of 
 the Dobrudja can in no way be justified, since (a) 
 out of a total population of roughly 400,000 the 
 Dobrudja contains about 300,000 Rumanians as 
 against 40,000 Bulgarians, (b) that region which 
 was practically a desert when handed over to Ru- 
 mania by the Great Powers in 1878, has been de- 
 veloped very satisfactorily and exclusively by Ru- 
 manian money and energy, (c) it is Rumania's 
 only outlet to the open sea. The admission of 
 the Bulgarian claim would be a flagrant injustice, 
 it would cripple Rumania economically, and it 
 would make reconciliation between the two peo- 
 ples impossible. 
 
 2. Transylvania, with a substantial minority of 
 Szekelers and smaller minorities of Saxons and 
 Magyars. 
 
 3. The Banat, two-thirds of the population of 
 which is Rumanian, the rest being composed main- 
 
122 Rumania and the War 
 
 ly of Serbs, with a certain admixture of Germans, 
 in the district of Torontal. The Serbian and Ru- 
 manian peoples who have never faced, one an- 
 other as foes will certainly be able to settle this 
 question by friendly agreement. 
 
 4. Bucowina, that is, the southern two-thirds 
 of the province; the northern third, which is in- 
 habited by Ruthenians, should be attached to the 
 Ukrainian Republic. 
 
 5. Crishaha. The "comitats" in which the Ru- 
 manians preponderate and which border on Tran- 
 sylvania have a continuous Rumanian population; 
 that point is of importance since the boundaries 
 of those "comitats" have been so traced by the 
 Hungarians for electoral purposes as to cut across 
 the compact masses of the Rumanian population. 
 
 6. Maramuresh, in its southern portion, the 
 northern part having a Slovak population. 
 
 7. Bessarabia, if the new Moldavian Republic 
 expresses a desire to be incorporated in the new 
 Rumanian state, in which case its constitution and 
 legislation should be respected. 
 
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