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The 20th Century Kingdom

Before the Great War it comprised the former principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and the territory of the Dobrudja, but as result of the war Bessarabia was joined to it in March, 1918; Bukovina in November, 1918; and Transylvania in December, 1918. The area and population as estimated in the following paragraph are subject to some uncertainty as the precise limits had not been permanently determined at the close of the year, 1920. Before the Great War the area was given at 53,489 square miles and the population at 7,516,418, including the territory taken from Bulgaria by the treaty of Bucharest, Aug. 7, 1913. The additions resulting from the war brought the country to an estimated area of 122,282 square miles and an estimated population of 17,393,149.

Before the World War the Kingdom of Rumania was the wealthiest and most populous of the minor states of eastern Europe, though it was the most backward in democratic evolution. Political and economic conditions were more like those in Russia than were similar conditions in the rest of Europe. Sixty per cent, of the population over seven years of age could neither read nor write. Suffrage was exercised through an elaborate system of three electoral colleges, which kept the power in the hands of large landowners and the small educated element. The common people had no voice in the government. Conservatives and Liberals, with scarcely any distinction in their policies, controlled Parliament in the interest of a very small class. About half of the cultivable land was in the hands of fewer than forty-five thousand proprietors. Forests and pasturage were even more monopolized.

After staying neutral in the first Balkan war (1912-1913) Romania joined Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Turkey against Bulgaria in the second Balkan war. The peace treaty of Bucharest (1913) marked the end of that conflict and under its provisions Southern Dobrudja - the Quadrilateral (the Durostor and Caliacra counties) became part of Romania.

In August 1914, when World War I broke out, Romania declared neutrality. Two years later on August 14/27, 1916 it joined the Allies, which promised support for the accomplishment of national unity; the government led by Ion I.C. Bratianu declared war on Austria-Hungary. After the first success, the Romanian army was forced to abandon part of the country, Bucharest included and to withdraw to Moldavia, owing to the joint offensive of the armies in Transylvania, commanded by General von Falkenhayn and those of Bulgaria, commanded by Marshal von Mackensen. In the summer of 1917, in the great battles of Marasti, Marasesti and Oituz, the Romanians aborted the attempt made by the Central Powers to defeat and get Romania out of the war by occupying the rest of her territory.

But the situation changed completely following the outbreak of the revolution in Russia (1917) and the separate peace concluded by the Soviets at Brest-Litovsk (March 3, 1918); this triggered the end of the military operations on the eastern front. Romania was compelled to follow in the steps of her Russian ally, because on the Moldavian front the Romanian troops were interspersed with the Russian ones and it was impossible for combat to continue on one area of the front and for peace to settle on another front area, and so on. Cut off from its western allies, Romania was forced to sign the peace treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers (April 24/May 7, 1918). The ratification procedure was never carried through, so from the legal standpoint the treaty was never operative; in fact, in late October 1918, Romania denounced the treaty and re-entered the war.

The right of the peoples to self-rule triumphed in the final stage of World War I and this served the cause of the Romanians who lived in the Czarist and Austro-Hungarian Empires. The collapse of the czarist system and the recognition by the Soviet government of the right of the exploited peoples to self-rule allowed the Romanians in Bessarabia to express through the vote of the national representative body - the Country Council which convened in Chisinau - their will to be united with Romania (March 27/April 9, 1918). The fall of the Hapsburg monarchy in the autumn of 1918 made it possible for the nations that had been under Austrian-Hungarian oppression to emancipate themselves. On November 15/28, 1918, the National Council of Bukovina voted in Cernauti to unite that province to Romania.

In Transylvania the National Assembly called at Alba Iulia on November 18/December 1, 1918 voted, within the presence of over 100,000 delegates, to unite Transylvania and Banat with Romania. So, in January 1919, when the peace conference was inaugurated in Paris, the union of all Romanians into one single state was an accomplished fact.

The arrangement of her Western boundary was unsatisfactory to Rumania, and, in the summer of 1919, she sent troops to the river Theiss to establish boundaries in keeping with her national aspirations. So successful was this little invasion that the troops advanced beyond the river and on 4 August, 1919, occupied Bucharest, contrary to the explicit orders of the Peace Conference, and demanded the reduction of Hungary's army and the surrender of part of her supplies; Bessarabia was annexed. Repeated warnings of the Supreme Council forced Rumania to sign the Treaty of St. Germain in December, 1919, and to withdraw her troops from Hungary in February, 1920.

The international peace treaties of 1919-1920 signed at Neuilly, Saint-Germain, Trianon and Paris, established the new European realities and also sanctioned the union of the provinces that were inhabited by Romanians into one single state (295,042 square kilometres, with a population of 15.5 million).

On 28 October, 1920, Rumania, Britain, France, Italy and Japan signed a treaty giving Bessarabia to Rumania, the permission of Russia being considered unnecessary. Rumania joined the "Little Entente," a defensive alliance entered into by Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia, on 14 August, 1920. Each country pledged itself to support the others in case of unprovoked attack by Hungary. Rumania, however, stipulated that Adriatic questions should not concern the alliance. Under the inspiration and guidance of France, a formal "defensive" alliance against Soviet Russia was entered into by Rumania, Poland, and Hungary on 2 March, 1921.