reorganize there, sheltered behind Russian troops who had at
last arrived on this new theatre of war; king, ministers, and par-
liament were already in the ancient Moldavian capital of Jassy,
where they had to remain until the end of 1918.
A counter-offensive, carefully prepared during 1917, had
already begun, and in July had opened the path through
Wallachia, when the Russian defection in Galicia and the sub-
sequent push by Mackensen, who threw all the forces at his
disposal upon the Sereth for an advance upon Odessa, brought
upon the new Rumanian army the great disaster of Marasesti
a battle lasting ten days and ending in complete inability for
further resistance. As the disintegration of the Russian army
proceeded, yesterday's allies turning into pillaging bands dan-
gerous to the whole life of the country, hostilities were perforce
suspended; and eventually it became necessary to submit to the
armistice imposed by the Germans on General Shtcherbachev,
who had assumed the chief command on the Rumanian front,
passing over King Ferdinand's right to the supreme command.
Rumania, nevertheless, parleyed yet another two months before
entering into negotiations that could only mean the abandon-
ment of her rights, .the diminution of her pre-war territorial pos-
sessions, and the loss of her economic independence.
Agrarian and Electoral Reforms. Ever since in Dec. 1916
the Parliament had met at Jassy and enthusiastically approved
the prosecution of the war to a finish, Bratianu had shared the
burden of power with Take Jonescu and his section of the Con-
servative party. (Filipcscu had died at Bucharest before the
debacle.) The activities of the Coalition Ministry had naturally
been limited to ordinary current affairs. But in April the agra-
rian question once more became urgent, owing in part to the
reactions on the public mind of the triumph of the social revolu-
tion in Russia. (The chief of the Rumanian socialists, a Bul-
garian named Rakovski, after having been kept for some time
under arrest at Jassy, had managed to escape, and was now
agitating with his followers against the king and the bourgeoisie.')
Influenced by ths Crown, the Conservatives at last accepted the
radical policy of expropriation, to be applied to an area fixed at-
2,000,000 hectares.
Parliament debated the project for two months, the result
being a law promulgated in July 1917, which left the original
proprietors 500 hectares at most for each separate estate (ab-
sentees being completely expropriated), and assigned them a
compensation in State bonds, the amount not to exceed twenty
times the annual value of the property. A scheme for the com-
munal holding by village associations of the land thus obtained
was rejected in favour of the traditional individual tenure.
Details of the distribution were to be fixed by law; but now, under
the menace of a German occupatibn even in Moldavia, members
of parliament were dispersing. When the triumph of the Central
Powers seemed certain, and the armistice foreshadowed an
early peace, the leaders of the war-party were practically forced
to flee the country. A number of them took refuge in Paris,
where they formed a national Committee of Claims.
Reunion of Bessarabia; Peace of Bucharest; Expulsion of
Occupying Forces. Already, however, the depredation of the
306
RUMANIA
Russian Bolskeviks had obliged the Rumanians of Bessarabia
to form a Moldavian Republic; the ancient Rumanian spirit
had quickly awakened, thanks in part to a group of young
writers who had never ceased to cultivate spiritual relations
with free Rumania. An attempt to form a local army having
failed, appeal Was made to the Rumanian troops, who had more-
over an interest in defending the stores of food in Bessarabia.
The union of the Principalities was celebrated in Feb. 1919 at
Chishinau, capital of the province, as well as at Jassy; and on
April 9 the Sfatul Taril (Council of the country), formed on the
model of all the other revolutionary assemblies of the former
empire of the Tsars, was to proclaim the union of Bessarabia
with the kingdom of Rumania. J. J. Bratianu had already
resigned (Jan. 1918) in face of the equal impossibility of either
organizing resistance or signing a treaty of abdication. General
Averescu, charged with the negotiations because of his military
prestige, went for this purpose to Buftea near Bucharest, and
found in the capital a party of violent opponents of the war led
by the Germanophils Carp and Stere. Count Czernin, irrecon-
cilable in his attitude towards the Rumanians, rejected Ger-
many's advice, brought him by von Kuhlmann, to concentrate
solely on placing Rumania in a state of economic servitude, and
proceeded to carve up in fantastic fashion the mountainous
frontier of the kingdom; cutting off, moreover, the Dobrudja,
whose future was to be settled between the Germans and the
Bulgarians, Rumania being only left access to the sea under
terms to be subsequently fixed. The Danube would become an
artery for Austrian and German commerce, Vienna taking foot-
hold at Severin, and Berlin at Giurgevo by means of " purchases "
of wharves and sites on long leases. The entire export of the
chief products of the country was assured to the Central Powers.
Their army of occupation would have to remain for years to
enforce the fulfillment of provisions, unexampled in severity,
imposed on the country as expiation for its " crime."
This treaty was signed by the new Marghiloman Ministry,
installed in office just after the arrival of a secret mission from
the Emperor Charles acquiescing in the maintenance of the
Rumanian dynasty. The king had been subjected to the ex-
treme humiliation of having to go to a Moldavian railway
station to meet Count Czernin, who had come there expressly
to afford himself the satisfaction of that revenge.
The Marghiloman Ministry, whose chief certainly possessed
statesmanlike qualities, struggled against insurmountable diffi-
culties through months of unexampled suffering for the exploited
and humiliated country. In the occupied territory everyone
was snatching greedily at the remnants of national prosperity
now in process of dispersal; the unlimited issue of paper money
imposed on the country by the Austro-Germans through the
Banque Generate presaged financial ruin; while economic ruin
was ensured by the exportation of sheep and cattle, by the cut-
ting down of forests, and by the dismantling of factories. The
population, meanwhile, was starving, reduced to famine rations,
and the morals of its working-class were being perverted by
revolutionary propaganda. A Parliament elected under the
pressure of enemy armies a Parliament, moreover, composed
of the worst elements of political life often succeeded in dis-
gusting even those who had desired to have it.
This state of things lasted until the battle-front of the Central
Powers had been penetrated both on the Rhine and in the Bal-
kans. The king then called to power General Coanda, an old
soldier who had already had experience in diplomacy, together
with General Grigorescu, to whom was due the chief credit for
the victory of Marashti, as Minister of War. This Cabinet,
without reference to Parliament, decreed a law for the expro-
priation of landowners, in accord with liberal ideas, and on the
basis of the new constitutional text (the acts had been passed by
the dissolved Marghiloman Parliament, the decisions of which
had been declared null and void). But no sooner had the French
troops commanded by General Berthelot arrived on the Danube,
than the head of the Liberal party claimed, as initiator of a
war due chiefly to pressure of public opinion, a change of Gov-
ernment in his favour. In a few days he entered Bucharest at
the side of the king, to inaugurate an administration which
only lasted one year.
Reunion of the Bukovina and of Transylvania. The new Lib-
eral Government had the extraordinarily difficult task of re-
uniting, in one political whole, provinces which had been under
the domination of different alien states. Bessarabia was al-
ready incorporated in the ancient kingdom, having completely
abandoned the idea of autonomy, which had at first been sup-
ported by her leaders, Inculetz, Pelivan, and Halipa. Before
the King's departure from Jassy he had received a deputation
which came to offer him the Bukovina with the delimitation of
1775. Menaced by a Bolshevist agitation begun at Czernowitz
by demobilized soldiers, this province had in Nov. proclaimed
its reunion with the mother-country, under the inspiration of the
historian, Prof. Jean Nistor, and of Jean Flandon, formerly
head of the National party and of the Rumanian Political
Union (his rival, Aurele, chief of the Democrats, had compro-
mised himself by projects for a great Austria, to include Rumania) .
The German immigrants, the few Poles, and the Jews had given
their assent; only the Ruthenians held aloof, planted out as they
had been by Austria and sedulously represented by statistical
artifices as being the principal nationality in the Bukovina.
In Transylvania during the war the Magyar administration
had spared no pains to reduce the number and importance of
the Rumanians, over 3,000,000 in numbers, and predominant
especially in the rural districts. The prisons were filled with
suspects; judicial murders were the order of the day; a measure
was framed to expropriate in favour of alien immigrants the
widows and children of soldiers killed in action. At Bucharest
the Bessarabian C. Stere performed the deplorable r61e of editing
a journal which advocated the candidature of the new Emperor-
King Charles to the throne of Rumania (Prince Joachim of
Prussia had also been suggested) . Directly Vienna and Budapest
repudiated the Habsburgs and their followers, as being re-
sponsible for the defeat, a great Rumanian assembly at Alba lulia
declared (Dec. 1918) that Transylvania henceforth formed part
of the kingdom of the united Rumanians, but that they promised
absolute national liberty to their Saxon and Magyar fellow-
citizens. The Saxons gave their adhesion immediately; but the
Magyar bishops, Catholic, Calvinist, and Unitarian, did not
take the oath of allegiance to King Ferdinand till 1921. A
Council of Direction, presided over by Jules Maniu, took the
reins, established order, and gave new national forms to Transyl-
vanian life. The greater number of non-Rumanian officials
were retained; communes kept their accustomed privileges;
Magyar and Saxon schools worked unmolested side by side with
Rumanian institutions both old and new.
Latest Events: The Agrarian Question. During the few months
of Liberal Government the reunited country awaited in vain
its definitive constitution. The reconstruction of the devastated
districts had to be attended to, and difficult diplomatic nego-
tiations had to be conducted that should result in the recogni-
tion by the Allies of the new frontiers. Those fixed by the
treaty of 1916 were drawn back in places to give the Hungarians
a part of the hinterland of Oradea-Mare (Nagy-Varad, Gross-
Wardein), and the Serbians a good half of the Banat they
had pressed to be given also the town of Temesvar (Temisoara).
After the end of 1918 a Bolshevist Government had been in
power at Budapest, Count Karolyi having resigned rather than
acquiesce in the military convention which deprived Hungary of
the provinces which she had conquered and held since the Middle
Ages. This Government showed from the first its intention of
serving the party of revenge, and of trying to restore the mediae-
val kingdom. An armed attack on Rumanian territory by the
greater part of the Red army led, in Aug. 1919, to a Rumanian
counter-offensive, which despite the interdiction of the Allies
arrived at Budapest in a few days; and there the Rumanians
remained until the appointment of Admiral Horthy as regent.
This was expected to promote the same policy of revenge by
preparing the return of Charles of Habsburg.
The treaties of Versailles and of St. Germain recognized as
Rumanian the territories which had belonged to the Dual Mon-
RUNCIMAN RUPPRECHT
307
archy. Austria quickly signed what regarded her; but Hungary
resisted till 1921, and then expressed her ratification in terms
which left no doubt as to the sentiments animating a large part
of the nation. Nevertheless, Rumania now considered it right
and safe to demobilize (April 1921).
The Bratianu Government had resigned in order to avoid
signing a treaty which imposed on the kingdom a system of
minority rights that they would have preferred to establish
by their own legislation. As a matter of fact, by two successive
measures full political rights had already been granted to the
Jewish population, without distinction between old inhabitants
and recent immigrants; so that this " question " had finally
ceased to exist.
For the first time the elections were free, under supervision of
the " Ministry of Generals " presided over by Arthur Vaitoianu.
They resulted in a large .majority for the Peasant party (whose
chief was the rural school-teacher Jean Mihalachi) and the
National Democrats; the Liberals now formed but a fifth part
of the total number of deputies; the National party of Transyl-
vania, the Peasant party of Bessarabia, and the National party
of the Union of Bukovinians were united in their representation;
a certain number of Socialists made their appearance in this
first Parliament of united Rumania. The majority parties coa-
lesced as a " bloc parlementaire," and in Nov. 1919 formed a demo-
cratic Government of advanced tendencies under presidency of
the Transylvanian Alexander Vaida Voevod, who at once visited
Paris and London and obtained the formal recognition of a
Rumanian Bessarabia (this was confirmed by his successor at
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Take Jonescu). Measures
were elaborated for a definitive solution of the agrarian question
(the Mihalachi scheme, leaving landowners only 100 hectares
for each estate, but granting concessions to those who had
farms and agricultural installations); for the reorganization of
education and administration; and for remedying the short-
age of housing accommodation (scheme of Dr. Lupu, Min-
ister of the Interior). General Averescu, who in April 1917
had founded a " League of the People," demanding penalties
against the abuses of the Liberals during the war, and who had
developed this organization which contained many Conserv-
atives and some " new men " into a party under his leadership,
now came into power, thanks to the alarm aroused at Court
and in society by the Bolshevist agitations. The Socialists had
promised their support to the man of the moment; and soon
after his advent to power (March 1920) General Averescu con-
cluded a pact with Take Jonescu, though without admitting
that statesman's " Democratic " party (entirely Conservative
but for Marghiloman's " Progressists ") to a share in the admin-
istration of the country.
There ensued a regime of relentless repression. The threat of
a general strike provided an opportunity to try and to condemn
by court-martial the leaders of the Communists, from whom the
Social-Democrats had detached themselves under the leader-
ship of the Bukovinian Grigorovici. During the elections oppo-
nents were roughly treated. Few attempts were made to check
the growing corruption of the towns. Important projects of law
were hung up: that concerning the distribution of land was
modified until it resembled the Mihalachi scheme in regard to
the quota to be expropriated (and for the remainder, simple
decrees at once put in force had, as in other cases, anticipated
parliamentary decision). In March 1921 the Finance Minister,
Nicolas Titulescu, having reduced to order the chaos of the
Treasury Bonds, introduced a bill heavily taxing new fortunes
and capital in general, while relieving the peasants and the
small urban proprietors. It was hoped by this means to stabi-
lize the national finances, and to restore the Rumanian exchange,
which had fallen as low as 18 centimes in Paris. (N. J.)
LITERATURE. The revival of Rumanian literature dates back
to about the middle of the igth century, when, owing chiefly to
the awakened interest in Percy's Reliques, the poet Alexandri
published his collection of Folk Poems. This, together with the
Old Chronicles, edited by Kogalniceanu, constituted a living
monument of the vernacular. Their importance as an inspir-
ing and stimulating power to the new writers was fully appre-
ciated by Titu Maiorescu, who became the leading critical spirit
in Rumanian letters. Under Maiorescu's influence a group of
national writers gathered round the newly founded periodical
Convorbiri Literare. Among them were J. Creanga, who in the
Recollections of Childhood and other tales embodied the spirit of
the Moldavian peasantry; Caragiale, who, besides a realistic
drama and two volumes of short stories and sketches of unsur-
passed craftsmanship, showed in his comedies The Lost Letter
and Stormy Night the grotesque effect resulting from a hasty
introduction of Western manners into a society still stamped
with an Oriental character; and above all the poet Eminescu.
The last-named, who has been compared with Leopardi, was
dominated by a note of profound, penetrating, overwhelming
sadness, which affected all his successors, not excepting Al.
Vlahutza, a poet with a strong individuality of his own. But
there is another side to Eminescu, his broad conception of the
Rumanian race. It was this that impressed writers of the later
generation such as Prof. Jorga, who, in his History of Rumanian
Literature, arrived at a clearer understanding of what a national
literature may be. In his own weekly, Samanatorul, as well as
in such other periodicals as Convorbiri Literare under the editor-
ship of Prof. Mehedintzi, Luceafarul and Viata Romaneasca,
was first published almost all the modern writing which reflects
artistically the deeper characteristics of the Rumanian people.
A corner of the humble life of Banat is described in Popovici-
Banatzeanu's short story, Out in the World; the romantic Vlach
population scattered throughout the mountainous parts of Mace-
donia, Epirus and Thessaly is represented in Marcu Beza's vol-
ume of short stories On the Roads and his novel A Life; Transyl-
vania has produced the poets G. Cosbuc, Octavian Goga, and
Stephen Josif. To the last-named, a Transylvanian of Vlach
paternity, are due the best renderings into Rumanian of Shake-
speare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Shelley's To a Skylark.
Barbu Delavrancea has given to the theatre an historical trilogy.
Victor Eftimiu's poetic excursion into fairyland, String ye pearls I
is founded on a popular Rumanian folk tale. And among story-
writers must be mentioned Bratescu-Voineshti, Duiliu Zam-
firescu, and Michael Sadoveanu. A great loss to Rumanian
literature was the untimely death of the poet Cerna, who in
profundity ranked next to Eminescu. (M. B.*)
RUNCIMAN, WALTER (1870- ), British politician, was
born at South Shields Nov. 19 1870, the son of Sir Walter
Runciman, ist Bart., a Newcastle ship-owner. He was edu-
cated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards joined his
father in his shipping business, being from 1896 to 1905 man-
aging director of the Moor line of cargo steamers. In 1898 he
unsuccessfully contested Gravesend in the Liberal interest, but
was elected for Oldham in 1899, although he only held the seat
for a year. In 1902 he stood successfully for Dewsbury, and
retained this seat until 1916. In 1905 he entered Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's Government as parliamentary secre-
tary to the Local Government Board. He became financial
secretary to the Treasury in 1907, president of the Board of
Education in 1908, and was president of the Board of Agricul-
ture from 1911 to 1914. From 1912 to 1914 he was also Com-
missioner of Woods and Forests, and from 1914 to 1916 presi-
dent of the Board of Trade. On the formation of Mr. Lloyd
George's Ministry in 1916 he retired from the Government.
RUPPRECHT, Crown Prince of Bavaria (1860- ), eldest
son of King Louis III., was born May 18 1869 at Munich. In
1899 he visited India and in 1902-3 undertook a journey round
the world, of which he gave some account in his Reiseerinner-
ungen aus Ostasien (1905). In 1906 he was appointed to the
command of the I. Bavarian Army Corps. At the outbreak of
the World War he was commander of the Bavarian troops (the
VI. German Army) and led them to victory in the great battles
fought in Lorraine (Aug. 20-22 1914). In the following Oct.
he was placed in command on the German front in Artois and
southern Flanders, and, after having been 'advanced to the
rank of field-marshal, was entrusted in the spring of 1917 with
the chief command of the Northern Group of Armies on the
3 o8
RUSSELL, B. A. W. RUSSELL, SIR T.W.
western front. Prince Rupprecht's first wife, a daughter of
Duke Karl Theodor of Bavaria and sister of the Queen of the
Belgians, died in 1912. In 1918 he was betrothed to Princess
Charlotte, afterwards Grand Duchess of Luxemburg, but at the
end of the war the betrothal was annulled. Prince Rupprecht
renounced his claims to the Bavarian throne at the time of his
father's abdication (Nov. 1918), and in 1919 he offered to stand
his trial before a Court of Justice for State Affairs, if such a
court, as had been contemplated, were instituted. In a letter
written in 1917, but published only in 1921 in the press, Prince
Rupprecht declared his disapproval of the foreign and military
policy of Germany during the World War, and expressed the
well-founded opinion that it was doubtful whether the Hohen-
zollern dynasty would survive the war.
It may be noted that through his mother, the Archduchess
Maria-Therese of Austria-Este, Prince Rupprecht is the descend-
ant of the Stuarts and might, therefore, pose as the "legiti-
mist" claimant of the British Throne.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND ARTHUR WILLIAM (1872- ),
English mathematician and philosopher, second son of Vis-
count Amberley and grandson of the ist Earl Russell, was
born at Chepstow May 18 1872. Educated at Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he took a first-class both in the mathemati-
cal tripos and in the 2nd part of the moral sciences tripos, he
remained at Cambridge as a lecturer, and became well known
as a student of mathematical philosophy and a leading expo-
nent of the views of the newer school of Realists. In June 1916,
Mr. Russell, who had taken a strong line against the Govern-
ment, and was a " conscientious objector," throughout the
World War, was fined 100 and 10 costs for making state-
ments calculated to prejudice recruiting, and, in consequence,
Trinity College, Cambridge, deprived him of his lectureship.
His chief published works, on which his philosophical repu-
tation was based up to the outbreak of the World War, were
German Social Democracy (1896); Essay on the Foundations of
Geometry (1897); Principles of Mathematics (1903); Principia
Mathematics (with A. N. Whitehead, 1910) and Our Knowl-
edge of the External World (1914). Later he published Princi-
ples of Social Reconstruction (1917); Mysticism and Logic (1918);
The Analysis of Mind (1920) and (after a visit to Russia) The
Theory and Practice of Bolshevism (1920).
RUSSELL, GEORGE WILLIAM (1867- ), Irish writer and
painter (best known under his sobriquet of "&"), was born
in Lurgan, co. Armagh, Ireland, April 10 1867, the second son
of Thomas Elias Russell. He went to Dublin with his parents
in 1874, and was educated at Rathmines school. After some years
spent in an accountant's office in Dublin he joined the Irish
Agricultural Organization Society in 1897 and became an organ-
izer of agricultural societies. In 1904 he became editor of the
Irish Homestead, the organ of the agricultural cooperative
movement in Ireland, a position he still held in 1921. He
published his first book of verse, Homeward: Songs by the Way,
in 1894. His second, The Earth Breath, was published in 1897.
Literary Ideals in Ireland, some essays in collaboration with
W. B. Yeats, W. Larminie and John Eglinton, appeared in 1899;
and Ideals in Ireland, essays in collaboration with W. B. Yeats,
Douglas Hyde, Standish O'Grady, D. P. Moran and Lady
Gregory, appeared in 1901. The Nuts of Knowledge, a book
of selections of his lyrics, was hand-printed in 1903. The Divine
Vision, his third book of verse, appeared in 1904; The Mask of
Apollo, a book of mystical tales, appeared in the same year;
New Poems (edited, 1904); a hand-printed selection of his verse
By Still Waters (1906); some Irish Essays (1906). Deirdre, a