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Updated: June 21, 2025
That was the historic moment when Roumania might have been coerced into active co-operation, but not the Bratianu Ministry. Bratianu himself would never in any case have ranged himself on our side, but if we could have made up our minds then to instal a Majorescu or a Marghiloman Ministry in office, we could have had the Roumanian army with us.
"As the speaker put it, 'Vous avez déclaré la guerre. He then read the whole declaration of war aloud to them both. Bratianu sent word to me that he would have a special train sent to take my wife and daughter and the whole personnel of the Embassy to Bucharest. "Bucharest, September, 1916. "The Roumanians really expected a Zeppelin attack at once.
But I got no further, for M. Bratianu, whose tremendous shoulders and bristling black beard make him appear even larger than he is, sprang to his feet and brought his fist crashing down upon the table. "You ought to know better than that, Major Powell," he angrily exclaimed. "Rumania is not in the Balkans and never has been. We object to being called a Balkan people."
Majorescu's Conservative Ministry gave way to the Liberal Ministry of Bratianu. King Carol's policy of government was very peculiar. From the very first his principle was never to proceed with violence or even much energy against injurious tendencies in his own country; but, on the contrary, always to yield to the numerous claims made by extortioners.
When I called upon M. Bratianu, the Prime Minister of Rumania, who was in Paris as a delegate to the Peace Conference, I opened the conversation by innocently remarking that I proposed to spend some weeks in his country during my travels in the Balkans.
Bratianu reproached me later for what I had done, but I told him it was in consequence of his not having strictly adhered to his neutrality. Had our soldiers been left unmolested, as in the case of the Russians, I should not have been compelled to act as I had done.
The break through at Görlitz and the irresistible advance into the interior of Russia had an astounding effect in Roumania. Bratianu, who obviously knew very little about strategy, could simply not understand that the Russian millions, whom he imagined to be in a fair way to Vienna and Berlin, should suddenly begin to rush back and a fortress like Warsaw be demolished like a house of cards.
Upon this I assured Bratianu that if such were the case I would in future arm myself with a revolver, and if he attacked me shoot the man; if one lived in a country where the habits of the Wild West obtained, one must act accordingly. I sent word to the lieutenant-colonel that each day, at one o'clock, I could be found at the Hotel Boulevard, where he would find a bullet awaiting him.
In admitting the truth of this appropriate comparison, it must be added that the female of the simile, longing to be embraced, directly provoked violence. For two years Bratianu had stirred up public opinion against us in his own country. Had he not done so, and had he not finally bared his Russian frontier of all troops, the Russian ultimatum would have had no effect.
Prime Minister Bratianu, who went to Paris as the head of the Rumanian peace delegation, told me, his voice hoarse with indignation, that the "Big Four," in settling Rumania's future boundaries, had not only not consulted him but that he had not even been informed of the terms decided upon.
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