Vol. XXX, No. 3 



WASHINGTON 



September, 1916 



ROUMANIA AND ITS RUBICON 



By John Oliver La Gorce 



FEW States in history have been 

 called to such momentous deci- 

 sions as Roumania faced when it 

 plunged boldly into the Niagara of blood 

 and carnage that has rolled down over 

 Europe for these two long years. 



But both hope and fear beckoned the 

 Roumanians — the hope of a greater Rou- 

 mania and the fear of a strangled home- 

 land. 



The' brave people of this little king- 

 dom — for it is less than one-fifth as big as 

 Texas — have many proverbs. "The wa- 

 ter passeth and the stones remain," they 

 say, referring to their own persistence 

 as a people in spite of the floods of hu- 

 manity that have swept over their terri- 

 tory. And again, "Water draws to its 

 current and the Roumanian to his race," 

 a statement to illustrate the cohesiveness 

 and national spirit of the people. 



A WHIRLPOOL OF RACIAL RIVALRIES 



In the whirlpool of racial rivalries of 

 southeastern Europe — where Roman and 

 Goth, Hun and Slav, Magyar and Mon- 

 gol, with all of their descendant peoples, 

 have run over one another and been run 

 over in their turn — fate left the Rou- 

 manians in the majority in a territory of 

 more than 90,000 square miles. It scat- 

 tered more than 12,000,000 of them over 

 these lands — more than 7,000,000 in Rou- 



mania itself and some 5,000,000 else- 

 where (see "Map of Europe," 28x30 

 inches, in four colors, published in the 

 July, 191 5, number of the Olographic 

 Magazine) . 



In Bessarabia, a province of 17,000 

 square miles and 2,600,000 population, 

 belonging to Russia, two-thirds of the 

 people are Roumanian ; in Transylvania, 

 the eastern part of Hungary, a land of 

 21,000 square miles and having a popu- 

 lation of 2,500,000, 60 per cent, Rou- 

 mania claims, are Roumanians ; in Buko- 

 wina, an Austrian crownland of 4,000 

 square miles and 1,000,000 population, 

 more than half are said to be Rouma- 

 nians (see also pages 201 and 202). 



And so 12,000,000 people yearn for a 

 "restored" Roumania — all ethnographic 

 Roumania under the flag of political Rou- 

 mania. If their country remained neu- 

 tral, they reasoned, there would be no 

 chance of such a happy result. They 

 might, they felt, get something out of 

 Russia if the Central Powers won with 

 Roumania on their side ; but Transylvania 

 and Bukowina would still be beyond their 

 grasp. 



On the other hand, they believed Rus- 

 sia would give them Bessarabia as a prize 

 for participation on her side, and the 

 Allies Bukowina and Transylvania on 

 condition of an allied victory. 



*See also "Roumania, the Pivotal State," by James Howard Gore, October, 1915 ; ''Rou- 

 mania and Her Ambitions," by Frederick Moore, October, 1913; "The Changing Map in the 

 Balkans," by Frederick Moore, February, 1913, in the National Geographic Magazine. 



