E. — GEOGRAPHY. 107 



The extent to which Eumania has impi'oved her position as a result 

 of the war is for the present a matter of speculation. On the one hand 

 she has added greatly to the territory which she previously held, 

 and superficially she has rendered it more compact; but on the other 

 she has lost her unity of outlook, and strategically at least weakened 

 her position by the abandonment of the Carpathians as her frontier. 

 Again, whereas before the war she had a fairly homogeneous popula- 

 tion — probably from 90 to 95 per cent, of the 7,250,000 people in the 

 country being of Rumanian stock — she has, by the annexation of 

 Transylvania, added an area of 22,000 square miles of territory, in 

 wbich the Eumanians number less than one and a half out of a total 

 of two and two-third millions. In that part of the Banat which she 

 has obtained there is also a considerable alien element. It is in this 

 combination of geographical division and ethnic intermixture that we 

 may foresee a danger to Rumanian unity. That part of the State which 

 is ethnically least Rumanian is separated from the remainder of the 

 country by a high mountain range, and in its geographical outlook no 

 less than in the racial sympathies of a great number of its inhabitants 

 is turned towards the west, while pre-war Rumania remains pointed 

 towards the south-east. Economically also there is a diversity of 

 interest, and the historical tie is perhaps the most potent factor in 

 binding the two regions together. It is not impossible, therefore, that 

 two autonomous States may eventually be established, more or less 

 closely united according to circumstances. 



The position in the Dobruja is also open to criticism. Geographi- 

 cally the region belongs to Bulgaria, and the Danube will always be 

 regarded as their true frontier by the Bulgarian people. Ethnically its 

 composition is very mixed, and whatever it was originally, it certainly 

 was not a Rumanian land. But after the Rumanians had rather un- 

 willingly been compelled to accept it in exchange for Bessarabia, filched 

 from them by the Russians, their numbers increased and their economic 

 development of the region, and more especially of the port of Con- 

 stanza, undoubtedly gave them some claims to the northern part of it. 

 As so often happens, however, when a country receives part of a natural 

 region beyond its former boundaries, Rumania is fertile in excuses for 

 annexing moi'e of the Dobruja. To the southern part, which she 

 received after the Balkan wars, and in the possession of which she 

 has been confirmed by the peace terms with Bulgaria, she has neither 

 ethnically nor economically any manner of right. The southern 

 Dobruja is a fertile area which, before its annexation, formed the 

 natural hinterland of the ports of Varna and Euschuk. Her occupation 

 of il will inevitably draw Rumania on to fui'ther intervention in Bulgarian 

 affairs. 



The arrangements which have been made with regard to the Banat 

 must be considered in relation to the Magyar position in the Hungarian 

 plain. The eastern country of the Banat, Krasso-Szor^ny, has a 

 population which is in the main Rumanian, and as it belongs to the 

 Carpathian area it is rightly included with Transylvania in Rumanian 

 ten-itory. In the remainder of the Banat, including Arad, the 

 Rumanians form less than one-third of the total population, which also 



