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Updated: June 21, 2025
I remember at one audience where I submitted to the Emperor the Roumanian plans for a closer connection with the Monarchy plans which I shall allude to in a later chapter and in doing so I was naturally bound to state what the Roumanians proposed respecting the closer connection with Hungary, and also what changes would be necessitated thereby in the Hungarian administration.
The fact that the French language, culture, and manners have been superimposed upon Russian society should never be forgotten in a discussion of the Russian national character. For many years, and until very recently, French was the language constantly used by educated and aristocratic native Russians, just as it is by the Poles and by the Roumanians.
If Germany to-day, and we knew it, concluded peace, she would lose Alsace-Lorraine and her military superiority on land; but we, with our territory, would have to pay the Italians, Serbians, and Roumanians for their part in the war.
When England, however, joined the ranks of our adversaries their fears vanished, and from that moment it became obvious to the large majority of the Roumanians that the realisation of their aspirations was merely a question of time and of diplomatic efficiency.
When this hatred came to an outburst in the world war the most terrible scenes were enacted, and as an example it was notorious that the Roumanians tore their Bulgarian prisoners to pieces with their teeth, and that the Bulgarians, on their part, tortured the Roumanian prisoners to death in the most shocking manner. The brutality of the Serbians in the war can best be described by our own troops.
The distance from Orsova on the Danube to Hatszeg in Transylvania is 110 miles: the district is known as the "Romanen Banat," and, as the name imports, is principally inhabited by Wallacks, otherwise Roumanians. We arrived at Karansebes in the afternoon, and by good-luck it chanced to be fair-day.
The Roumanians trace their ancestry proudly, if somewhat dubiously, back to the old Roman colonists of the days of Rome's world empire. The Greeks are really the most ancient dwellers in the region; and to their pride of race was now added a furious eagerness to prove their military power.
As long as the people could be kept enthusiastic through stories of wonderful victories over the Russians, the Serbians, and then the Roumanians, they were contented to endure all manner of hardships. Someone has said that no people are happier than those living in a despotism, if the right kind of man is the despot.
But the Wallacks, or, as we will now call them, Roumains, are not Slavs at all; they are utterly distinct in race, though they are co-religionists with the Southern Slavs. "The Roumanians," says Mr Freeman, "speak neither Greek nor Turkish, neither Slave nor Skipetar, but a dialect of Latin, a tongue akin not to any of their neighbours, but to the tongues of Gaul, Italy, and Spain."
At Granite City, Illinois, another instance of unrest occurred when several thousand laborers in the steel mills, mostly Roumanians and Bulgarians, demanded an increase in wages. When the whistle blew on the appointed morning, they gathered at the gates, refused to enter, and continued to shout "Two dollars a day!" Though the manager feared violence and posted guards, no violence was offered.
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