Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [87]
Rumania, for all its claims to an ancient past, was a relatively new country. Moldavia and Wallachia had gained a limited independence from the Ottomans by the mid-nineteenth century and complete independence by 1880. Together they formed a reverse L, with the richer, more developed province of Wallachia running east–west along the south side of the Transylvanian Alps, and Moldavia to the east of the Carpathians. In 1866 they had gained their own German prince, later King Carol, who had dodged the Austrian attempts to stop him by taking a Danube steamer disguised as a traveling salesman. His wife was a famous mystic who wrote poetry and romances under the pen name Carmen Sylva.
The Rumanians themselves were the Neapolitans of central Europe. Both sexes loved strong scents. Among the upper classes, women made up heavily, and men rather more discreetly, but even so the military authorities had to restrict the use of cosmetics to officers above a certain rank. Even after Rumania entered the war, foreign observers were scandalized to see officers strolling about “with painted faces, soliciting prostitutes or one another.” Noisy, effusive, melodramatic, fond of quarreling, Rumanians of all ranks threw themselves into their pastimes with passionate enthusiasm. “Along with local politics, love and love-making are the great occupation and preoccupation of all classes of society,” said a great Rumanian lady, adding: “Morality has never been a strong point with my compatriots, but they can boast of charm and beauty, wit, fun, and intelligence.” Even the Rumanian Orthodox Church took a relaxed view of adultery; it allowed up to three divorces per individual on the grounds of mutual consent alone.11
Before Brătianu arrived in Paris, Rumania’s spokesman had been the distinguished and charming Take Ionescu. Cheerful, dapper and well fed, he had studied law at the Sorbonne and spoke excellent French. His equally cheerful English wife, Bessie, was the daughter of a boardinghouse keeper in Brighton. Ionescu had been pro-Ally since the start of the war and played a considerable part in bringing Rumania in on the Allied side. On Rumania’s claims, he was more moderate than his prime minister. “His attitude,” reported an American delegate, “is very friendly towards the Serbs: the Bulgars, he says, have behaved very badly; of the 28,000 Rumanian prisoners taken by the Bulgarians only 10,000 survived captivity.” On the Banat, Ionescu was for doing a deal: “they must be friends with Serbia and he does not want to hog the whole Banat, but will give them the southwestern portion.”12
And in fact a deal had been made in October 1918. Ionescu had met with the Yugoslavs and hammered out an agreement, actually close to the one that was reached months later, giving Rumania the largest part of the Banat and Serbia the rest. The deal had been attacked in the Rumanian press as a betrayal of the Rumanian nation and was finally scuppered by Brătianu, partly at least because he hated Ionescu. When Rumania’s delegation was chosen for the Peace Conference, Brătianu made sure that Ionescu was omitted. 13
The Rumanian claim to the Banat stressed, inevitably, ethnic factors. It also laid heavy emphasis on Rumania’s record in the war. This was not perhaps the wisest choice. Rumania, sensibly, had stood aside when the war started. Brătianu, who was then prime minister, told his colleagues that they must wait for the most favorable bid. Less sensibly, the Brătianu government had made this too obvious, behaving, said a French diplomat, “like a peddler in an oriental bazaar.” When the