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From the point of view of practical politics only the issue of the conflict will determine the wisdom or otherwise of Rumania's attitude. But, though it is perhaps out of place to enlarge upon it here, it is impossible not to speak of the moral aspect of the course adopted.
When I was in Bucharest a cabinet minister concluded a lengthy exposition of Rumania's position by declaring: "Within the next two or three years, in all probability, there will be a war between Jugoslavia and Italy over the Dalmatian question. The day that Jugoslavia goes to war with Italy we will attack Jugoslavia and seize the Banat. The Danube is Rumania's natural and logical frontier."
Rumania's troops were on the watch for the signal to resume their march, but it came not. The Czechoslovaks were soliciting it prayerfully. But the weak-kneed plenipotentiaries in Paris were minded to fight, if at all, with weapons taken from a different arsenal.
This inexplicable decision caused a fresh wound, which was kept continuously open by friction, although it might readily have been avoided. Its consequences may be traced in Rumania's singular relations to the Supreme Council before and after the fall of Kuhn in Hungary.
But it was further affirmed, and not by idle quidnuncs, that one of Rumania's prominent men had been informed that Rumania could count on the good-will and financial assistance of the United States only if her Premier gave an assurance that, besides the special privileges to be conferred on the Jewish minority in his country, he would also grant industrial and commercial concessions to certain Jewish groups and firms who reside and do business in the United States.
An offer of active participation by the Rumanian forces in the forthcoming campaign was rejected by the Tsar, who haughtily declared that 'Russia had no need for the cooperation of the Rumanian army', and that 'it was only under the auspices of the Russian forces that the foundation of Rumania's future destinies could be laid'. Rumania was to keep quiet and accept in the end what Russia would deign to give her, or, to be more correct, take from her.
The atmosphere was chilly, only a couple of the delegates being disposed to support the clause Rumania's representative, M. Diamandi, was one, and another was Baron Makino, whose help Colonel House would gladly have dispensed with, so inacceptable was the condition it carried with it. Baron Makino said that he entirely agreed with Colonel House and the American delegates.
Such could never be the simple-hearted Rumanian peasant's conception of his duty, and here, as in so many other cases in the present conflict, the nation at large must not be judged by the policy of the few who hold the reins. Rumania's claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature.
And this, of course, is Rumania's time the time of all these little Balkan nations, which have been bullied and flattered in turn by the powers that need them now, and cut up and traded about like so much small change.
Time has been too short, however, for those new relations so to shape themselves as to exercise a notable influence upon Rumania's present attitude. Rumania and the Present War The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside Rumanian territory.
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