Indeed, Rumania’s position between Russia and the new Slav state south of the Danube might prove dangerous, were she not to seek protection and assistance from her two ‘natural friends’, France and Germany.  And, with his usual liberality when baiting his policy with false hopes, Bismarck went on to say that ’Turkey is falling to pieces; nobody can resuscitate her; Rumania has an important role to fulfil, but for this she must be wise, cautious, and strong’.  This new attitude was the natural counterpart of the change which was at that time making itself felt in Russo-German relations.  While a Franco-Russian alliance was propounded by Gorchakov in an interview with a French journalist, Bismarck and Andrassy signed in Gastein the treaty which allied Austria to Germany (September 1879).  As Rumania’s interests were identical with those of Austria—­wrote Count Andrassy privately to Prince Carol a few months later—­namely, to prevent the fusion of the northern and the southern Slavs, she had only to express her willingness to become at a given moment the third party in the compact.  In 1883 King Carol accepted a secret treaty of defensive alliance from Austria.  In return for promises relating to future political partitions in the Balkans, the monarch pledged himself to oppose all developments likely to speed the democratic evolution, of Rumania.  Though the treaty was never submitted to parliament for ratification, and notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference with Austria on the question of control of the Danube navigation, Rumania was, till the Balkan wars, a faithful ‘sleeping partner’ of the Triple Alliance.

All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed and developed between that line of policy and the trend of public opinion.  The interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred increasingly on their brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose hard case inspired most of the popular national movements.  Not on account of the political despotism of the Magyars, for that of the Russians was in no way behind it.  But whilst the Rumanians of Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate peasants, in Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited middle class, whose protests kept pace with the oppressive measures.  Many of them—­and of necessity the more turbulent—­migrated to Rumania, and there kept alive the ‘Transylvanian Question’.  That the country’s foreign policy has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to some extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by the events of 1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to a greater extent to the increasing influence of German education,[1] and the economic and financial supremacy which the benevolent passivity of England and France enabled Germany to acquire; but above all to the personal influence of King Carol.  Germany, he considered, was at the beginning of her development and needed, above all, peace; as Rumania was in the