Roumania Past and Present, James Samuelson [best novels to read to improve english .txt] 📗

/> How easy it is to be magnanimous to a fallen foe; how difficult, with some people, to be honourable in their dealings with an ally, especially if he has been successful where they failed! The first is a claim of superiority, and the higher the meed of praise awarded by us to the vanquished the greater appears our victory; but the less we admit to be due to our comrade in arms, the greater credit is left for ourselves. And yet what will be the judgment of posterity upon the conduct of Russia towards her brave ally who had saved her honour, if not the integrity of her empire? Whatever she may think, the joy-bells would have rung throughout a great portion of Europe, and certainly the party then dominant in England would have rejoiced exceedingly, if she had been driven back over the Pruth, and had been compelled to busy herself with much-needed reforms in her own country instead of meddling with the affairs of her neighbours and seeking to extend her already overgrown possessions.

The war was never popular with the masses in Roumania, and although, at the opening of the Chambers in November 1877, the royal speech predicted that the fall of Plevna would mean a complete emancipation for Roumania, much uneasiness prevailed concerning the designs of Russia--uneasiness which was justified by subsequent events. On December 17, a load having been lifted from the mind of the nation by the surrender of Osman Pasha, there was great rejoicing at Bucarest on the occasion of the Czar's visit. He was on his way to St. Petersburg to receive the congratulations of his subjects, having left Plevna behind him, 'full of horrors.' He is dead now, but his son and all princes who live by the sword would do well to peruse and reperuse the accounts of the tragical scenes that the victors left upon the battle-field when they departed to receive the ovations of the fickle populace. The Roumanians fêted their victorious allies, to whom it must be admitted that we have here done ample justice in all their proceedings. But they were the same Russians who, under Peter the Great, were reported to have stolen the boots from the feet of their sleeping hosts; the same whose hands the Roumanians had kissed when in 1829 they had released them from the Turkish yoke; who it 1853 overran the Principalities with a view to their permanent occupation, and who a few months after the events above recorded betrayed their allies, and, for the risk they had run of once more sacrificing their national existence, deprived them of Southern Bessarabia, a province inhabited almost entirely by Roumanians.

Still the war brought its compensating advantages. The Dobrudscha which the Roumanians received in exchange for Bessarabia, is proving a more valuable acquisition both for trade and for strategical purposes than was at first anticipated.

The Treaty of San Stephano, which was executed between Russia and Turkey on February 19 [March 3], 1878, and was practically confirmed by the Berlin Conference, contained amongst its other provisions this one (part of Article V.): 'The Sublime Porte recognises the independence of Roumania, which will establish its right to an indemnity to be discussed between the two countries;' and (part of Article XII.): 'All the Danubian strongholds shall be razed. There shall be no strongholds in future on the banks of this river, nor any men-of-war in the waters of the Principalities of Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria, except the usual
stationnaires and the small vessels intended for river police and custom-house purposes.' And Article XIX. gave to Russia that part of Turkey bordering on the Danube, known as the Dobrudscha, which Russia 'reserves the right of exchanging for the part of Bessarabia detached from her by the treaty of 1856,' and which, to the great indignation of the Roumanians, she subsequently forced them to relinquish in 'exchange' for her newly acquired territory.

But n'importe . Roumania was free; and this time she had fought for and won her complete independence.


VII.

There is something unsettled in the nature of an independent principality. The title fails to convey the idea of a free and sovereign people, and we are always disposed to regard it as the possible province of some annexing neighbour. So thought a writer on Roumania four years ago, at the close of the war of liberation. 'Situated as it is, as an independent State, it must sooner or later fall to Russia or Austria, more probably to the former.'[193] So, in all probability, thought the Russian diplomatists when they created a number of weak principalities south of the Danube to serve them as stepping-stones to Constantinople. And so, too, thought the Roumanians themselves. They knew that a name is 'neither hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man,' and so they 'doffed the name,' and on May 23, 1881, with the concurrence of the great Powers of Europe, they invested their prince and princess with the royal dignity, placing upon their sovereign's head a crown made from the very guns which he had captured whilst he was fighting for their liberties.

The poetic sentiment which attaches to this last act of the people of Roumania brings vividly before our mind's eye the dramatic character of her whole national career. Twice have we found the course of her history lost in darkness--first in the clouds of antiquity by which the early life of every nation is obscured; then in the still impenetrable gloom of the so-called dark ages, which continued to hang over the Danubian plains long after it was lifted from every other part of Europe. Conquered first, and civilised by one who ranks amongst the greatest heroes of the Roman Empire, she has inherited a high antiquity of which she may be justly proud, remembering, however, that honourable ancestry alone is not the measure of a nation's greatness. But then, for ages we might almost say, the blast which swept across her plains with all the fury of a tempest, but, as it travelled westward, broke and moderated under the influence of the older civilisation, caused a second blank in her existence; and when she once more rose from her prostration, she found herself whole centuries behind the western peoples. But hardly had she time to breathe again, and ere the wounds inflicted on her by the Goths, and Huns, and Avars were yet fully healed, another ruthless conqueror had laid hands upon her; and spite of all her efforts to regain her liberty he held her fast, and sent her taskmasters as cruel and exacting as the leaders of barbarian hordes had been before. And yet her spirit was indomitable; bowed but not broken she continued to live on, and ever strove for freedom. Mircea, Stephen, Michael, those are the names which vindicate her claim to courage, and which shield her from the charge of cowardly submission. And next she is the object of contention between two neighbouring despots, the one endeavouring to hold, the other to annex her. It is a marvelt hat between them she was not dismembered limb from limb.

At length for her, as for all suffering peoples, the day of liberation was at hand; the iron bonds which Oriental despotism had forged were loosened by the agency of Western progress, and, lightened of her load, she this time struck a more effectual blow for liberty, and was amongst the first to unfurl the flag of freedom in the East. But a long succession of barbarian governors, the license of repeated military occupations, the proximity of Tartar savagery on the one side and of Oriental effeminacy on the other, these incidents of her long-continued vassalage have necessarily, and, it is to be hoped, but for a time, left their evil influence upon the nation, which it is now the earnest endeavour of her patriotic leaders to exterminate.

[Footnote 193: Ozanne, p. 226.]


CHAPTER XV.

PRESENT ROUMANIAN LEADERS AND THEIR POLICY.

The King--Customs of the Court--The Queen--Her attainments--Extract
from her poetry--Madame Rosetti--Her patriotism and adventures--M.
Constantin A. Rosetti--His career and public services--M.
Bratiano--Other leaders of public opinion--The party of
progress--Their past foreign and domestic policy--Geographical
boundaries--Panslavism and Panroumanism--The future policy of
Roumania--Growth by pacific means--(Note: Comparative values of
Russian, Turkish, and Roumanian securities)--Roumania and Great
Britain--Conclusion.


I.

We have passed in hasty and imperfect review those features in the national life of Roumania which we believed would be of interest to our readers, and will now endeavour to present to them sketches of a few of the persons of distinction who are forming public opinion, and are the leaders of progress in the country, premising, however, that there are many omissions, due partly to our own ignorance, and partly to the fact that the discussion of the merits and demerits of some of the public men would not have been fitting in this treatise.

By his rank and patriotism, and not least by his extensive knowledge, his Majesty King Charles is entitled to our first consideration. Of his political career we have spoken in our historical summary, and little more need be added. He was born on April 20, 1839, and is therefore about forty-three years of age. On November 15, 1869, he married Pauline Elisabeth, Princess of Wied, who was then about twenty-six years old; but, unfortunately, the sole offspring of their union, a little girl, lies interred in the grounds of the Asyle Hélène. The King is a handsome man, rather above the average height, and, so far as his regularly formed features are concerned, he might belong to any nationality of Western Europe. He usually wears a somewhat severe expression, but the moment he begins to converse this at once disappears. His manner is quiet and earnest, although he often warms into enthusiasm, and he has the happy faculty of placing all with whom he comes into contact at perfect ease. He possesses a wide range of information, and speaks with evident knowledge on all matters of interest to his subjects or to civilisation. Of course he is well acquainted with his adopted country and its resources, takes a lively interest in its trade and capabilities; and so far as the geographical configuration of Roumania is concerned, he not only knows all about the level country, but has either ridden or walked through every part of the Carpathians. His scientific knowledge is such as one might expect in an educated German, and is chiefly of a practical kind. He is deeply interested in arboriculture, about which he knows more than many who are entrusted with the care and fate of the vast woods that clothe the mountain districts, and he has often pointed out to such persons errors in their mode of felling timber. In private life the King is hospitable, genial, and very regular in his habits; he is a devout Catholic, but a constant attendant upon the services of the Greek Church.

[Illustration: H.M. PAULINE ELIZABETH,

FIRST QUEEN OF ROUMANIA.

IN THE NATIONAL COSTUME.

(FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANZ DUSCHEK.)]

But of course our interest in him is necessarily rather of a public than of a private character. Is he constitutional? or is Europe likely some day to be favoured with a Roumanian coup d'état ? The answer to these questions is clear and emphatic. Although a Hohenzollern, he is a Constitutional Liberal, we should say of an advanced type. We spoke before of his misunderstandings with his ministers; but even those who were