[Footnote 1:  Albert Sorel, op, cit., p. 266.]

The natural counter-effect of the diplomatic activity of the Central Powers was a change in Rumanian policy.  Rumania considered the maintenance of the Balkan equilibrium a vital question, and as she had entered upon a closer union with Germany against a Bulgaria subjected to Russian influence, so she now turned to Russia as a guard against a Bulgaria under German influence.  This breaking away from the ‘traditional’ policy of adjutancy-in-waiting to the Central Powers was indicated by the visit of Prince Ferdinand—­now King of Rumania—­to St. Petersburg, and the even more significant visit which Tsar Nicholas afterwards paid to the late King Carol at Constanza.  Time has been too short, however, for those new relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a notable influence upon Rumania’s present attitude.

8

Rumania and the Present War

(a) The Rumanians outside the Kingdom

The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside Rumanian territory.  As the available official statistics generally show political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia.  All these live in more or less close proximity to the Rumanian frontiers.

That these Rumanian elements have maintained their nationality is due to purely intrinsic causes.  We have seen that the independence of Rumania in her foreign relations had only recently been established, since when the king, the factor most influential in foreign politics, had discouraged nationalist tendencies, lest the country’s internal development might be compromised by friction with neighbouring states.  The Government exerted its influence against any active expression of the national feeling, and the few ‘nationalists’ and the ’League for the cultural unity of all Rumanians’ had been, as a consequence, driven to seek a justification for their existence in antisemitic agitation.

The above circumstances had little influence upon the situation in Bucovina.  This province forms an integral part of the Habsburg monarchy, with which it was incorporated as early as 1775.  The political situation of the Rumanian principalities at the time, and the absence of a national cultural movement, left the detached population exposed to Germanization, and later to the Slav influence of the rapidly expanding Ruthene element.  That language and national characteristics have, nevertheless, not been lost is due to the fact that the Rumanian population of Bucovina is peasant almost to a man—­a class little amenable to changes of civilization.