GIFT OF 
 
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 806l'l2WlVd 
 
GIFT 
 
 JUL 21 1918 
 
 THE POLICY OF 
 NATIONAL INSTINCT 
 
 A SPEECH DELIVERED BV 
 
 M. TAKE JONESCO 
 
 In the Roumanian Chamber of 
 Deputies during the sitting 
 of the 1 6th & 17th December, 
 
 '' ' , , ' - 1 T V 
 
 
 
 London : 
 Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, Limited. 
 
 1916. 
 

 
 Wv* 
 

 The Policy of National 
 Instinct. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The debates on the Address this year, both 
 in the Senate and in the Chamber, are without 
 precedent in the history of our Parliament, and 
 very probably will never be paralleled. 
 
 THE MAGNITUDE OP EVENTS. 
 
 In all our long history there has never been 
 a time of greater gravity, or one richer in possi- 
 bilities, or one more overwhelming for us by its 
 very grandeur, than the time through which 
 the world is now passing ; and naturally it affects 
 us too, affects us more closely indeed than 
 it affects others. 
 
 In circumstances like these the customary 
 forms of ordinary life are too restricted to include 
 the debates necessary to the occasion. 
 
 What, for instance, is this Parliamentary 
 form habitually associated with the debates 
 on the Address ? Simply a contest between 
 
 (B535) 337695 
 
pariirs; ;i race to obtain power, which is the 
 sole means we have whereby we may put our 
 ideas into execution; a competition before 
 public opinion, with exaggeration, on the one 
 side as on the other, of errors committed and 
 of promises made as to activity in the future : 
 a contest in which one set of men strives to 
 vanquish another set of men within one and the 
 same country. 
 
 Of what significance is all this, in presence of 
 the tremendous events that are happening 
 around us ? How small, how paltry, how 
 inadequate all the formulae we are compelled 
 to employ in consulting among ourselves upon 
 the greatest decisions the Roumanian race has 
 ever been called on to take, in events the conse- 
 quences of which may be such that the man 
 capable of realising them all has not yet been 
 born ! 
 
 In other countries the result of this exceptional 
 gravity in the situation has been that normal 
 life has burst out of its frame. Thus, in Belgium 
 you have seen how Vandervelde, the Socialist 
 leader, took his place in a Catholic Government, 
 and how King Albert relied on his word when 
 opposing the miserable invasion of the Father- 
 land. And so in France, where we behold side 
 by side such men as Combes and the Catholic 
 
Cochin ; where in the same Government sit the 
 erstwhile Moderates with a downright Socialist 
 like Guesde. 
 
 And we have seen the same thing even 
 in fortunate England, defended against in- 
 vasion by the sea — England, the very home 
 of party politics, where to-day on the same 
 Ministerial Benches are to be found Unionists, 
 Liberals, and Labour members. 
 
 How, gentlemen, have these things become 
 possible ? Why has the framework of ordinary 
 convention thus been shattered, and other forms 
 of procedure sought ? The reason is simply 
 this, that the events of the moment are 
 of such importance that there is no room for 
 them within the limits of the old formulae. 
 
 NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I am anxious that this statement of mine 
 should not be construed into an invitation in 
 the direction of the famous idea of government 
 by everyone: of that National Government 
 with which we have been so much reproached, 
 as being the hidden object of our internal 
 troubles, for troubles of any other sort there 
 have never been ; never was opposition calmer 
 in its acts than this opposition of ours. I must, 
 
 (B535) A'2 
 
then, make a digression on the subject of 
 National Government. 
 
 Gentlemen, at a certain moment during the 
 war the Prime Minister asked my advice — I do 
 not say he would have been compelled to follow 
 it — as to the utility of a National Government. 
 This was immediately after the death of King 
 Carol. The Prime Minister asked me if it 
 would not be advisable that the new reign should 
 start in the comparative tranquillity that might 
 be brought about by the suppression of party 
 conflict. I replied that at the moment I believed 
 a National Government to be both unnecessary 
 and impossible. 
 
 Unnecessary, because our grave pre-occupa- 
 tions over the external question had, in fact, 
 put an end to party antagonism, and had conse- 
 quently secured for the new Sovereign a period 
 of relative calm for the opening of his reign. 
 
 Impossible, because the inclusion in the 
 Government of those of us who had spoken 
 with so much energy in favour of a warlike 
 policy might be regarded as being in the nature 
 of a provocation. 
 
 And if, gentlemen, I have on several occasions 
 desired that we should join in the war, if I still 
 desire it to-day, I have never desired that the 
 momentous hour should depend on any govern- 
 
mental combination, but rather on other 
 political calculations superior to combinations 
 of this kind. (Applause.) 
 
 But when the Prime Minister came to ask 
 my opinion as to the utility of a National 
 Government he had in his mind the remembrance 
 of a decision at which we had both arrived. 
 
 In January, 1912, when we were considering 
 the existing situation together — I must apologise 
 for this revelation, which, however, has in it 
 nothing embarrassing to either of us — at the 
 moment when we saw the fall of the Carp 
 Government to be inevitable, and when, natur- 
 ally, we were greatly concerned as to what was 
 about to happen, since we it was who had led 
 the campaign against the Carp Government, we 
 asked ourselves, among other things : If 
 Roumania were to go to war what would be 
 the most prudent way to make it ? 
 
 And we agreed that in any big and serious 
 war that Roumania might have to conduct it 
 would be preferable that she should conduct 
 hostilities with all of us at the helm, and not 
 simply those who should find themselves by 
 chance in power at a certain moment. 
 
 It was for that reason that when, in 1913, 
 the hour struck when we were obliged to go 
 
to war, I did all that lay in my power — history 
 will decide whether I did my utmost or not — -to 
 make National Government a reality. I desired 
 a really National Government because I believed 
 that we were not entering Bulgaria simply for 
 military manoeuvres, but to make war, for we 
 did not cross the Danube simply to snatch a 
 piece of territory ; no, we crossed the Danube 
 with the conviction that but for us Bulgaria 
 would there and then have crushed the Greeks 
 and the Serbians ; and although we could 
 accept a great and powerful Bulgaria as our 
 neighbour, it was impossible to accept as 
 neighbour a Bulgaria which had beaten Turks, 
 Greeks, and Serbians one after the other, and 
 must therefore have inevitably been hostile to 
 us, and would have sought to win fresh laurels 
 at our expense. (Applause.) 
 
 Here, gentlemen, I close the episode of the 
 National Government. 
 
 I trust that for the future in our discussions 
 this expression may not make its appearance 
 anew, not at any rate as a term of reproach, 
 to describe our manner of doing our duty in a 
 country one of the foundations of whose 
 renascence is its system of liberal institutions 
 with national sovereignty. 
 
THE DAWN OF A NEW WORLD. 
 
 Shall we inquire, gentlemen, what is the 
 meaning of that which is happening around us ? 
 Is this merely a war like all other wars ? Is it 
 just one of those numberless historical incidents 
 which at first sight seem to be important, but, 
 as one realises later, were of no more than 
 passing interest ? Or are we indeed face to 
 face with one of those great upheavals which, 
 occurring but rarely, make the end of one world 
 and the beginning of another ? 
 
 Contemporaries, gentlemen, seldom realise the 
 importance of the events amid which they live. 
 In their wars they count the thousands of the 
 slain, the millions of money lost ; but rarely 
 do they take into account the far-off conse- 
 quences of these events, obliged as they 
 are by the necessities of life to go on living their 
 everyday existence amidst the tragedy all 
 around. 
 
 Those who lived in the time of Jesus Christ 
 had no idea of how the history of humanity 
 was to be affected by the coming of Christianity. 
 
 During the barbaric invasions nobody took 
 into account what transformations they involved. 
 Nobody knew that therefrom might result the 
 death of civilisation for a thousand years. If 
 
people had realised the meaning of these things 
 they would have made better defence against 
 them. At the time of the French Revolution 
 people had no idea of the tremendous conse- 
 quences it was to bring, of the far distance they 
 would reach. To-day, gentlemen ; I think we 
 are confronted, not with an ordinary war which 
 will simply involve a certain changing of frontiers, 
 with things, after that, very much as they were 
 before. We are faced by a catastrophe involving 
 the whole of the human race ; we have before 
 our eyes the declining twilight of one world, 
 preceding the dawn of another and a new world. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 If it be otherwise there is no understanding 
 that which we see happening. They don't feel 
 this — the short-sighted people — short-sighted for 
 no other reason than one which Balfour analysed 
 so well on the day when he retired from the 
 direction of the Unionist Party. On that 
 occasion he said to his Committee : 
 
 " At sixty-four I am not an old man. Indeed, 
 I can hardly have begun to get old, otherwise 
 I should not realise that I have already reached 
 that age. Nevertheless, I feel that it would 
 be a sin if I were to continue to be leader of 
 my party. Why, gentlemen ? There comes to a 
 man an age when he is no longer adaptable to new 
 
9 
 
 ideas, to new currents. So true is this that a 
 member of this House said to me one day that 
 since reaching fifty he had no longer cared to 
 read, for had he continued to do so it would 
 have been useless." {Laughter.) 
 
 Of course, gentlemen, he was exaggerating, 
 but the fact remains that after a certain age a 
 man ceases to be adaptable, and that the more 
 he becomes unadaptable to new ideas the more 
 his authority increases ; for that is the way of 
 the world. The old politician carries more weight 
 than the young. 
 
 Thus, Mr. Balfour remarked : "I am less 
 adaptable, but I have more authority ; there- 
 fore, I have become an obstacle to the way of 
 the progress of the State, and it is time I left 
 the control of the party to others, who do not 
 consider things in the light of their ancient 
 prejudices," as did M. Carp the other day in his 
 fine speech. (Applause.) He tried to cut up 
 this great tragedy into slices. He was at pains 
 to unravel the thread of this wholesale conflict 
 of humanity, and in it he discovered a case of 
 France versus Germany, a case of Germany 
 versus England, a case of Germany versus 
 Russia, and I know not how many cases in 
 addition ! And to each he ascribed some small, 
 ephemeral cause. 
 
10 
 
 France is working miracles which have won our 
 admiration, and she offers to the world the spec- 
 tacle of a people held to be " flighty," transformed 
 into a people the most determined that ever was 
 — and all for the sake of recovering the lost pro- 
 vinces ! Germany is making her efforts merely 
 in order to create a colonial dominion. England 
 can show to the rest of the world her four 
 millions of volunteers, enrolled for that military 
 service which was hitherto despised. England, 
 unassailed in any quarter, is spending hundreds 
 of millions and risking the Empire she has 
 built up after centuries of sacrifice, simply to 
 avoid the rivalry of Germany, which she could 
 have done in so many other ways ! No, gentle- 
 men. So narrow a view of things cannot be 
 true. When a large number of nations consent 
 to make the sacrifices that are now being made 
 with so much firmness, with such lightness of 
 heart, and with so great a determination not to 
 stop short of victory — a victory which shall 
 crush their adversaries — then there must inevit- 
 ably be working beneath all this something still 
 more profound, something more than a question 
 of colonies, something more than a matter of 
 commercial rivalry, something more than that 
 which is involved in fourteen thousand square 
 metres of Alsace-Lorraine. And there is some- 
 
11 
 
 thing else. Here we have the last fight made 
 by the forces of reaction against the principle 
 of national sovereignty, both in its internal and 
 external relations. {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 A UNIVERSAL HEGEMONY. 
 
 And note, gentlemen, how grave is the problem 
 with which humanity is faced to-day ! You 
 see Italy, instead of accepting a gratuitous 
 increase of territory, throwing herself of her 
 own free will into the horrors of war. And it 
 is not alone the peoples of Europe who are throb- 
 bing with excitement to-day. Have you never 
 asked yourselves what these new nations are 
 doing in the great conflict — the young Republics 
 founded by the Anglo-Saxons across the ocean ? 
 Why is it that we see Canada, Australia, New 
 Zealand enrolling from 7 to 8 per cent, of their 
 populations as volunteers for the front ? Is it 
 for love of the Mother country ? Sentiment does 
 not move humanity to such a degree as that. 
 How is it the conscience of the United States of 
 America has become uneasy ? Out of love for 
 England ? Nothing of the sort, gentlemen. 
 To attack Great Britain has always been 
 recognised as a safe and popular note by orators 
 in the United States : it is known as " twisting 
 the British lion's tail." Why, then, is it dis- 
 
12 
 
 turbed, this democracy of a hundred million 
 souls, engaged in making the most glorious 
 experiment imaginable : the creation of a 
 civilisation without prejudices, with no class 
 distinctions, with no monarchy, no militarism, 
 no hindrance of any sort — a civilisation based 
 solely on nationalist sovereignty carried to its 
 extremest limits ? 
 
 M. A. C. Couza. — There you have a very 
 dangerous theory. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco.— Why, gentlemen ? This 
 entire movement can have but one explanation, 
 namely, that we are confronted with a trans- 
 formation of the human race, a transformation 
 which expresses itself in the form of a general 
 massacre. It is a struggle between two worlds, 
 and we shall see which of the two will succeed 
 in obtaining the mastery. Were it otherwise, 
 this war would not be possible, and it would 
 not be waged with the fury that distinguishes 
 it from all others. 
 
 Gentlemen, the truth is that in this war, 
 which was most certainly provoked by the 
 Germans, we see the last attempt made by a 
 single people to secure for itself a universal 
 hegemony. 
 
 If the German soldier were to win to-day, the 
 first result would be that the same military force, 
 
13 
 
 which is the greatest in the world, would also 
 be the greatest naval force, and there would be 
 no more independence, no more liberty for 
 anyone in the world, not even for the great 
 American democracy. On the day when one 
 and the same State had domination not only on 
 land, but also on sea — the day when the Roman 
 Empire should be reconstituted in conformity 
 with the affirmation once made by the Emperor 
 William, that the hour would come when all 
 men would be happy to call themselves German, 
 just as formerly each exclaimed joyously Civis 
 romanus sum — then the free life of each one of 
 us would be at an end. 
 
 Well, and what is the basis of this attempt that 
 is being made ? Is it founded on some higher 
 state of civilisation ? Is it justified by a 
 superiority of such a nature that it should have 
 the right to dominate the whole world, with 
 the rest of us content to run behind the conqueror 
 in his triumphal car ? 
 
 You will have noticed that M. Stere, who was 
 compelled, of course, to deal with this subject 
 — he did so very superficially, by the way — in 
 his speech, could do no more than declare that 
 it would be an injustice to deny the Germans 
 credit for their contribution to the common 
 treasure of human civilisation. 
 
14 
 
 But who ever dreamed of denying them their 
 due share of credit ? 
 
 But what, after all, is this contribution of 
 Germany's ? Is it of finer quality than that 
 produced by France, for instance, or than that 
 of Italy, or than that furnished by the Anglo- 
 Saxons ? 
 
 Is there a single hypothesis among all the 
 hypotheses forming the basis of poetry and 
 of science ; is there one of all the discoveries 
 which have contributed to the progress — the 
 material progress — of modern life ; is there one 
 among all the ideas that have roused the world 
 to enthusiasm ; is there one of all the creations 
 of art which would be lost if we were to remove 
 Germany's contribution ? No, gentlemen, the 
 treasure possessed by the human race would 
 remain intact, a little reduced to be sure, but 
 in no wise diminished in quality. It would 
 remain as it was before. (Prolonged applause.) 
 What is there in the assets of Germany to set 
 against the extraordinary productions of our 
 neo -Latin civilisation ? One thing alone there 
 is that is characteristic in Germanic culture, 
 and that is its political organisation, which to 
 us is a riddle. 
 
 How is it possible to reconcile an ultra-modern 
 economic organisation with a political organisa- 
 
15 
 
 tion dating from the Middle Ages ? How 
 reconcile a teaching so generalised, a material 
 well-being so highly developed, with a political 
 system which enables one man to declare " My 
 will is the highest law," or " I owe my power 
 not to the assent of the German people but 
 solely to the Divine mission with which I have 
 been entrusted on earth " ? 
 
 Such are the characteristics of German civilisa- 
 tion, of the far-famed Kultur. And, gentlemen, 
 that springs, unhappily, from the manner in 
 which the unity of Germany was formed. 
 
 If this German unity had sprung from the 
 Liberal movement of 1848, a great new nation 
 would have been added to the existing Liberal 
 nations of Europe. But German unification is 
 the product of Prussian " caporalism," with 
 regard to which a very intelligent German holding 
 a high position remarked to me five or six months 
 ago : " You are right, all you say is true ; 
 there is nothing more antipathetic than Prussian 
 1 caporalism ; ' but it is invincible, and we are 
 forced to accept it just as we accept the Deluge, 
 or the locust, just as we accept, in fact, all the 
 ills that Fate may send us." 
 
 But, gentlemen, that is not the fact. While 
 M. Diamandy was speaking of the Battle of the 
 Marne someone replied that it was just an en- 
 
16 
 
 gagement like any other. To which I retort : 
 It was not a battle, it was an historic moment, 
 it was the proof that even the brute force of 
 " caporalism," in a State in which one man 
 can proclaim that the highest law is his own 
 will, may be vanquished by the armies of a 
 democratic Republic wherein abuse of liberty 
 was mistaken by fools for moral decline and loss 
 of virtue. (Prolonged applause^ 
 
 HOW DID THE WAR ARISE ? 
 
 And now, gentlemen, how did the war 
 originate ? What was the state of things before 
 this war, before — shall I call it ? — this human 
 earthquake ? 
 
 After the French Revolution two new dogmas 
 came into the light : One was national sove- 
 reignty in the internal life of all States, the other 
 was a like supremacy in international relations. 
 One after another, all the races, so far as was 
 compatible with the state of their civilisation, 
 adopted this novel doctrine, and one after 
 another those forces which stood in contradiction 
 thereto everywhere declined ; and, furthermore, 
 national sovereignty transported into inter- 
 national relations had succeeded in obtaining 
 recognition and there was proclaimed the 
 principle of nationalities. 
 
17 
 
 For the principle of nationalities is simply the 
 right of each community of men, conscious of 
 being bound by the memories of the past, by 
 the interests of the present, by the aspirations 
 of their own souls, to lead a life free and without 
 restraint, be their numbers what they may, no 
 matter how large or how small the extent of their 
 territory, and despite all the abuses brought 
 about by conquest, even though centuries 
 should have passed since that conquest, as in the 
 case of the Magyar conquest over the Rouman- 
 ians beyond the mountains. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 This principle of national sovereignty leads 
 straight to the diminution of monarchical power 
 in those States where the forms of medievalism 
 still linger. It leads to the suppression of 
 Austria, which is a conglomeration of different 
 peoples, having no other bond between them 
 save the monarchy, and this a monarchy based 
 on the ancient idea that it is not the nation 
 that chooses its dynasty, but rather the dynasty 
 that creates the nation. It leads straight to the 
 definite abolition of Turkey, of which, when it 
 shall have disappeared, its historian must record 
 that it will have left to humanity no memory 
 of its more than four-century-long domination, 
 a domination which to-day — the day, as I hope, 
 of its definite decline — crowns itself, like Nero 
 
18 
 
 setting fire to Rome, with the massacre of a 
 million Armenians, slaughtered without the allies 
 of Turkey so much as raising a finger to pre- 
 vent this, the greatest ignominy of our time. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 But beyond this principle of national sove- 
 reignty there was something else that was 
 making progress in Europe. Like it or not, 
 there is no disguising it ! I mean the theory of 
 the improvement of the material condition of 
 the greatest number by the participation of the 
 greatest number in the greatest part of the good 
 things of the earth. This theory, gentlemen, 
 was everywhere in the ascendant. 
 
 This was the atmosphere we all breathed, 
 some with satisfaction, others in spite of them- 
 selves, but we all breathed it. In face of this 
 great movement of the neAv world, which would 
 have led, if not to the final disappearance of 
 warfare, at least and certainly to a prolonged 
 period of peace, to an improvement in the 
 relations between the races, to what is called a 
 Utopia, but a Utopia in which it was necessary 
 to have full faith, because the bluest of blue 
 skies is essential if we are to soar, we helpless 
 humans. (Applause. ) 
 
 In face of this movement there had neverthe- 
 less remained one State which represented its 
 
19 
 
 exact opposite, a State which, founded on con- 
 quest, has never hesitated to proclaim the right 
 of the strongest as the only right, which has 
 embraced to the point of frenzy the worship of 
 brute force, which regards as a mere sentimenta- 
 list, as one useless in political life, anyone who 
 should dare to speak of justice, of law, of respect 
 for one's signature, for all that constitutes the 
 moral treasure of us neo-Latins. (Prolonged 
 applause. ) 
 
 And something else had happened in Europe. 
 By great good fortune it chanced that on the 
 throne of another land, which also is an auto- 
 cratic land, where likewise the will of a single 
 man settles everything, there was found another 
 dreamer, a Nicholas, but a Nicholas who, 
 instead of trying to play the part of Nicholas 
 I. — who, as you know, was the gendarme of 
 European reaction, and in 1848 went so far 
 as to save the Habsburgs solely in obedience 
 to the principle of Vordre prime tout — actually 
 proposed the limitation of armaments, which 13. 
 means a diminution of human suffering, or, in 
 other words, a step in the direction of Justice. 
 This man is Nicholas II. 
 
 And who was it that opposed this idea, 
 gentlemen ? Was it England, on whom day 
 by day Austrians and Germans call down Divine 
 
20 
 
 punishment because they say she provoked the 
 war ? Was it England, who had nothing to 
 gain by the war, and everything to lose ? Was 
 it she who opposed the restriction of armaments ? 
 No, the opposition came from Germany ! And 
 thus humanity, instead of advancing towards 
 disarmament, marched straight towards the 
 madness of armaments unlimited, so that it 
 became evident either that thrones must be 
 overturned or that, in order to make an end 
 of the old world once and for all, blood must 
 flow like water, and the victims be numbered 
 by millions. (Applause.) 
 
 HOW WILL THE WAR END ? 
 
 And if such is the meaning of the war now 
 raging, how can it be supposed that it can end 
 with the customary peace, the sort of peace 
 in which so many gold-laced, decorated pleni- 
 potentiaries will discuss a lot of nothings around 
 a green cloth ? Can one imagine that it will 
 end like a duel with button-tipped foils, in which 
 the swordsman hit exclaims " Touche ! " and 
 after shaking hands and putting the weapons 
 in their case, the two adversaries go off and 
 drink to each other's health ? 
 
 No, gentlemen, to-day it is a war of nations 
 rather than a war of armies ; the conscience 
 
21 
 
 of all the races is awakened ; this war must and 
 will go on until one of the two sides shall have 
 been crushed in such a manner that the victor 
 shall be able to impose his rule upon the van- 
 quished. No other peace will be acceptable to 
 the nations. 
 
 If Germany is victorious her rule will be the 
 rule of the mailed fist, the reign of a single people 
 chosen by God ; if the others win — and win they 
 will — the law they will impose will be the 
 law of justice, in order that the whole world 
 may enjoy the benefits of civilisation. (Pro- 
 longed applause,) 
 
 Such is the problem. But you will ask me : 
 " What ! Is Germany to disappear ? " Who 
 can imagine any such thing ? It is Austria that 
 might and should vanish away. (Applause,) 
 
 Austria ought to have disappeared long ago. 
 When she has vanished from sight a general 
 sigh of relief will be heard ; everyone will be 
 glad that at last she has paid the price of 
 centuries of wickedness, for you may search 
 the pages of her history through and through, 
 and you will not find that she has done good 
 to anyone of any sort, while many and many 
 have been the sufferers from her treachery and 
 her brutality. What would I not give to anyone 
 
22 
 
 who should point out to me a single good action 
 ever done by this Monarchy ? (Applause.) 
 
 And things being as they are, gentlemen, 
 can you doubt on which side victory will rest ? 
 I forget who it was said just now that it was 
 childish to introduce the idea of morality into 
 international politics. 
 
 How slight must be his acquaintance with the 
 philosophy of history ! Individuals, like peoples, 
 pay the price of the offences they commit against 
 morality. In the one case punishment follows 
 immediately, in the other case it is delayed ; 
 but there would be no order in the universe, 
 life would be without value, were it not that we 
 have the conviction of the existence of a moral 
 law above us. (Applause.) 
 
 NEUTRALITY. 
 
 And if, gentlemen, the problem is as I see it ; 
 if the events through which we are passing are 
 as I have attempted to describe them, how can 
 one talk of neutrality ? Is there a single State 
 throughout the world which will not be affected, 
 which will not be transformed by the results 
 of this war ? No, gentlemen, there is not one. 
 But note this difference : There are some States 
 which will suffer from the consequences of the 
 
23 
 
 war without power to have their say, because 
 they let their sword rust in its scabbard ; others 
 there are which, while suffering no less severely 
 from the effects of the conflict, will at least have 
 a hearing : their utterance will be either that 
 of the conqueror, who decides, or that of the 
 vanquished, who, having done his duty, may 
 rightly claim the respect of the victor. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 But the man who supposes that we can remain 
 untouched in the midst of this convulsion is 
 simply hiding the truth from himself. Un- 
 touched ? No. But it might well happen 
 that others decided on our fate without troubling 
 to consult us. Therein lies the whole difference 
 between the policy of neutrality and the policy 
 of action. (Applause.) 
 
 I have heard talk of yet another course of 
 political action, that which M. Stelian termed 
 the policy of the carrion crow ; others have 
 styled it the policy of the hyena. That is the 
 policy which traffics with the one side and with 
 the other, deceiving both, which lies in wait 
 watching for its opportunity, unhampered by 
 any sort of moral guidance, without inquiring 
 in which direction its duty lies, knowing nought 
 of the demands of honour, and, according to 
 the turn of the scales this way or that, would 
 
24 
 
 induce you — even you — to administer the coup 
 de grace to the expiring combatant, in order the 
 more conveniently to rifle his pockets. (Pro- 
 longed applause from the Opposition benches.) 
 
 Political action of this kind is not only 
 unworthy of a people which . has displayed so 
 many virtues throughout the centuries, but, 
 believe me, it is a stupid policy, for the reason 
 that it never succeeds. When the universe 
 has been turned upside-down, as now, when so 
 many sacrifices have been patiently endured, 
 you may be sure the victors and the vanquished 
 - — knowing full well that others have been lurking 
 in the darkness like hyenas — will in the end 
 clasp hands like brave men, who respect one 
 another, and the punishment will be for the 
 cowards. (Applause. ) 
 
 Gentlemen, I know of cases in which, in normal 
 circumstances, this hyena-like policy may have 
 been pursued, but I know of no case in history 
 in which a nation has announced beforehand 
 that it intended to play the hyena's part. 
 That is the height of incapacity, combined with 
 the height of immorality. (Prolonged applause. J 
 
 And as regards ourselves. Do you not realise 
 the perils of such a policy for us Roumanians, 
 a policy which, I feel convinced, is not the policy 
 of the Government ? It cannot be, for Rou- 
 
25 
 
 mania is incapable of producing a Government 
 which should adopt methods of so base a kind. 
 (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 The material danger of such a policy would 
 also be grave. It has been said that in times 
 like these, when men are dying by millions, 
 when all the virtues have been revived, when 
 there is being written in letters of blood an epic 
 without a parallel, the proper role of the states- 
 men is to be a thorough-going realist, to take 
 no account of emotions or of sentiments, just 
 as though life consisted of nothing but calcula- 
 tions, as though it was not, above all, controlled 
 by the passions of men. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 AT THE COST OF HUNGARY. 
 
 Let it be so, gentlemen ! Even accepting 
 the basis of calculation, the policy would be a 
 mistaken one, since it is impossible for us to 
 expand except at the cost, not of Austria 
 properly so-called— that corpse full-ready for a 
 successor ! — but of Hungary. In spite of all 
 our hostility towards the Hungarian people, 
 we here are bound to recognise that they are 
 most remarkably endowed with vital energy, 
 patriotic force, and the power of recovery. 
 (An interruption*) 
 
26 
 
 The interruption is beside the point — I need 
 not reply to it. 
 
 M. A. C. Couza. — Mine would have been to 
 the point. {Laughter.) 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — I did not hear it. 
 {Laughter.) 
 
 Gentlemen, our aggrandisement could only 
 be secured at the expense of Hungary, and the 
 dismemberment of Hungary is no light matter. 
 The Western nations cherish traditions about 
 the Hungarians. The Hungarians have been 
 credited with being the only nation in the East 
 of Europe in the possession of liberal institutions. 
 Even to-day the Hungarians retain a degree 
 of support in the West, and M. Diamandy, 
 whom I see opposite, was obliged, in the course 
 of his journey, to combat the intrigues of the 
 Hungarian Independence Party. 
 
 M. G. Diamandy. — That is perfectly true. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — The Hungarians, gentle- 
 men, might very easily say : — " If the 
 Roumanians were to adopt the hyena policy, 
 it would be ourselves — the Hungarians — who 
 could be of service to the conquerors, whoever 
 they prove to be — as a sentinel against Russia 
 if Germany won the day, as a sentinel against 
 Germany if Russia emerged victorious." And, 
 
27 
 
 possibly, they might rely on other circumstances 
 in which history has involved us Roumanians, and 
 use them to promote intrigues against us, and to 
 create the belief that the world should not 
 entertain too sanguine hopes of our being an 
 effective sentinel against Germany, at all events 
 during the next fifty years. I do not press the 
 point ; there is no use in doing so. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, there are only two policies 
 open to us. One is the policy of national 
 instinct. , The other is the policy supported in 
 this House by M. Carp and M. Stern. 
 
 THE POLICY OF NATIONAL INSTINCT. 
 
 Gentlemen, I will examine the policy of 
 national instinct independently of any other 
 consideration. I will not stay to consider 
 whether the Roumanians, whose title to nobility 
 is that they are a Latin people, could find them- 
 selves opposed to the Latins engaged in the 
 war to-day. 
 
 I will not ask myself whether the Roumanians, 
 who owe to the majority of the states forming 
 the Quadruple Alliance a deep debt of profound 
 gratitude, and who owe to the Double Alliance 
 nothing whatever but tribulation, could be 
 capable of doing violence to their heartfelt 
 sympathies and of furnishing a second example 
 
28 
 
 of ingratitude. These are sentimental considera- 
 tions. Neither will I occupy myself with the 
 question whether it is possible for a State like 
 ours to draw its sword by the side of those 
 who have begun the war with the destruction 
 of immortal Serbia, and by that ultimatum 
 which, with the change of only a few words, 
 might have been addressed to ourselves also. 
 If it is possible that we should achieve unity 
 and gain aggrandisement at the price of an 
 infamy, I will not deal with this question — 
 (Opposition applause) — I am dealing, gentlemen, 
 with interests. I accept that. We are living 
 in the days of interests. Let us take our stand 
 on the ground of interests. 
 
 Well, as for myself, if I asked myself what 
 is the best thing to do, I should answer : the 
 first thing you must consult is the instinct of 
 the nation. 
 
 We have heard about the streets and a mis- 
 guided public opinion. " The streets " mean 
 a few hundred individuals taking their walks ; 
 public opinion may be misled by a few months' 
 clever campaigning. But the national instinct 
 — from the peasant's hut to the rich man's 
 palace — that is not the work of misguided public 
 opinion ; neither is it to be called " the streets," 
 unless, at least, you believe that Roumania 
 
29 
 
 is not a country where the nation is sovereign, 
 but that she should enter the ranks of those 
 countries where one man can say that his will 
 is law supreme. (Applause.) 
 
 Instinct is not to be disputed. It speaks, 
 and it speaks so clearly that on the day when we 
 were obliged — and I will explain that too — 
 to follow a different official policy, we had not 
 the courage to make it public ; it remained a 
 secret known only to a few individuals. (Ap~ 
 plause.) It was not submitted to the approval 
 of the nation because it could not be. 
 
 This instinctive policy is not a whim, and it 
 is not a blunder. No, gentlemen, it is based 
 on a primordial fact, a fact as primordial as the 
 right to live. Every people has a right to live 
 its own life, its full life, with all that belongs to 
 it, for in this way only can it also create a 
 civilisation of its own, which enters into the 
 harmonious circle of other civilisations. 
 
 This right every people feels to be the 
 primordial and essential right, and that is why 
 the Roumanian people has always understood, 
 sometimes perhaps unconsciously, but at others 
 with an absolutely conscious realisation, that 
 for a thousand years back a problem has stood 
 between it and the Hungarians ; either the 
 Hungarians are to occupy the heights of the 
 
30 
 
 Carpathians, and from that position to dominate 
 us, or we are to establish ourselves in the citadel 
 of Transylvania and from that position to 
 dominate the plains of Hungary. There is no 
 third possibility. {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 For a thousand years the problem has faced 
 us in this form, for a thousand years it has 
 been present to our minds ; but naturally those 
 who have directed the State have viewed it 
 in relation to the forces at our disposal. 
 
 .We have not been a State of Don Quixotes, 
 but neither have we been a State of men without 
 perception and feeling. Every man of us — 
 from the village schoolmaster with his map of 
 Trajan's Dacia, with his roll of Roumanian 
 lands lying under foreign domination, up to 
 our statemen — yes, even on the day that they 
 signed the treaty which bound us to Austria — 
 every man of us had engraved on his heart in 
 letters of fire the words " Ardeal," and " Union 
 of the Nation ! " {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 A CONVERSATION WITH BANFFY. 
 
 Do not imagine, gentlemen, that the 
 Hungarians harbour the smallest doubt as to 
 this. In January, 1896, I had a conversation 
 with Baron Banffy, who was then Prime Minister 
 
31 
 
 of Hungary. I myself had just fallen from 
 power, and it was asserted that during my tenure 
 of office — from 1891 till 1895 — I had, unknown 
 to the Cabinet (I was even blamed for it !), 
 in some way supported the national movement 
 beyond the Carpathians. I have always denied 
 the charge, and I deny it again to-day. I will 
 explain myself on the day when I see in this 
 House the representatives of the Transmontane 
 territory added to our number. {Applause from 
 the Minority.) But, gentlemen, one of my 
 colleagues in the Government said to me at that 
 time with a polite cynicism — " Two provinces 
 have given you a facer ! You flattered your- 
 self that we should conquer the Bukovina 
 and Transylvania. No conquest at all has been 
 forthcoming ! " 
 
 Naturally, the report of these things travelled 
 as far as Budapest, and Banffy wished to make 
 the acquaintance of the fallen Minister who had 
 had the audacity to assist the national 
 movement. The first word of the Hungarian 
 statesman was, "Never tell me, M. Jonesco, 
 that you don't want to take Transylvania!" 
 I replied — " No, I can't tell you that, because, 
 if I did, you would think me either a liar or a 
 a cur. I do want to take Transylvania, but I 
 know that I cannot." 
 
32 
 
 When my turn came I said to him — " Neither 
 will you tell me that you don't want to get 
 to the Black Sea ! " 
 
 And he answered — " I do want to, but I 
 cannot." 
 
 And we consulted together to see if we could 
 discover a modus vivendi. (Applause.) 
 
 THE ULTIMATE OBJECT. 
 I remarked to you, gentlemen, that, in regard 
 to this subject, there has never been the smallest 
 doubt in the mind of anybody. Now I will 
 give you an example of what was said on the 
 point some time ago in our House — naturally 
 with modesty. In 1893 M. Stourdza had 
 inaugurated a campaign for a Roumanian 
 intervention in favour of the Roumanians of 
 Ardeal. At the moment I do not discuss the 
 political aspect, for that would drag us into 
 internal politics, and it is far from my intention 
 to weaken the country by a discussion of our 
 past political quarrels. M. Stourdza had said 
 then — " When the Roumanians who live out- 
 side the Kingdom have been suppressed and 
 crushed, our hour, too, will sound, and very 
 soon ! " 
 
 And he added — " Nobody in this Kingdom 
 thinks of the conquest of Transylvania* because 
 
33 
 
 the forces necessary for such an enterprise are 
 lacking to us, because such an enterprise, if 
 it were possible, would bring about the destruc- 
 tion of Austria-Hungary, because such a des- 
 truction would be unfavourable to Roumanian 
 interests, because it would involve a general 
 disturbance in Europe." 
 
 M. Stourdza's words seemed to me an abdica- 
 tion, and in 1894 I made bold, speaking from 
 my place as a Minister, to speak as follows : — 
 "If it is an extraordinary thing to raise a 
 question like that in the Roumanian Parliament, 
 it is even more extraordinary to hear a states- 
 man fix the frontiers of this country for all time, 
 and declare to-day, in 1893, the limits to which 
 the aspirations of the Roumanian race may 
 attain in the centuries to come. (Approval 
 from the Minority ; cries of "Bravo!") 
 
 Of a truth, gentlemen, our educational 
 Leagues, our concern for the Roumanians on 
 the other side of the Carpathians — all this 
 movement implied, fundamentally, a mental 
 reservation. It all resolved itself into a provi- 
 sional attitude, destined to last just so long as 
 the European situation which prevented us from 
 realising our national ideal. (Applause.) 
 
 For our ultimate object, which was cherished 
 in the minds of us all and made all Jour hearts 
 
 (B535) b 
 
34 
 
 beat, has always been the same — a union of the 
 nation not merely intellectual but also political — 
 our unification within the boundaries traced 
 for us by Trajan — I mean, astride the 
 Carpathians, and pushing out to right and left 
 with all our power ! {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 HAS THE HOUR SOUNDED ? 
 
 And now — has the hour come ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I should not be telling the truth 
 if I were to say to you that I did not imagine 
 that the hour in which the age-long dream of 
 Roumanian people would find fulfilment would 
 come in my lifetime. 
 
 There is among us a Member — I see him before 
 me — who, when I returned from Athens in 
 1913 — the crowning point of my public fife — 
 came to advise me to give up politics. He said 
 to me : " You have proved your powers. What 
 is there for you to do in the future ? " I 
 answered : — " If I were certain that, during the 
 years of life which remain for me, the great 
 problem would not come to maturity, I would 
 retire. But although I cannot believe in its 
 advent, I am not certain ; and at the day of its 
 coming nobody ought to be absent — no one of 
 those who has had the good fortune — whether 
 deserved or not — to be able, by their example 
 
35 
 
 and their voice, to sway a section of their 
 fellow citizens. No one can be allowed to 
 absolve himself from' discharging his duty." 
 
 The hour has come sooner than we expected. 
 Let us rejoice at its coming ! Let us rise to 
 the greatness of the occasion ! (Applause.) 
 
 THE RUSSIAN DANGER. 
 
 Although these opinions are held by nearly 
 everybody, I have just heard, in the course of 
 the last two days, the expose of another policy. 
 We have just been told that the principal 
 mission of the Roumanian State is not to concern 
 itself with the unification of the race nor to 
 develop strength enough to resist the dangers 
 of the future, but that our mission is to prevent, 
 at all costs, Russia from obtaining access to the 
 open sea. 
 
 First of all, gentlemen, allow me to note an 
 extraordinary contradiction involved in this 
 way of speaking, according to which Russia 
 figures, at one and the same time, both as so 
 powerful that none of her neighbours could 
 continue to live in freedom, and as so weak that, 
 even when allied with England, France, Italy, 
 and Japan, she could be not merely defeated, 
 but driven right back to Moscow. For that is 
 
 (B535) b2 
 
36 
 
 what the prophecy comes to — beaten back behind 
 Bessarabia, behind the Ukraine with its ten 
 millions of inhabitants ! "Gentlemen, Russia is 
 neither so powerful as these gentlemen picture 
 her to themselves, nor so weak as the same men 
 pretend. Evidently Russia constitutes a danger 
 for us. For a small State the neighbourhood of 
 a great one is always a danger. Would it not 
 have been much better for Belgium not to be a 
 neighbour of Germany's ? Who will deny that ? 
 Nobody ; not even the preachers of cowardice, 
 the men who maintain that Belgium would have 
 been better advised to bow before the invasion— 
 and then send in her bill to be paid at the 
 Imperial Bank ! {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 On the day of the opening of Parliament, in 
 1912, in the course of a discussion with M. Daneff, 
 I said to him : " You are in a position to cede to 
 us a little of your territory, so as to insure to us 
 our access to the sea. For you enjoy one 
 immense advantage over us, you are not 
 neighbours with any great Power. For my 
 part I would willingly sacrifice a fragment of 
 my body — that is to say, of Roumania as she 
 is to-day — if by that means I could, for the 
 future, have neither Austria nor Russia for 
 neighbours." What then ? Gan people choose 
 their neighbours ? Could M. Stere, even if he 
 
37 
 
 were made Dictator of Roumania, manoeuvre 
 Russia out of our neighbourhood ? 
 
 Be well advised — the question which confronts 
 us is a very far-reaching one. We ourselves, 
 to secure our access to the sea, have asked a 
 fragment of Bulgarian soil — and people have 
 not been wanting to tell us that we have not 
 asked enough. The question lies open for the 
 next Congress — it lies open as a consequence of 
 the conduct of Bulgaria. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 And is it eternally necessary to prevent the 
 Russian people from having access to the sea ? 
 And is the essential rdle which we have to play 
 to be that of a policeman, of a sentinel, prevent- 
 ing Russia from securing access to the open 
 sea ? But what does that mean ? Since Russia 
 will always struggle to reach the sea, our part 
 would be to be eternally on guard to prevent 
 Russia from realising her age-long dream, and 
 meanwhile — long live Tisza and Apponyi's 
 Ordinance ! for we should not be able to 
 trouble ourselves about matters like that ! 
 (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 People have come here to tell us what a 
 Russian general said before l^J^^inc^tisLe 
 Treaty of Bucharest, which /was (queued so\ 
 cleverly, was not the treaty of ^^S^ut^nai of 
 1812 — with a view to informing ^^s? tbatt Russ 
 
38 
 
 then desired to annex Moldavia and Wallachia. 
 Well, did we not know that ? Did we not 
 know that Russia entertained the desire of 
 annexing us ? And Austria-Hungary — has not 
 she taken Oltenia from us ? Has not she torn 
 the Bukovina from us ? Has she not wanted 
 to annex us right out? And if at a certain 
 moment she did not succeed in annexing us, 
 was it not because they came to an agreement 
 over the partition of Poland ? It is Poland who 
 paid for us then, Poland who saved us from 
 annexation to Austria. 
 
 We have also had quoted to us a letter from 
 a landed proprietor of Bessarabia who, in 1820, 
 wrote to another landed proprietor, that his 
 estate in Moldavia would soon pass into the 
 possession of Russia. Well, what of it? 
 
 It was added that M. Fonton, formerly Russian 
 Minister at Bucharest, said one day : — " What 
 a nuisance it is that the Roumanians are 
 established between the Slavs of the North and 
 the Slavs of the South ! " But do not I say : 
 " What a nuisance it is that the Russians have 
 settled themselves side by side with the 
 Roumanians " ? (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 But Casso has said : — " We Russians won 
 in 1878 no more than the frontier of 1812." 
 I am not familiar with the passage from which 
 
39 
 
 the quotation is taken. I cannot imagine that 
 Casso said that Russia would have liked to take 
 a bit of Roumania too. To say that would 
 have been a blunder on his part. In all 
 probability Casso was discussing the results of 
 the war of 1878, and most likely what he said 
 was : " Everybody gained something in 1878. 
 Russia gained only two things,. Southern 
 Bessarabia, the three departments — that is 
 to say the frontier of 1812 — and the hostility of 
 a Bulgaria which she herself had created." 
 
 But we are told that the Russians have invaded 
 Roumania nine times. 
 
 Gentlemen, in my opinion we ought to examine 
 the question with complete freedom. Our 
 relations with the Russians are more complex 
 than is conceived by those whose judgment 
 is naturally biassed, both by the fact that they 
 are natives of Bessarabia, and by the fact that 
 they have passed eight years of their youth in 
 Siberia. I happen to occupy a more detached 
 position. If I had been in Siberia, it is possible 
 — who knows ? — that the memory of my suffer- 
 ings would have so blinded me that I could not 
 see even the interests of my country. It is 
 possible. But — well, you see — I have not been 
 in Siberia ! {Applause.) 
 
40 
 
 OUR RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. 
 
 I remarked just now, gentlemen, that our 
 relations with the Russians are very complex. 
 
 When the Western Powers had abandoned 
 the crusade against the Turks, the Russians 
 took this crusade upon themselves. No doubt 
 they have found their profit in it — that is very 
 certain — but others have found their profit 
 in it also. It is from these wars that the 
 independence of Greece has resulted ; it is 
 from these wars that the independence of 
 Serbia has resulted, though the Greeks and 
 Serbians have, naturally, made sacrifices of 
 their own besides. The independence of 
 Bulgaria was equally the result of these wars — - 
 but without any sacrifice on the part of the 
 Bulgarians. That is probably another reason 
 why their gratitude is the more remarkable ! 
 
 These wars have been of service to us, too, 
 in rescuing us from the cruelties of the Turks, 
 from those cruelties of which we of our generation 
 have no recollection, but which the old men 
 whom we knew in our childhood could well 
 recall, and spoke of in tones of horror. It is 
 true that in our case we have paid the price. 
 With the country lying between the Pruth and 
 the Dneister we have paid for the emancipation 
 
41 
 
 of all the Balkan peoples ! Of a truth we have 
 great occasion for sorrow in the fact that we 
 alone have paid the price, while the others 
 have found nothing but profit in this crusade 
 of the Russians for the emancipation of the 
 Balkan peoples ! Bessarabia is dear to us ! 
 How could a piece torn from our body be 
 otherwise than dear to us ? And here I am not 
 thinking only of the three departments, those 
 which are least Roumanian, but of Bessarabia 
 as a whole. When I say Bessarabia, I mean all 
 the country included between the Pruth and the 
 Dniester, that is, the half of Moldavia that we* 
 have lost. 
 
 Only the Russians took away the half of 
 Moldavia by fighting, whilst Austria wrested 
 the Bukovina from us without stirring a finger. 
 {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 And when one compares the two acts of 
 injustice, it is impossible to prefer those who 
 have done nothing but swallow. It is like the 
 case of the partition of Poland ; Frederick 
 proposed it, Russia accepted it, and Maria 
 Theresa alone declared that she only accepted 
 it with tears, as if it might be some consolation 
 to Poland to know that Maria Theresa had 
 soaked two or three handkerchiefs on the occasion 
 of this outrage. 
 
42 
 
 M. G. Diamand y. — Will you allow me to make 
 an observation ? It was said of Maria Theresa 
 that she was always weeping, but that at the 
 same time she went on demanding more and 
 more. (Applause.) 
 
 M. A. C. Cotjza. — The observation is 
 thoroughly to the point. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — Do you know when there 
 began to be a disturbance in the friendly rela- 
 tions between ourselves and Russia ? Do you 
 know when a feeling of great hostility to Russia 
 grew up in our country ? At the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century, and for a very legitimate 
 reason. Our renaissance was based upon 
 Liberal ideas which we had got from our sister 
 France, at the time when Russia was the 
 policeman of European reaction. The result 
 of this was a permanent conflict, during the 
 greater part of the nineteenth century, between 
 the Russian Government, which everywhere 
 upheld the reaction — indeed, upheld it to the 
 extent of a re-establishing of the Hapsburgs in 
 .1848 — and the tendency of our national 
 renaissance. These times are over; our re- 
 naissance is an accomplished fact ; others 
 have transformed themselves into the police 
 of reaction ; we are therefore in a position to 
 examine the relations between Russia and our- 
 
43 
 
 selves with the same liberty, the same absence 
 of prejudice, with which we examine our rela- 
 tions with other Powers. But what of the 
 phobias, gentlemen ? 
 
 RUSSO-PHOBIA. 
 
 It is another matter with the phobias. Would 
 you like me to show you how far Russo-phobia 
 can go ? What M. Stere said is a mere nothing ; 
 I will call your attention to what M. Carp said 
 in 1878. A crime was committed in 1878 by 
 Russia, and a mistake, I believe, by ourselves. 
 I will not concern myself now with our mistake, 
 for I do not want to turn the discussion at present 
 upon our political past, a discussion which would 
 inevitably involve estimates of parties and of 
 personalities. But do you know how far M. 
 Carp went when we took over the Dobrudja ? 
 He said : " Since Bessarabia has been taken 
 from us " — which, by the way, M. Carp did 
 not suggest that we should defend by force of 
 arms — " let us refuse the Dobrudja, so that 
 we may never forget our hatred of Russia ! " 
 
 Suppose, gentlemen, that the Roumanian 
 Parliament had followed his advice, that 
 Roumania had not accepted the Dobrudja, that 
 the Bulgarian Government had established itself 
 at the mouth of the Danube, and that we had 
 
44 
 
 been cut off from all access to the sea — what 
 would the position of Roumania have been 
 in such a case ? (Applause.) 
 
 Since a large number of the younger men 
 amongst us are not familiar with the words of 
 M. Carp, allow me to read them to you : — 
 
 " Let us admit that politics are a question 
 of interest, and not of ethics ; let us admit that 
 the moment we have a chance of getting some- 
 thing, we ought not to consider the sacrifices 
 which we make ; but let us see in that case what 
 the interests are which we serve by taking 
 possession of the Dobrudja ? 
 
 " We have been told that we reach the sea. 
 Well, accepting this idea, I should like to know 
 if Kiustendje would give us a commercial outlet. 
 Do you believe that the Port of Kiustendje 
 could compete with a port situated on the 
 estuary of a great river ? Show me a single 
 port which has been prosperous at a distance 
 of thirty kilometers from the mouth of a river. 
 Marseilles, Nantes, Le Havre, Bordeaux, all 
 the great doors of entry into Europe, are at the 
 mouths of rivers and not lying some way 
 aside. . . . 
 
 " For my part I cannot acquiesce in the 
 decision of the Congress of Berlin regarding the 
 Dobrudja ; for the taking of the Dobrudja 
 
45 
 
 means, to my mind, nothing else than the 
 obligation of being perpetually in alliance with 
 Russia. . . . 
 
 " From all these considerations, I am against 
 accepting the Dobrudja. . . . 
 
 " With regard to Bessarabia, I am for accept- 
 ing what we are unable to prevent/' 
 
 Well, gentlemen, a people confronted with a 
 great injustice acts either like the Belgium of 
 King Albert and is crushed in defending itself, 
 or it resorts to diplomacy. 
 
 But a diplomacy of this kind — to cede 
 Bessarabia and not accept the Dobrudja — is, 
 allow me to say so, a diplomacy of the lowest 
 order, which could certainly not incline me 
 to-day to follow in his present diplomacy him 
 who gave such counsel. (Applause from the 
 Minority.) 
 
 AUSTRIA ALSO WISHED TO ANNEX US. 
 But, gentlemen, Russia wished to annex us. 
 
 That is true. Let me inform- you, on the 
 authority of someone more important than 
 M. Stere, that Austria also wishes to annex us, 
 and why Austria has ground for annexing us. 
 I will read you some words of Bismarck's. 
 They are of more recent date than those of the 
 
46 
 
 Russian landowner of 1820 who wrote to another 
 landowner in Bessarabia regarding the partition 
 of some land situated somewhere or other. 
 This is what Bismarck says in his Memoirs. It 
 was the moment when Bismarck had been 
 obliged to choose between the traditional age- 
 long alliance with Russia and the alliance with 
 Austria. Bismarck explains at great length why 
 he prefers the alliance with Austria. 
 
 Then Bismarck goes on to ask : " Does this 
 mean that we are going to back up Austria in 
 her Balkan policy ? " 
 
 " Austria would expect too much of us if 
 she asked that," he says, and he adds : "It is 
 easy to understand that the inhabitants of the 
 basin of the Danube may have needs and desires 
 which extend beyond the present frontier of the 
 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The constitu- 
 tion of the German Empire points out the true 
 way for Austria to follow in order to do justice 
 to the interests, political and material, which 
 she has in the country between the Eastern 
 frontier of the Rouman nation and Cattaro." 
 | You see, gentlemen, according to Bismarck, 
 it is quite a legitimate aspiration on the part 
 of the inhabitants of the Danube basin, that is 
 to say, of Austria, to extend their frontiers up 
 to the Eastern boundary of the Roumanian 
 
47 
 
 people, that is, to the Dniester ; and Austria 
 has simply to look at the way in which the 
 German Empire has been constituted to discover 
 the way of compassing these desires and reaching 
 this end ! 
 
 What consequences do you draw from all 
 this ? 
 
 That we should never have associated our- 
 selves in our policy with Austria ? Austria had 
 an eye to nothing but its own interests when 
 it wished to annex us ; Russia, in the same way, 
 was pursuing its own interests, when it wished 
 similarly to annex us ; but I too serve my 
 interests when I am able to draw from these 
 world-events the capacity of being stronger in 
 the future, so as to withstand all the desires 
 of the others. (Applause from the Opposition.) 
 
 PAN-SLAVISM. 
 
 Gentlemen, we have also heard a good deal 
 about Pan-Slavism ! 
 
 I thought that, having before your eyes what 
 has happened in Bulgaria, you were cured of 
 the fear of Pan-Slavism. 
 
 Are you not convinced, then, that on the 
 day when Serbia sees her national unity realized, 
 there will be witnessed in Serbia too — not, 
 
48 
 
 indeed, such an instance of unexampled in- 
 gratitude as has been given by Bulgaria — but 
 the thirst for independence in the direction of 
 her national policy ? 
 
 There is not a people on earth which, once 
 its aspirations are satisfied, has not such a love 
 of independence that even in the face of its 
 benefactors it does not hold high and straight 
 the banner of its liberty. (Applause.) 
 
 M. N. Jorga. — I may mention that I have been 
 in Serbia since the war. The Russian Minister 
 who advised the Serbs to fight was still all- 
 powerful there. I asked them what was their 
 feeling with regard to the Russians, and the 
 unanimous reply was : — " We are all of one 
 mind ; we are Serbs, and we only march along- 
 side of those who further our interests." 
 Amongst the Serbs the idea of Pan-Slavism has 
 *. not entered the head of anybody. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — Gentlemen, we have also 
 had recalled to us in this place the words of 
 Michel Kogalniceano. Well, gentlemen, in this 
 Chamber, in which I have sat for the last 31 
 years, there are still alive many deputies as 
 
 r- old as myself, who know that the late Kogal- 
 niceano was one of the few politicians who never 
 
 *" approved of the alliance with the Central 
 Powers. If he did not say so to others, he said 
 
49 
 
 so to me many times, and he said something 
 else to me : — " Do you imagine that you will 
 be able to carry out this Treaty ? You are 
 mistaken. When the hour for carrying it out 
 sounds, you will not be able to do so." 
 
 Suffer Kogalniceano to sleep in peace. The 
 man who made the peasants proprietors, the 
 man who secularized the convents, the man 
 who made the great speech on behalf of the 
 peasant proprietors, the finest speech that a 
 Roumanian Minister has ever delivered, has the 
 right to sleep in peace, and not to be dragged 
 to-day into a discussion in which we are asked 
 to renounce our national ideal. (Prolonged 
 applause.) 
 
 But they tell us, gentlemen, " The Russians 
 will take the Straits." 
 
 What ! Does it depend upon us who will 
 take the Straits ? Does the problem resolve 
 itself into — the Turks or the Russians ? 
 
 It may be that the Russians will take the 
 Straits. It may be that the Allies will take the 
 Straits. It may be that the Germans will take 
 the Straits. One thing, however, is certain — 
 that the Turks will not stay on the Straits. One 
 must be a child to imagine that the people who 
 are going to get profit out of this turmoil of the 
 
50 
 
 civilized nations are the Turks. Rome Young 
 Turks, who have brought their country to 
 untimely ruin, may have believed that*. But 
 for a politician who has two grains of good sense 
 in his head it is unthinkable. (Applause.) 
 
 AN ASSERTION. 
 
 But there is also something else which we 
 are told : the Russians ask of us Galatz and 
 Lower Moldavia. I admit to having heard 
 windy talk of this kind on more than one 
 occasion. I had read it in the interview with 
 a former Deputy of Galatz, who is now a German- 
 ophile. He is within his rights, all those who 
 have conceived this idea for themselves are 
 within their rights ; those into whom it has 
 been instilled by others are not within their 
 rights ! I wondered what the origin of this 
 absurdity was. For I, too, know what is 
 happening, and what has happened, and I know 
 that there has never been a question of anything 
 of the sort. We have heard M. Carp say : 
 " King Carol told me so." Gentlemen, I do 
 not know whether it is good to bring King 
 Carol into our debates. King Carol told me also 
 many things, but I shall not carry into this place 
 one single word of King Carol's. I shall say 
 that I know certain things, bat I shall not say 
 

 51 
 
 that King Carol is my authority. I know that 
 I am bound not to doubt the word of a speaker, 
 who says that he has heard King Carol make such 
 a statement. If M. Carp had not added some- 
 thing else, I should have said : " King Carol 
 was mistaken." But M. Carp added : " King 
 Carol told the same thing to others as well." 
 Then, gentlemen, I succeeded in finding another 
 person, who does not meddle with politics, whose 
 word cannot be doubted, whose name you will 
 not force me to cause to appear in the pages 
 of the Official Gazette, and to whom King Carol 
 talked of this very matter. But do you know 
 what King Carol said ? That in Germany it 
 was reported that the Russians intended to take 
 Lower Moldavia and Galatz, and that even some 
 German newspapers were saying so. Gentlemen, 
 I could point you out a Swiss paper which says 
 that in Germany it is said that Roumania ought - > 
 to give the Dobrudja to Bulgaria. Between the 
 reports circulating in Germany and what King 
 Carol knew personally as a fact — the old Sovereign 
 who had a profound acquaintance with every- 
 thing going on — there is a wide difference, and 
 I cannot approve of the manufacture of history 
 by carrying into this place such an assertion 
 as coming from King Carol. (Applause from the 
 Opposition.) 
 
52 
 
 M. P. P. Carp. — M. Jonesco, I can prove my 
 assertion. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — Prove it. M. Carp is always 
 full of assertions. Allow me to tell you another 
 of his assertions. At the Crown Council M. Carp 
 said to us : "I assure you that Italy will enter 
 into the war as an ally of Austria, and that at 
 this moment she is in process of bargaining." 
 We told him that we knew precisely the contrary 
 to be true, that is, that Italy was not negotiating 
 with Austria. And the proof was Italy's 
 entrance into the war as the ally of France. 
 
 M. P. P. Carp. — You are mistaken, I told you 
 that Italy was negotiating, and that she would 
 join the side on which she thought she could 
 get the most. {Laughter.) 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — It has also been said that 
 the Russians purpose to give the Iron Gates to 
 the Serbs. For my part, I know nothing of 
 what the Government has done, and I will say 
 nothing of my conversations with the Govern- 
 ment. I have not the right to know, and I do 
 not know. I know only this, that in the dis- 
 cussion I had — not with the Government — as 
 to the future map of Europe, there was a dis- 
 agreement as to the western- part of Banat, 
 but so far as the province of Caras-Severin goes, 
 the province to which the Iron Gates belong, 
 
53 
 
 and where the Roumanians are thicker than 
 in any other part of Hungary, there has never 
 been any discussion. Where, then, did you get 
 the Iron Gates from ? 
 
 M. N. Jorga. — The Serbs have not asked for 
 them either. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — How could they ask for 
 them ? I have the map of their claims. The 
 County of Caras-Severin does not appear in 
 it. More than that, when the Serbian Voivodina 
 was created, which only lasted a few years — 
 it was one of those rewards which Austria 
 gives to those who serve her, but which she 
 withdraws the moment after having given them 
 — Serbia asked that the Roumanian part of 
 Caras-Severin might be separated from their 
 Voivodina, This document exists ; it is historical. 
 M. Jorga probably knows it ; I, too, have 
 read it. What remains ? 
 
 M. Stere has made another discovery : we 
 ought to march against the Russians because, 
 the Bulgarians having behaved badly to the 
 Russians, Russia will annex Bulgaria. 
 (Laughter.) Supposing the Bulgarians had be- 
 haved well, should we have had to march in the 
 opposite direction ? (Laughter.) 
 
 How can you speak of the conscience of a 
 nation whose course in a great cataclysm 
 
54 
 
 depends on the conduct oi the Cobourg 
 Ferdinand of Bulgaria and not on that of 
 Bulgaria ? Because poor Bulgaria knows nothing 
 of what is being done in her name. (Pro- 
 longed applause.) 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 I am asked, however, gentlemen : " And 
 what of the future ? What will Russia do in 
 the future ? " 
 
 Well, gentlemen, it is very difficult to deal 
 with the question of the distant future. That 
 is beyond my powers. If anyone could raise 
 again the greatest man who ever lived upon 
 the earth, Napoleon, and show him the political 
 situation to-day, Napoleon would be completely 
 nonplussed ; so impossible is it to look far 
 ahead. 
 
 If we raised Richelieu, he would say that in 
 present-day Europe he felt himself in a mad- 
 house. He would compare the world to-day 
 with the world he knew, and would ask : 
 " But where is Sweden ? Where is Poland ? 
 What does the Great Elector say ? What does 
 the King of Spain say ? " It would never 
 enter his head to ask — " What does Japan say ? 
 What do the United States say ? What does 
 Italy say ? What Russia ? " The future, 
 
gentlemen, will take thought for the problems 
 of the future, and if it should come to pass that, 
 after Germany has made the attempt to 
 establish a universal Empire and the attempt 
 has been crushed, Russia in its turn makes the 
 same attempt, a new coalition will take shape 
 against her ; and from this same tribune 
 speeches will be made in favour of our entering 
 into the new coalition, since, gentlemen, no one 
 engages himself for eternity. Each several hour 
 has its own solution ; all that is asked is that 
 you should be loyal and sincere when you 
 conclude an alliance. When it comes to making 
 forecasts to-day for centuries ahead — settling 
 the business of those centuries, M. Stere, by an 
 impassioned speech — allow me to say that I 
 cannot take that quite seriously. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, let us pass to the execution 
 of that policy. How is that policy to be carried 
 out ? And, first, there is the fact that that 
 policy presupposes — do you know what ? The 
 certainty that the Quadruple Entente will be 
 defeated — not such a defeat as Germany requires 
 to-day in order to obtain a peace on the status- 
 quo basis, no, but such a defeat that not only 
 Poland may be amputated from the Russian 
 Empire (Poland in any case will gain greater 
 freedom as the result of this war ; whatever be 
 
56 
 
 its issue, the wrongs committed against her 
 will be avenged) that not only Bessarabia may 
 be detached from Russian territory and made 
 over to us — time was when we were tempted 
 with the bait of Odessa — 
 M. N. Jorga.— And Kieff ! 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — No, not Kieff. Kieff was a 
 military objective ; Odessa was a case of 
 annexation. It was then that I discovered in 
 an article in the Viatza Romaneasca that 
 Odessa might at a pinch also count as a 
 Roumanian town, because there are 50,000 
 Roumanians in it and the remainder of the 
 population are Jews, and, consequently, we 
 might make it a Roumanian town. (Laughter.) 
 It was a discovery which somewhat upset my 
 geographical notions, and since I could not 
 contend with the Viatza Romaneasca, I was 
 obliged to bow to the new doctrine. 
 
 But there is more. In order that we might 
 be able to keep Bessarabia, after it had been 
 taken by war from Russia, something else was 
 necessary ; it was necessary to create the 
 Ukraine as well. The Ukraine — upon my word, 
 I don't know what the Ukraine is. 
 
 M. N. Jorga. — It does not even exist. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — What Poland is I know. 
 Science tells me, history tells me, literature 
 
57 
 
 tells me, the great men whom it has produced 
 tell me. If we had Chopin alone we should 
 all know what Poland is. What is Poland ? 
 That stubborn heroism, that struggle of a 
 hundred years and more, against the cruellest 
 fate, against partition amongst three Powers, 
 which does not leave one corner of land for 
 independent life — these things tell what Poland 
 is. 
 
 The heart of every man who can appreciate 
 the moral idea in humanity will be able to say 
 what Poland is. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 But the Ukraine ? 
 
 M. A. C. Couza. — The Ukraine is the country of 
 M. Stere. (Laughter.) 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — I was at school when I 
 became acquainted for the first time with the 
 Ukraine. I then came across a pamphlet, 
 printed anonymously in Paris at the Imprimerie 
 Nationale in 1861, on the Ukraine. At that 
 time it was called " Little Russia." What was 
 it, gentlemen ? Napoleon III., that great 
 dreamer, who found himself Emperor of France, 
 he, too, dreamed of great transformations. 
 Some refugee or other had talked to him about 
 the possibility of a Ukraine. I never heard 
 it spoken of again until the time of this war. 
 
58 
 
 From this war issued the Ukraine, and even a 
 Roumanian has arisen who has been transformed 
 into a Ukrainian, only, it is true, when he 
 had no more money and was ruined. Since 
 then I even see Ukrainian reviews. 
 
 Gentlemen, whether the Ukraine exists or not 
 I do not know. But I do know that the 
 course of the War is not of such a nature as 
 to make one believe in the realisation of the 
 programme of the Councillor of State Riedl, 
 who explained it to me in 1912, when he asked 
 that Roumania should enter into a " Zollverein" 
 with Austria, in return for the support which 
 she would give us in the case of an attack from 
 Russia, and when he told me that Russia's 
 access both to the Baltic and to the Black 
 Sea would be cut off, and that she would be 
 thrown back to the Caucasus. But, gentlemen, 
 even if this should happen, the idea would be 
 absurd. Look at the map. There would be 
 no frontiers for this new Russian State, and 
 either Muscovy would reconquer the Ukraine in 
 order to get to the sea, or the Ukraine would 
 conquer Muscovy, and we Roumanians would 
 still be the neighbours of a great Power, in 
 spite of the sentry duty to which we are 
 condemned by M. Stere. 
 
59 
 
 And, gentlemen, as we are speaking of suffer- 
 ings, M. Stere referred to Russian Poland, 
 but is the Poland of Posen in any better 
 condition ? What about the laws by which a 
 Polish citizen of the Prussian State has not the 
 right to buy land ? What about the laws by 
 which land may be bought by force from the 
 Poles, and the Poles replaced by colonists ? 
 What about Billow's words : "I was obliged 
 to do this because the Poles multiply like 
 rabbits, while my Prussians only multiply like 
 hares " ? Ah, gentlemen, does all this count 
 for nothing ? 
 
 These things are more painful when they 
 emanate from a cultivated people than when 
 their author is a Russian lash, which falls on 
 Russians and Poles alike — since such is still the 
 internal condition of Russia. 
 
 It will no doubt improve as time goes on. 
 It is not necessary to be a great philosopher 
 to realise that it is indeed a sign of the times 
 that the Eastern autocracy is allied with the 
 three Western democracies, and that in this 
 war against the other reaction lies the great 
 hope in the triumph of progress, even in the 
 great empire of the Tsar. (Applause from the 
 Minority. ) 
 
60 
 
 THE PRICE OF AN ANTI-RUSSIAN 
 POLICY. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, so be it — let us fulfil 
 our new mission as the eternal guardian standing 
 between Russia and the sea, that sea to which 
 Bismarck, whom I will again quote, was con- 
 vinced that she had the right of access. This 
 is what Bismarck said in his Memoirs : — 
 
 "HI were an Austrian Minister, I should not 
 prevent the Russians from getting to Con- 
 stantinople, but I should not try to come to a 
 good understanding with them until after their 
 offensive movement had been carried out." 
 
 You will also see in the Memoirs of Crispi, 
 who had long conversations with Bismarck, that 
 Bismarck said to him : " Let us allow the Russians 
 to get to the Straits, otherwise we shall see them 
 in Galicia, and in the Carpathians." And 
 Crispi said to him : " But do you not fear for 
 the independence of the small states of Eastern 
 Europe ? " 
 
 Bismarck answered: "No. When once the 
 Russians get to the Straits by one means or 
 another, they are less dangerous to the small 
 states, who will then no longer bar their way, 
 than to-day when they form an. obstacle which 
 prevents Russia from getting to the open sea." 
 
61 
 
 But, gentlemen, with what are we going to pay 
 for this policy ? It is not a question of a policy 
 of a few years, but of a permanent policy. 
 Russia will always want to get to the sea, and 
 we must always try to prevent her. What is 
 the price ? It is this. The first price is the 
 definite destruction of the Roumanian race 
 across the Carpathians. Already inhuman 
 military dispositions have worked in this direc- 
 tion. M. Carp is wrong to console himself with 
 the thought that the Roumanians died as heroes, 
 for if the Roumanians were systematically sent 
 in a larger proportion than the others to die 
 as heroes, it was in order that the country which 
 they had inhabited might remain deserted, 
 so as to make room for colonists, for a pack of 
 the scum of the earth. ("Bravo/" Prolonged 
 applause from the Opposition.) 
 
 But, gentlemen, we shall not only lose the 
 bodies of the Roumanians across the mountains, 
 we shall also lose their souls. These people 
 will say to themselves : " If, even in these 
 circumstances, which no one could foresee, in 
 this coalition of the most powerful States in the 
 world, bent on the abolition of Austria, if even 
 on this occasion our brothers have risked nothing 
 for us, surely the hour will never come when they 
 will risk or dare anything ? " 
 
62 
 
 And the last flame which burns in their hearts 
 for their Roumanian fatherland would be 
 extinguished in tears mixed with curses and 
 contempt. (" Bravo t " Prolonged applause 
 from the Opposition.) 
 
 I could understand, gentlemen, I could 
 understand inaction if the hardness of fate had 
 never brought an opportunity permitting us 
 to cross the Carpathians with our banners 
 unfurled; but, in face of this last unique 
 opportunity — for how could such another ever 
 arise — how can we remain immovable ? We 
 should be lost for ever in the eyes of our brothers, 
 and we should deserve our fate. One has not 
 the right to ask anyone to sacrifice themselves for 
 cowards. It is impossible. {Prolonged applause 
 from the Opposition.) 
 
 Well, gentlemen, let us admit that we have 
 sacrificed the Roumanians across the mountains, 
 in order to mount guard against Russia. 
 
 THE MAGYAR VASSALDOM. 
 
 For us, the Roumanians of the Kingdom, 
 what will happen ? Do you believe that we 
 shall remain even as we are ? If Germany is 
 victorious, two peoples, the Germans and the 
 Hungarians will emerge more powerful from this 
 war, and justly so, not indeed in moral greatness 
 
63 
 
 but in material greatness, and there is enough 
 meanness in this world for people always to be 
 found who will applaud the triumph of material 
 greatness. {Prolonged applause from the 
 Opposition. ) 
 
 Do you imagine that Hungary would still 
 tolerate the continuation of an independent 
 State here ? No, gentlemen, it is the Zollverein 
 that awaits us for a beginning, to end in the 
 Hapsburg Confederation. 
 
 I can understand that, at times of profound 
 discouragement, when Roumanians have asked 
 themselves what could be done to secure our 
 general re-union, there have been found spirits 
 of such infirm temper as to have dreamt of a 
 union in slavery under the Hapsburgs. 
 
 Of that I have never dreamt. I have always 
 regarded it as a nightmare. I have never con- 
 tributed to the Gross Oesterreich. And even if I 
 had contributed, I should have done so only in 
 order to pave the way that led to a Grosser 
 Rumdnien. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 Our ideal, after eighteen centuries of existence, 
 after centuries of suffering — is it only, then, to 
 pass from Turkish to Hungarian vassalage ? 
 God protect us from the domination of the 
 Austrian bureaucracy ! 
 
 Look at the Bukovina and ask yourselves 
 
64 
 
 what would become of us under that domina- 
 tion ! (Applause.) 
 
 But, gentlemen — and with this I close for 
 to-day — the policy which is now proposed to 
 us has one defect that throws all the others 
 into the shade. 
 
 Gentlemen, you know the story of the doctor 
 w T ho had invented a method of teaching his 
 horses to do without eating : he gave them every 
 day a little less provender 
 
 M. A. C. Couza. — He must have been a Jew. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco.— And when he had reached 
 the point at which the daily feed was reduced to 
 nothing at all, the horses died. 
 
 Your policy has the defect of being impossible. 
 
 This policy may at the utmost call forth a few 
 speeches, bring into being a few respectable 
 papers and many gutter prints, and corrupt a 
 few consciences — but it can never be realised. 
 (Applause. ) 
 
 I affirm with the greatest confidence that there 
 exists no politician, no party, no Parliament, 
 no one whatsoever, who can lead Roumania into 
 the path along which M. Carp and M. Stere want 
 to drag her. (Prolonged applause. ) 
 
 [The sitting was suspended at 6.20. M. Take 
 Jonesco continued his speech at the sitting of the 
 following day, Thursday, 17th December, 1915.] 
 
65 
 
 HESITATIONS AND FLUCTUATIONS. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — Gentlemen, I showed 
 yesterday, so far as my powers went, what is 
 the situation of Roumania in the European War, 
 and what is the only policy she can follow in 
 accordance with the national instinct — a policy 
 destined to lead us to the realisation of our 
 national ideal. 
 
 It is evident, however, that at the beginning 
 of the world- war there were certain hesitations ; 
 some weeks had passed before definite ideas 
 and a firm decision had worked themselves out 
 in the minds of most of us. 
 
 If the instinct of the nation is as strong as I 
 maintain it to be, it is incumbent on me to 
 explain to what were due the hesitations, the 
 fluctuations of the first days which succeeded 
 the conflagration. 
 
 Gentlemen, they were due in the first place 
 to surprise. For long the world had been 
 familiar with the idea that a war was possible ; 
 but people always hoped that this calamity 
 would not happen within their lifetime. Men 
 hoped in defiance of the evidence. 
 
 Before accepting the idea that such a massacre 
 could be a necessity of our time, the hopes of 
 all the world clung now to the momentary dis- 
 
 (B535) c 
 
66 
 
 position of one sovereign, now to the wisdom 
 of others, now to the action of the extremist 
 parties, which might be expected to form an 
 obstacle. That was the state of mind every- 
 where, and of course among us as well. 
 
 On the day of the crime of Serajevo, all the 
 world shuddered. Everyone who knew how 
 great had been the irritability of Austria- 
 Hungary during the whole year 1912-13 ; every- 
 one who knew what trouble it had cost the 
 German Emperor to hold it in check, at the 
 time when he had uttered the characteristic 
 saying, " You are making too much noise at 
 Vienna with my sabre"; everyone who had 
 been at all behind the scenes in politics, and 
 knew how often peace had been on the point 
 of being disturbed by the nervous, almost 
 morbid, action of the Cabinet of Vienna; was 
 much disquieted by the crime of Serajevo. 
 Everyone asked himself: what capital will the 
 mischief-makers try to extract out of this 
 event ? 
 
 But, gentlemen, this apprehension did not 
 amount to a prevision of the outbreak of war, 
 even among the most initiated. Without com- 
 mitting an indiscretion, I may say that the 
 late King, at the time of my departure for 
 abroad, in the summer, was so persuaded that 
 
; 67 
 
 peace would be maintained that he said to me : 
 " This year you will have quiet holidays. You 
 will be able to enjoy three whole months." And 
 when I answered him, " Yes, but no one knows 
 yet what Austria will do," King Carol assured 
 me that the peace of the world was secure for 
 four or five years to come. 
 
 It was the same abroad. I remember that 
 on the Wednesday before the Austrian ultimatum 
 to Serbia was delivered, the British Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs said to me that he 
 was uneasy, and that he could not believe that 
 anyone would be mad enough to provoke a 
 European War, which he described as " the 
 bankruptcy of civilisation," a cataclysm of 
 which no one yet born could foresee all the 
 consequences. 
 
 It is very natural, gentlemen, that this 
 surprise at events known to be possible, 
 but which men hoped they would never see, 
 should, for a certain time, have disturbed all 
 consciences. It especially disturbed, up to the 
 day of the declaration of war, our consciences — 
 the consciences of those few Roumanians who 
 knew our international obligations. 
 
 The great anxiety, which almost paralysed 
 our power of judgment and our vitality, was 
 
 (B536) Q% 
 
68 
 
 the fear that the makers of the war would have 
 the adroitness to preserve their pacific mask 
 to the last, and force the parties attacked to be 
 the ones actually to declare war — for in that 
 case we should have been bound by the letter 
 of the treaty. Gentlemen, it is no secret for 
 anyone that, if war had broken out in such a 
 way that the treaty bound us to take part in 
 it, our age-old loyalty, without any doubt, 
 would have determined us to march against 
 our national interests. We should have hon- 
 oured our signature, for we Roumanians know 
 nothing of the theory of scraps of paper that 
 can be thrown into the waste-basket. (Applause 
 from the Minority.) 
 
 The second difficulty, the second trouble, 
 arose from the very horror, of the cataclysm. 
 Thus, for instance, I declare to you that, at 
 Vienna, on the Thursday of the week of the 
 Passion — the Passion of humanity, war having 
 been declared two days before — it was still 
 confidently believed that England would not 
 depart from her neutrality ; it was confidently 
 believed that Italy would come in on the Austrian 
 side ; people were sure of Bulgaria, of Turkey, 
 and of Japan ; there was a certain doubt only 
 as to Sweden and ourselves. 
 
 This is a good mark that I give to the Govern- 
 ment, this fact that on Holy Thursday there 
 
69 
 
 were still doubts in Vienna as to our attitude. 
 I shall come presently to the bad marks to be 
 assigned to the Government. I begin with the 
 good ones — there were still doubts. 
 
 Gentlemen, there was yet another thing that 
 could not but trouble us. We all knew of the 
 formidable military preparations of Germany ; 
 we knew of the lack of preparation among the 
 Allies. We all knew that the war was the 
 work of a trio of whom Tisza was the chief, 
 Forgach the active agent, and the third 
 was the German Ambassador, Tschirsky. We 
 knew, too, that the note to Serbia had been 
 intentionally drawn up in such terms that it 
 could not be accepted, and that what Vienna 
 most dreaded was that Serbia might nevertheless 
 accept it, which would deprive them of the 
 opportunity of giving Serbia a lesson, if Russia 
 dared not — and to the very last they did not 
 believe that Russia would dare — to set the 
 world on fire, and if Russia had the courage to 
 refuse to accept the humiliation without war, 
 of gaining hegemony by that path. 
 
 THE TREATY WITH THE CENTRAL 
 
 POWERS. 
 There was, however, gentlemen, one thing 
 that caused us to heave a sigh of relief. When 
 
70 
 
 the war began under such conditions that 
 neither the letter nor the spirit of the treaty 
 placed us under any further obligation; when 
 we had the good fortune to find that Italy, 
 whose treaty was identical with ours, imposed 
 the acceptance of her own interpretation, namely 
 that the treaty did not engage us— it was then, 
 gentlemen, that, for the first time, we felt a 
 sensation of relief. A weight was lifted from 
 our hearts. Whatever course the cataclysm 
 might take, one thing was certain : we had 
 escaped the ignominy of contributing with our 
 blood to a victory which would have been our 
 own destruction. (Applause.) 
 
 On the eve of the Council of the Crown, in 
 the course of a conversation with one of the most 
 important politicians of our country, with whom, 
 naturally, I was reviewing all possible hypotheses, 
 at that moment I made to him a declaration 
 which, I am sure, will be revealed when the 
 proper time comes; I said to him : " It is my 
 duty under all circumstances to support the 
 action of my country ; but there is one 
 position to which I shall never reconcile myself ; 
 there is one thing which I, for my part, will 
 never do, whatever may be the issue of the war, 
 whatever may be the strength of the Central 
 Powers or the weakness of the Allies, I will 
 
71 
 
 never give my consent, I will never give my 
 concurrence, to our intervention on the side of 
 Austria-Hungary in a world-war brought about 
 as it has been in the year 1914." 
 
 But, gentlemen, there was yet another thing 
 that at that time weighed upon our minds : 
 though the casus foederis foreseen in the treaty 
 of alliance had not arisen in such a way that 
 the draft could be presented for payment, you 
 may easily suppose that it was still a burden 
 to our State. One cannot be for 31 years the 
 ally of a Power, and then, at a moment's notice, 
 draw the sword against her. There are moral 
 impossibilities. Ah, the great States, no doubt, 
 can afford themselves all the luxuries, among 
 others that of immorality ; but the small 
 nations, who have made themselves by their 
 own efforts, who have to live by the respect 
 paid to their honour, cannot allow themselves 
 such indulgences. We felt all the weight of 
 this treaty also, which I shall examine presently, 
 which did not die politically until the day of 
 the Council of the Crown, which did not cease 
 to exist juridically until the day on which 
 Italy declared Avar against Austria. Politically, 
 the treaty died on the' day of the Council of the 
 Crown, for it was then that it appeared clearly 
 that a defensive alliance to safeguard European 
 
72 
 
 peace could not be transformed by certain 
 allies, however great they might be, into an 
 offensive alliance to break the peace and to 
 satisfy lusts of conquest. Finally, for a casuist 
 in international law, the entry of Italy into the 
 war removed the last possibility of a sophistical 
 interpretation of our alliance. Having entered 
 into an alliance with three parties, what am I 
 to do when two of them fall out ? No one can 
 pretend that I am more the ally of the one than 
 of the other. So much we have at any rate 
 gained, that we have escaped from all bonds, 
 and have become completely masters of our 
 own actions. (Applause.) 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I think it would only 
 be right — after having established that our 
 alliance of 31 years has ceased to exist politically 
 and juridically, after having established, what 
 we all feel, that it has weighed heavily upon us 
 during these seventeen months — it would only 
 be right not to let this political corpse of ours 
 go to its eternal repose without placing its 
 origin in a clear light, without showing its 
 necessity at the time of its conception, without 
 stating the advantages we have derived from it 
 and the evils we have suffered on account 
 of it. 
 
73 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE TREATY. 
 
 Roumania, gentlemen, could not engage in 
 foreign politics, in the European sense s of the 
 term, before the establishment of her independ- 
 ence and her internal consolidation. At one 
 time Roumania wanted — I find proof of the 
 fact in a speech of Stolojan's in 1883, to which I 
 shall return anon — she once wanted, he says, 
 to enter into external politics, always in the 
 direction of which I spoke yesterday, that . is 
 to say, always with a view to crossing the 
 Carpathians. 
 
 And at that time the opportunity was lost. 
 
 Here, gentlemen, is what Stolojan said, in 
 
 1883, of the time of the Italian War: "The 
 
 policy of Napoleon III. with regard to us was 
 
 directed to two ends: one, which he avowed, 
 
 namely, to raise a barrier against Russia ; the 
 
 other, which he as yet kept secret, namely, to 
 
 create, on the flank of Austria a State which 
 
 should come to his aid in the struggle for which 
 
 he was preparing against the Hapsburg States. 
 
 It would be useless to enter into details 
 
 as to the propositions which were made to us, 
 
 to tell you of the mistakes which we committed, 
 
 the indiscretions which lost us the confidence 
 
 of the great Emperor. Let it suffice for me to 
 
 say that we did not enter into his views. It 
 
74 
 
 remains for those who, at that time, had influence 
 and could make themselves heard, to justify 
 themselves in the eyes of the country for not 
 having profited by these moments." 
 
 After this incident, gentlemen, we had no 
 foreign policy, in the true sense of the word, 
 before the war.* After the war, we found our- 
 selves at last an independent State, elevated 
 into the dignity of a kingdom, with our military 
 prestige henceforward re-established, and, what 
 was more important, having acquired on the 
 field of battle the confidence in our own strength, 
 which is perhaps the most powerful weapon a 
 nation can possess for the accomplishment of 
 its mission. And then, gentlemen, inevitably, 
 there began to ferment afresh in the public 
 mind the age-old idea, never extinct, of the 
 passage of the Carpathians. 
 
 People began to believe that Michael the 
 Brave, a legendary hero in virtue of his crossing 
 of the Carpathians, would come to life again, 
 thanks to the glory acquired at Plevna, thanks 
 to the battles beyond the Danube. Thence 
 arose, gentlemen, the movement in the kingdom, 
 a movement which fomented no conspiracy, 
 which had not in view any embarrassing " irre- 
 denta," but a movement of awakening of souls, 
 
 * i.e. the Russo-Turkesi War of 1878-9. 
 
75 
 
 of confidence in our own strength, of livelier 
 hopes for our future. It was at that moment that 
 Austria chose to call us to order. You have 
 heard the avowal of M. Carp himself that, in 
 1881, Austria wanted to place us under her 
 protectorate. The truth is this : Austria, which 
 had opposed the union of the Principalities, as, 
 besides, Russia too had opposed it in 1866, 
 wanted to break us. (Interruptions.) You 
 know the circular of the Russian Foreign Office 
 in 1866, demanding that the Assemblies of 
 Moldavia and Wallachia should again vote 
 separately on the subject of the union, under 
 the pretext that it had been a personal vote 
 for Couza. I have made up my mind, gentle- 
 men, to tell the whole truth, without any con- 
 sideration for the politics of to-day, for I believe 
 that a true alliance between peoples cannot be 
 founded upon a voluntary blindness, but, on 
 the contrary, upon the fullest light, upon the 
 satisfaction of the common interests of to-day, 
 in the hope of harmony concerning the interests 
 of to-morrow as well. 
 
 THE QUESTION OF THE DANUBE. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, with what would you have 
 had Austria strangle us ? She invented the 
 question of the Danube, and she chose an 
 
76 
 
 absolutely favourable moment. There was no 
 one in Europe who could hinder her. Russia ? 
 Russia gave her consent, because she too was 
 interested in an affair on the Lower Danube, 
 and, besides, Russia in 1881 was not in a position 
 to maintain very cordial relations with us. 
 You will tell me that it was her own fault. It 
 is not against the man who has done you wrong 
 that you feel the greatest resentment, but against 
 the man to whom you have done wrong — just 
 as the greatest love is reserved, not for your 
 benefactors, but for those to whom you have 
 been a benefactor. These are psychological 
 truths which no one can dispute. (Applause.) 
 
 Germany ? Germany had just formed an 
 alliance, in 1879, with Austria. Italy ? Italy, 
 gentlemen, was about to enter, a year later, 
 in 1882, into the Triple Alliance. France ? 
 France at that moment had lost much of her 
 importance as a factor in international affairs, 
 having too recently emerged from her tragedy 
 of 1870. And besides, in France, Gambetta 
 cherished the illusion of an alliance with 
 Austria, with a view to la revanche, found- 
 ing his hopes upon the sayings of some 
 Schwarz-gelb of the Vienna Burg, who 
 whispered discreetly into the ears of credulous 
 diplomats, into the ears of those who did not 
 
77 
 
 see the impossibility of France seeking support 
 for la revanche in the Austrian corpse. England ? 
 England was very intimate with Germany. 
 It was under these conditions, gentlemen, that 
 Austria undertook to raise the question of the 
 Danube. I had just returned from abroad, and 
 I remember the agitation which the question 
 aroused in the country. Every one understood 
 that it was not so much the Danube that 
 mattered, that a much graver question was 
 really at stake, the question whether we were 
 to lose our independence. 
 
 M. Oarp told you that, on the question of the 
 Danube, Germany alone took our part. Permit 
 me to tell him that he is mistaken. Here are 
 the facts. When the Conference of London 
 met, the first question raised was : Should 
 Roumania be admitted ? And on that point 
 I read : " England, and up to a certain point 
 Italy, were of opinion that Roumania should 
 be admitted. But the German Ambassador 
 opposed the proposition, ' because,' said his 
 Excellency, c if one gave her the right to vote, 
 one would create for her an undesirable position 
 — that of being able to oppose her veto at will.' " 
 I quote from M. Nenitzesco. 
 
 Ah, gentlemen, after the treaty had been 
 concluded without us, when Count Karolyi, 
 
78 
 
 the plenipotentiary of Austria, demanded that 
 the stipulations of the Conference should be 
 declared enforceable, it was not till then that 
 Count Mtinster, the representative of Germany, 
 opposed the demand, declaring that no measure 
 of. compulsion could be taken to secure the 
 execution of the decisions of the Conference of 
 London. 
 
 M. Zamfir Filotti. — In the meantime, the 
 protest made in our name by Stourdza had been 
 received, declaring that we would not accept the 
 Conference of London. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — Naturally ; but there 
 were two ways of making our opinion prevail. 
 One was that we should be admitted to the 
 Conference, where our vote would have blocked 
 the proposal. The other was that, after the 
 conclusion of the treaty without us, it should 
 not be imposed on us. Roumania was abandoned 
 by Germany on the first point, when England 
 and Italy were in our favour. On the second 
 point, Germany helped us. 
 
 But at what price ? The price, gentlemen, 
 was our treaty of alliance with Austria. In 
 fact, gentlemen, after the conclusion at London 
 of the treaty on the Danube, which gave to 
 Austria, as M. Carp very rightly said, a 
 protectorate over Roumania. ... 
 
79 
 
 M. P. P. Carp. — I said " over the Danube." 
 M. Take Jonesco.— You said " over 
 Roumania." Do you withdraw your words ? 
 Very well ; but it is certain that the political 
 consequences would react upon Roumania. 
 
 M. P. P. Carp.— Evidently. 
 
 AN INTOLERABLE SITUATION. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — After that, gentlemen, as 
 Roumania still objected, a new incident fell all 
 of a sudden from the skies, which Austria seized 
 upon. On the 5th of June, 1883, at the un- 
 veiling of the statue of Stephen the Great at 
 Jassy, M. Pierre Gradishteano, who was at 
 that time senator or- deputy, I forget which, 
 spoke at the banquet of the two pearls which 
 were missing from the crown of Stephen the 
 Great. 
 
 Of these pearls, gentlemen, one, the larger, 
 was beyond the Pruth, was Bessarabia ; the 
 other, the smaller, was the Bukovina. 
 
 No protest came from Russia, for Russia 
 did not think that her military power would 
 dissolve in a glass of champagne, so tha,t she 
 could no longer defend her frontier. 
 
 But from beyond the mountains, where the 
 desire was to pick a quarrel with us at any cost, 
 
80 
 
 and at any cost, as in the case of Serbia, to put 
 an end to Roumanian arrogance, bred of the 
 victories on the plains of Bulgaria, and regarded 
 as menacing to Hungary — from beyond the 
 mountains came formidable protests. Our ex- 
 cuses, the explanations which followed, availed 
 us nothing. The situation had become in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 The word " intolerable " I borrow from one 
 of the authors of the Alliance, from a man who 
 was under no illusion as to what he had done. 
 He said to me that it was the only way of saving 
 an intolerable situation — I repeat, intolerable; 
 
 And then, gentlemen, Jean Bratiano went on 
 leave for 40 days, on the 12th of July ; King 
 Carol left on the 4th of August. He met Jean 
 Bratiano on August 6th at Breslau. On August 
 10th, Bratiano returned home. From Berlin 
 the King went to Vienna, and stayed at the 
 Burg. He returned to Predeal on the 16th of 
 August. Lastly, on August 23rd, Bratiano set 
 off again, for 15 days, to Gastein. It was then 
 that the alliance was concluded. 
 
 Would you like to know the reason for these 
 journeys ? This is what Jean Bratiano said 
 in his speech of October 29th, 1883: " You 
 have seen what difficulties have been caused for 
 us by the mistranslation of a single word, sub 
 
81 
 
 cuvant (from the motive), which was rendered 
 in French by the expression sous pretexte; you 
 have seen that, in face of the statue of Stephen 
 the Great, who was the oldest friend of 
 Austria." . . . 
 
 Friend of Austria ? Bratiano required to 
 hit upon something to get himself out of his 
 embarrassment, so he introduced a little 
 anachronism. M. Iorga will check me if I am 
 wrong. 
 
 " A few words have been spoken at a banquet, 
 and because this banquet was semi-official, 
 what difficulties have these words, spoken in a 
 moment of patriotic enthusiasm, created for 
 us!" 
 
 One can see clearly from this quotation what 
 pressure Austria brought to bear upon us, and 
 why we could find no other way out but the 
 alliance. 
 
 And further on : — 
 
 " At that time Prince Bismarck said to me : 
 ' It is your own fault, since neither you Ministers 
 nor your King any longer travel in Europe, 
 so that our only information about you comes 
 from those who want to blacken you.' " 
 
 We were suspected — we were accused of 
 wanting to provoke Austria. 
 
82 
 
 " After that, four or five days passed, and our 
 King was invited to go to Berlin to the baptism 
 of a nephew of the German Emperor. 
 
 "I intimated then to my colleague at the 
 Foreign Office that I was doing all in my power 
 to secure that the King should accept this invita- 
 tion, so that it might be seen that neither the 
 King, nor the country, nor we, the Ministers, 
 had lost our instinct of self preservation to 
 such a point that we wanted war." 
 
 You see, gentlemen, that in 1883 we were. 
 
 -J accused of planning war with Austria — the same 
 
 accusation that was brought against Serbia in 
 
 1914, when she was accused of planning war 
 
 against Austria. 
 
 And Bratiano continued : — 
 
 " But you ask me what I went there to get. 
 I went, gentlemen, to meet the King at Breslau — 
 Prince Bismarck and Count Kalmucki wished 
 to see me ; they wished to assure themselves 
 whether there were any reservations on the part 
 of anyone, whoever it might be, or not." 
 
 After this Bratiano gives a series of explana- 
 tions, and he concludes by these words : " I 
 have taken as my maxim the words that Prince 
 Bismarck twice repeated to me, and I say : 
 ' We are for peace, and whoever provokes war, 
 
83 
 
 or wishes to make an invasion, will have us for 
 his enemy.' " 
 
 Prophetic words. Then they served to justify 
 the alliance with Austria. Once more we can 
 to-day apply them literally ; once more we are 
 to-day the enemy of those who have provoked 
 war. (Applause.) 
 
 I have shown you the origin of the Alliance 
 of 1883, of that Alliance which has lasted for 
 31 years, which has been of service to us, I 
 am going to show it, which has also done us 
 harm, which I shall also show. 
 
 The conclusion of this Alliance came, not so 
 much from our fear of Russia, as from the fact 
 that our other neighbour made our life intoler- 
 able, and that we found no other means except 
 the Alliance to make our existence tolerable. 
 
 In exchange the Protocol about the Danube 
 was naturally given up, for no one wishes to 
 throttle an ally ; that would be superfluous ; 
 one keeps that for neutrals or one's enemies. 
 
 I said, gentlemen, that our Alliance was a 
 forced alliance. That is why, some years ago, 
 when two Ministers of Foreign Affairs, one 
 retired, the other in office, asked me at Paris 
 how it was possible that we could be allies of 
 Hungary, we who could never become a great 
 
84 
 
 country except at the expense of Hungary, 
 I answered — " And the alliance of Italy with 
 Austria, do you understand that ? " And when 
 they said to me, " Certainly, it is an alliance of 
 fear," I replied — " Why do you think that 
 Italy alone is afraid ? " 
 
 And then these gentlemen answered :- — " You 
 are right, but we ask for one thing only, that is to 
 say, that the day when you are forced to choose, 
 the circumstances may be such that you have 
 freedom of choice and also that you may be 
 strong enough to be able to put your choice 
 into execution." {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF THE ALLIANCE. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, is it the case that this 
 Alliance has not been of any use to us ? Yes, 
 certainly it has ; it has procured us money. 
 M. Carp said — " Do not forget that it is Germany 
 which gave us the money necessary for our 
 development ; there was difficulty in getting 
 France to give us any." 
 
 Ah, M. Carp, if I now were in power, and if 
 I were to ask for money from Austria, would 
 not that be madness ? Was it possible that, 
 when we were in an alliance which at a given 
 moment could place us in a camp opposed to 
 that of France, we should expect that France 
 
85 
 
 would give us money ? I, for my part, regard 
 the few hundreds of millions of Roumanian 
 stock taken by France as a miracle, for the 
 natural thing would have been that all our loans 
 should be placed with those who were to profit 
 by our military and economic development. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Alliance has given us tran- 
 quility. This is no small matter. For a certain 
 number of years we have lived in peace, and we 
 have been able to develop. We must recognise 
 this to the credit of those who concluded the 
 Alliance, although against their will. 
 
 Something else the Alliance gave us, to which 
 my friend Filipeseo lately drew my attention. 
 The persecution of the Roumanians beyond the 
 mountains was at times alleviated just because 
 of the Alliance. Whatever one may say, it 
 is not possible to tread under foot, to strangle 
 the Roumanian population with the same 
 severity, when Roumania is an ally, as it was 
 when she was in a hostile group. 
 
 Something else, again, the Alliance gave us, 
 a plaything for our sentiments during recent v/ 
 years — certain projects which were made at 
 Buda-Pest for concessions to the Roumanians 
 in Hungary, projects which, gentlemen, were a 
 true thermometer. Whenever Hungary feared 
 a general war the concessions increased ; when- 
 
86 
 
 ever the fear of a general war diminished, 
 even those concessions which had already been 
 granted were revoked. In truth, no one has 
 ever been able seriously to consider, or could 
 ever consider, concessions of this kind as a 
 solution of the problem. There can be no con- 
 cession when a question is at stake in which the 
 life of one side excludes the life of the other. 
 There are temporary modi vivendi; there are 
 those conditions of inferiority to which one can 
 resign oneself when it is not possible to attain 
 the superior condition of national unity. (Pro- 
 longed applause.) 
 
 ILLUSIONS. 
 
 At* first, gentlemen, the Alliance had also 
 given us illusions. 
 
 This was necessary. It was difficult to say 
 to a people who for centuries had lived in the 
 hope of passing the Carpathians that their 
 dream was closed for ever, and not open to 
 it some other prospect. How strange appears 
 to-day the speech of Stolojan, in which he 
 laid down his programme on his motion of 
 October, 1883, a motion which he had arranged 
 with Jean Bratiano in order to give the latter 
 an opportunity for making the declaration which 
 I read out to you just now. 
 
87 
 
 In Stolo jan's speech, which Bratiano des- 
 cribed as " well-informed, patriotic and clever," 
 we were offered nothing less than the whole 
 Balkan Peninsula and Constantinople. But in 
 the same motion an unpardonable fault was also 
 committed. For the first time we were represented 
 as supporters of polyglot states; we were told 
 that our ideal, the state of a single race and a 
 single tongue, was too narrow. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am going to quote you certain 
 portions from this debate. Now that we are 
 making up the final balance of the past, a past 
 which is finished for ever, and which no one will 
 ever be able to revive, it is well to recognise 
 both our profits and our losses, and also the 
 illusions with which we were nourished in former 
 days. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Stolojan, " our civilisation 
 has, for the greater part, come to us from 
 Transylvania, and our national ideal shows the 
 result of this. In my opinion it is too one-sided, 
 and this is the reason why I make this digression. 
 We must enlarge our conception; we must 
 elevate our ideal." 
 
 After this statement, Stolojan passes to the 
 Balkan Peninsula, and says : " The existence 
 of the Ottoman Empire has now come to an 
 end. It is only by a miracle that it continues 
 
88 
 
 its life over which judgment has been pro- 
 nounced ; everyone sees its end — the real interest 
 of the whole world is to know who will replace 
 the Turks. That is the reason why everyone 
 offers his services that the East may not remain 
 without a master." 
 
 After this, the speaker shows that the 
 Hungarians pose as inheritors of Turkey. He 
 examines their claims and he proves that ours 
 would be more legitimate. Listen : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, I have told you that I do not 
 ask you to examine whether such aspirations 
 on the part of the Magyars are possible ; I 
 am content to ask you : — Are we, the 
 Roumanians, we who by ourselves are more 
 numerous than all the nationalities of the East, 
 are we not to think of the role which we are 
 called to fill in the East, since we have numbers 
 on our side ? The East is sown with our 
 colonies. The Serbs and Bulgarians hate one 
 another. South of Widdin, in Bulgaria, in 
 Eastern Serbia, is a dense population, consisting 
 solely of Roumanians who separate the Serbs 
 from the Bulgarians. In Macedonia, in Thessaly, 
 in Epirus the Roumanians in numerous compact 
 colonies separate the Greeks from the Bulgarians, 
 the Albanians from the Greeks ; with the 
 Roumanian language one can travel throughout 
 
89 
 
 the whole of the Peninsula. Tradition, historical 
 memories are for us. Formerly we formed a 
 political state with the Bulgarians ; the Serbs 
 are glad to recognise that it is the Roumanians 
 alone with whom throughout their whole history 
 they have never been at war; the Albanians, 
 so hostile to the Greeks, live in perfect harmony 
 with the Roumanians." 
 
 And that the matter might be still clearer 
 he added : 
 
 " We ask no one to repudiate his nationality, 
 for we have written on our flag * Popular 
 Government ' ; with us, as with the peoples 
 of the East, there is no aristocracy ; on our 
 flag is inscribed not only religious toleration, 
 but also national toleration. Our ideal, we 
 proclaim it aloud, is Switzerland, is Belgium, a 
 political state which equally protects all 
 nationalities ; in a word, we have proved that 
 we can govern foreign races to their satisfaction." 
 
 This new ideal, which is put forward as 
 enlarging our aspirations, in truth was a 
 repudiation of the very foundation of our 
 existence. Our existence is based, not on a 
 dynasty which has gathered round it different 
 provinces, nor on a geographical necessity ; 
 our existence has no other basis than national 
 sovereignty, the result of our national unity, 
 
90 
 
 of our ethnical homogeneity, of our mora? 
 unity. (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 I have turned to the past, gentlemen, in order 
 to show you that, even when under the pressure 
 of necessity, to escape an ultimatum a la 
 Serbia, we entered into the alliance, even then 
 there was opened to us the prospect of other 
 aspirations, while now, now that Bulgaria has 
 tied herself to the triumphant chariot of the 
 Magyars, now that Buda-Pest and Sofia have 
 become one, we are asked to follow the same 
 policy, but the Carpathians and the Danube are 
 closed to us, we are deprived even of the crumbs 
 of those illusions of the polyglot State which we 
 were to govern with justice for the good of all 
 the nationalities, a Belgian ideal, or a Swiss 
 ideal. (Applause.) 
 
 TWO " IRREDENTE." 
 
 But, anyhow, gentlemen, did they keep their 
 word ? Only a few years after the Treaty of 
 Alliance was signed Bulgaria wished to make a 
 personal union with us. When we are able to 
 search in the archives it will be seen that Austria 
 opposed this personal union ; it is certain that 
 Austria opposed it. 
 
 Later there came a moment when Serbia 
 wished to make a personal union with us. I 
 
91 
 
 cannot to-day say all I know about this, for 
 I had to be one of the actors in this matter. We 
 refused, and we could not but refuse. The thing 
 was impossible. We knew well that our ally 
 would never have tolerated the personal union 
 of the two irredente, the Serbian irredenta 
 and the Roumanian irredenta. 
 
 ■ All the illusions have vanished, all. During 
 the years 1912 and 1913, in our painful trials, 
 it is certain that, apart from the official support 
 which was given us so far as words went, we 
 felt all the time that difficulties were being put 
 in our way, Vienna said, and rightly from her 
 point of view : a Roumania if too strong, like 
 a Serbia if too strong, is a danger to us. 
 Bulgaria alone has no irredenta in Austria, a 
 powerful Bulgaria is in our interest. 
 
 Gentlemen, my policy, my small influence in 
 the Balkan policy of Roumania in 1912 and 
 1913, this policy which has brought on me so 
 many annoyances, like this philo-Bulgarianism 
 with which I have been so much reproached, 
 had its origin in a single object : I did 
 not wish for any action or any combination 
 which would put us in hostility with all the 
 Christians beyond the Danube — then when they 
 were still allies — and which would inevitably 
 have drawn us to ask for the support of the 
 
92 
 
 Hungarians, and to put in action the Alliance 
 by which we were bound to them. 
 
 My whole object, the clue of my conduct, 
 was to avoid all which might have brought 
 us to comradeship in arms with Austria- 
 Hungary. 
 
 Gentlemen, I preferred to endure much, and 
 suffer much, rather than expose ourselves to the 
 misfortune of bringing about a general war — 
 a general war in which we should have 
 found ourselves on the side of Austria against 
 the peoples beyond the Danube, against the 
 Serbians, the Bulgarians and the Greeks, and 
 against the Triple Entente. 
 
 If we did afterwards pass the Danube — 
 I do not know if all those who did it knew why 
 they did it — I, at least, know that we did not 
 pass the Danube till we were certain that our 
 action could not provoke general war, and that 
 even if it might produce bad blood in some of 
 our Allies, it was convenient to the other group 
 of Powers, to that group which we hoped to 
 join some day, however distant the day might 
 be, in order to realise our national unity. 
 {Prolonged applause from the Minority.) 
 
 Gentlemen, there are things which cannot be 
 changed by any diplomatic combination ; M. 
 
93 
 
 Daneff still knows that in the conversation 
 which I had with him on the day of the opening 
 of Parliament during the autumn of 1912, I 
 said to him : " We are forced to maintain good 
 relations. You need us because we separate 
 you from the great empires, and we need you 
 because we do not wish to be caught between the 
 shears — unfortunately we are caught to-day — 
 for, if we have your permanent enmity, we can 
 only have permanent enmity on the other side 
 of the Carpathians. Indeed, even if we had 
 the cowardice to renounce our ideal, the Magyars 
 would never believe in the sincerity of our 
 cowardice, and we should always have their 
 hostility, whatever we might say, whatever 
 we might do." {Prolonged applause from the 
 Minority .) 
 
 The instinct of the nation was so powerful 
 that when we, the Government, mobilised to 
 enter Bulgaria, the people interpreted our 
 mobilisation by the placards which they carried 
 in the street, and on which were written, " Down 
 with Austria ! " 
 
 When we sent our soldiers across the Danube, 
 they, in their barracks, said that the passage 
 of the Danube was the road to Transylvania. 
 The road to Transylvania through Bulgaria! 
 Experience proves to us that their instinct 
 
94 
 
 was wiser than our judgment. (Prolonged 
 applause.) 
 
 The necessity of escaping from the shears in 
 which fate has placed us can no longer be satisfied 
 by diplomatic combinations, but only by such 
 increase of our strength, by such recuperation 
 of our energies that we may be able to struggle 
 to right and to left to defend our secular rights. 
 (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 THE ALLIANCE HAS LASTED TOO LONG. 
 
 Gentlemen, the Alliance of 1883 has caused 
 us other disappointments. Serious accusations 
 are brought, and brought with justice, not only 
 against the present Government, but against all 
 the Governments, on the grounds that circum- 
 stances have not found us sufficiently prepared. 
 It is not a question of moral preparation, 
 as M. Stere suggested. No, morally we are 
 always prepared for national action ; let it be 
 known that action has been determined on, 
 and you would see how within 24 hours all those 
 who to-day declare that they are hostile to it, 
 would disappear beneath the earth. (Prolonged 
 and continued applause. " Bravo ! ") 
 
 But material preparation ? Yes, gentlemen, 
 our material preparation leaves much to be 
 desired. Our material preparation has been 
 
95 
 
 sacrificed to the old Alliance of 31 years. We 
 ceased to think of any other hypotheses. The 
 composition of our artillery,- our system of 
 fortifications, the failure to create factories of 
 arms and munitions, the failure to provide the 
 essentials of supplies, the whole of our organisa- 
 tion, all was based on the single hypothesis 
 that our western frontier would be open ; 
 that by this western frontier we should be 
 able to get at the time all that we might want. 
 That, certainly, has weighed upon us in present 
 circumstances. In this, it cannot be doubted, 
 is one of the worst consequences of the Alliance 
 of 31 years. 
 
 Our fault did not consist in having concluded 
 the Alliance in 1883, but in lingering too long 
 in this Alliance and above all in not having 
 used it with a certain liberty. Nothing is 
 stronger than inertia. 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITIES. 
 
 This is the condition in which the war found 
 us. That which happened at the moment of the 
 declaration of war did not depend upon us. 
 That which happened in the first days after the 
 declaration of war did not depend upon us. 
 But that which happened a month later did 
 depend upon us. 
 
96 
 
 Well, gentlemen, did we do all that we ought 
 to have done ? Have the accusations as to the 
 moments that .we allowed to pass by any 
 foundation ? Or have we simply to do with 
 an exaggeration on our side ? 
 
 The fact that during the last year no one 
 among us has spoken out, is it not characteristic ? 
 Why did we not speak during the past year ? 
 Why do we speak now ? Is it because we wish 
 to make speeches ? But who among us is there 
 who does not know that even if he succeeded 
 in putting into words all he thought, still his 
 speech would be below the level of the events 
 with which he deals ? 
 
 Would it be because we wished to fix the 
 responsibility ? 
 
 But what should we do with these responsi- 
 bilities ? Who among us is so small as to 
 imagine that when the destiny of a people is at 
 stake we could be interested in the responsibility 
 of a man, of a Government, of a party, or of a 
 Parliament ? {Prolonged and repeated applause. 
 "Bravo!") 
 
 M. A. C. Couza. — This theory also is dangerous. 
 
 M. Take Jonesco. — No, gentlemen, it is not 
 the question of responsibility which urges us 
 on. If I, in my turn, wish, as other members 
 
97 
 
 of the Opposition have done, to establish certain 
 points, certain mistakes, it is only in order that 
 in future mistakes may be avoided. For, 
 gentlemen, in ordinary life the consequences of 
 mistakes are simple ; the Government is changed 
 and there's an end of it ! In events like those 
 of to-day, it would be no good to change Govern- 
 ments, the sins which had been committed 
 would not be rectified. In ordinary life conse- 
 quences are simple. Certain men fall ; certain 
 parties are weakened. But, to-day, what does 
 the maintenance or the fall of men or parties 
 profit us? {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 Who is there among us so filled with vanity as 
 to imagine that his person, his life, his career, 
 the career and future of his friends, can weigh 
 in the balance with which the destiny of a 
 nation is measured? {Prolonged and repeated 
 applause. ' ' Bravo ! " ) Is there anyone among us 
 who would not with joy sacrifice his past, his 
 present, and his future, who would not willingly 
 be buried in eternal obscurity, so that even 
 his very name should be forgotten, for the sake 
 of the moment which should produce the hero 
 who would give us a great Roumania. {Long 
 and repeated applause. " Bravo I ") 
 
 (B535) b 
 
98 
 
 FAVOURABLE MOMENTS. 
 
 But, gentlemen, confidence without reason 
 and silence without motive would be a sin 
 both against the country which we represent, 
 against you who direct her forces, and against 
 the generations which have preceded us, and 
 against those who will follow after us. In all 
 sincerity — though I wish with all my heart 
 I may be mistaken — in all sincerity we believe 
 that you have made mistakes, that you have let 
 great opportunities pass, and we doubt very 
 much if such opportunities will come again. 
 These opportunities were discussed. Lemberg 
 was mentioned. Others answered. What was 
 their answer ? Strategy ? I do not concern 
 myself with military strategy, I am concerned 
 with political strategy. Certain it is that after 
 Lemberg, Austria lost her head. 
 
 Certain it is that, at that moment, she was in 
 real terror that we should come into the war ; 
 certain it is that at that moment we could 
 have done* wonders, but, in justice, I must say 
 that there were certain difficulties which would 
 have hampered any Roumanian Government. 
 
 I must not to-day, when we alone speak and 
 the others do not answer— and therefore in what 
 we say we must neither lay traps nor in any way 
 
99 
 
 sin by injustice — I must not to-day recall the 
 greatness of the lost opportunity without at 
 the same time remembering the difficulties, 
 those difficulties which could not be put on one 
 side, without making decisions which to me 
 seemed easy to make, but which to others 
 appeared too difficult. 
 
 And I cannot conscientiously state that the 
 possibility of putting these difficulties on one 
 side was nearer to the truth of facts than what 
 appeared to others to be the impossibility. 
 
 Then, gentlemen, another moment came, a 
 moment which all the country was waiting for, 
 and when the difficulties I have just referred to, 
 the difficulties of the Lemberg days, had ceased 
 to exist ; my conviction is that those difficulties 
 could not have reappeared; and then — it is 
 merely a question of conviction — at that 
 moment, gentlemen, at the moment of Italy's 
 entry, our entry into the war was clearly 
 indicated, and this step would probably have 
 influenced the political situation in Bulgaria 
 in spite of the obstinacy of King Ferdinand. 
 
 I know the extenuating circumstances which 
 are alleged, but in spite of everything, I thought 
 then, and I think to-day, that we ought to have 
 profited by this moment, even if we had to make 
 certain sacrifices. I expressed myself at the 
 
100 
 
 time in these terms. It will only be if experience 
 proves that those sacrifices have been finally 
 avoided, it will only be if. experience proves 
 that we have gained all that we might have 
 gained at that moment, only then will I say 
 meet culpa. I will say it with all my heart, 
 for there is no one who would sooner have 
 been mistaken, and have to ask pardon, rather 
 than be proved to have been right in maintaining 
 that the country has lost a great opportunity. 
 (Prolonged applause.) 
 
 Then, gentlemen, came the third moment, 
 the moment when Bulgaria threw aside the mask 
 she had worn for so long, when she adopted a 
 course of action explicable perhaps by the 
 morality of the counting-house, but which 
 can never be forgiven. 
 
 At that moment we were under the obligation 
 to defend Serbia. This I know, for I am one of 
 those who wrote and signed that undertaking. 
 But it was more than an obligation, for what is 
 an obligation at a time when treaties count 
 for nothing ? It was to our interest to defend 
 Serbia. 
 
 I know well, gentlemen, all that can be 
 argued, when it is a question of proving what 
 would have happened, if such and such a thing 
 had not existed. All the same, it is difficult 
 
101 
 
 to say to-day whether, if Roumania had 
 mobilised at the same time as Bulgaria, in 
 Greece that great man might not have stayed 
 in power, who was evidently so much greater 
 than his country, which is just as serious a 
 misfortune as that the leader of a people should 
 be less great than the people. (Applause.) 
 One cannot deny that this possibility existed, 
 I am even convinced that it was. a probability. 
 And I do not believe that we here did everything 
 that we might have done to bring about this, 
 possibility. I hope I may be mistaken, but I 
 fear that I am not. 
 
 Gentlemen, I see all that we have lost by our 
 inaction, at that moment when we might have 
 stopped the crushing of the Serbian army, 
 and the descent of the Germans towards the 
 south, at that moment when we knew that the 
 Allies would come, as they have come, at that 
 moment when we were powerful enough to hold 
 back the enemy even till this day — there is 
 amongst the members of the House a General 
 who has always adhered to this conviction, and 
 he is not alone in his opinion — I see that we 
 have suffered a loss worse than the notorious 
 material isolation. I fear that we may find our- 
 selves in that moral isolation which to me seems 
 a much graver danger. One is too apt to 
 
 (B535) b 
 
102 
 
 forget, gentlemen, that in these days it is no 
 longer the Cabinets but the peoples themselves 
 who control politics. 
 
 That hour that we have allowed to pass was 
 the hour in which, while fighting for our own 
 interests, our own ideals, we could at the same 
 time render the greatest service, a service 
 which, however long the war may last, we shall 
 never again be able to render. (Minority 
 applause.) And by these means we might have 
 gained rights amongst the peoples who lead 
 Europe, which we may sorely need in the future, 
 for no one can foresee how events may turn, 
 and what dangers may await us. It was in 
 our power to avert from the Quadruple Alliance 
 the moral grief of the abandonment of Serbia. 
 We only could have prevented it, and no one 
 else. 
 
 Ten million soldiers in Paris were then worth 
 less than our army here. We alone could have 
 arrived in time ; we alone could have prevented 
 what has happened ; we alone could thus have 
 gained rights in Eastern Europe, a real moral 
 hegemony, while at the same time playing a 
 European part, since we should have been the 
 determining factor in the action of Europe. 
 ( * [Bravo ! ' ' Prolonged app lause from the Opposi- 
 tion. ) 
 
103 
 
 It is not a question of "panache ." No one 
 has the right to sacrifice human lives for political 
 mummery, but since we know that we ought in 
 any case to take part in the war — I for my part, 
 at any rate, am convinced of it — I should have 
 /preferred that our entry into the war should 
 coincide with the possibility of playing a 
 European part. I would have wishecl this for little 
 Roumania, which, in these circumstances, thanks 
 to its position, thanks to this unique historical 
 moment which will never return, could, small 
 power though she be, have done the work of a 
 Great Power. (" Bravos ! " Prolonged applause. ) 
 
 Gentlemen, I am so penetrated by what I 
 say to you that, believe me, I find as it were a 
 note of interrogation in my conscience. I have 
 no doubt as to the conditions of the problem, 
 but I ask myself : Is there not a mystery which 
 you do not know ? Not a condition of the 
 problem, I repeat, but a mystery, since my 
 reason, my judgment, my knowledge of the 
 situation, everything, absolutely everything, 
 prevents me from understanding how, why, 
 Roumania did not fulfil her duty at the moment 
 when Bulgaria entered into the war, how 
 Roumania in so inexplicable a manner could 
 renounce both her glory and her safety. 
 
 Gentlemen, there is one thing only in M. Stere's 
 
 / 
 
104 
 
 speech which impressed me, and that must 
 have impressed you also. M. Stere said to us : 
 " Let it be so, I admit the crushing of Austria " 
 — for my part it is not a question of admitting 
 it, I am convinced that she will be brought into 
 liquidation ; that, like all artificial things, she 
 will not be able to survive a disturbance of this 
 kind — "but," added M. Stere, "there are others 
 beside us who have mortgages on Austria which 
 take precedence of ours ; it will be they who 
 will have to be satisfied first ; Italy, Russia, 
 Serbia ; you who take up your mortgage so 
 late, how can you be sure that you would be able 
 to foreclose ? You have lost priority," said 
 M. Stere, " you have failed even in your own 
 policy." 
 
 He is right, we have lost priority. I hope 
 with all my soul that we might be able to regain 
 it, for, gentlemen, if I have insisted and if I 
 insist on these mistakes, it is that they may not 
 be repeated. 
 
 ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 But will there be another opportunity ? 
 Often my judgment makes me doubt, but a 
 devouring passion drives away my doubts, 
 for did I not believe that our opportunity would 
 come I could not have found the strength to 
 moxmt this tribune. 
 
105 
 
 I believe that the hour will strike, but for 
 this hour I demand, in place of a passive attitude 
 which awaits events, an active attitude which 
 prepares for the hour and makes it come. {Pro- 
 longed and repeated applause.) 
 
 When a nation has claims as great as ours, 
 when the satisfaction of these claims is a question 
 of life or death, I find that we are not fulfilling our 
 duty if we wait until the chance comes to us. 
 No, gentlemen, we must act to make the hour 
 come in which we can throw all our strength, 
 all our energy, into the scale. (Prolonged 
 applause. ) 
 
 For try to imagine what would be our fate 
 if the great hour were not to return, if we had to 
 remain in our present situation. Have you made 
 the calculation ? It would be life in permanent 
 shame, and the shame would take from it all 
 its value ; it would be to complete our days in 
 the most terrible torture. 
 
 Recently a former friend reproached me. 
 Some among us had thought — we were obviously 
 wrong — of our own personal lot. In a Roumania 
 which had done its duty, but which had not 
 succeeded, our duty would have been to perse- 
 vere to the last gasp and to work with more 
 energy than ever. But in a Roumania which 
 
106 
 
 had dishonoured itself, how should we be able to 
 live ? And I thought in a moment of moral 
 weakness that nothing would be left for us but 
 exile. Exile also would have been impossible 
 for us, for tell me in what corner of the globe 
 a Roumanian would be able to walk without 
 keeping his gaze constantly fixed on the earth ! 
 (Applause.) 
 
 And now, gentlemen, let us consider the other 
 hypothesis. 
 
 Suppose that our great sacrifices — they will 
 be very great — agreed on at this moment, under 
 circumstances which offer us prospects which 
 we could never have expected, and which will 
 never return, should end by giving us the 
 Roumania of our dreams. 
 
 Think not so much of her territorial extent, 
 not so much of the number of her inhabitants ; 
 think of the moral greatness of the New 
 Roumania. 
 
 All our customary life, all our petty combina- 
 tions, all our disputes which have exhausted 
 our strength and have tarnished our youth, 
 all those artificial combinations, the last rem- 
 nants of the oligarchy of a petty principality, 
 how all that would be swept away by the great 
 stream which would put in their place a new life. 
 (Long and repeated applause.) 
 
107 
 
 .Think of the problem which men separated 
 for a thousand years will have to solve ; think 
 of the useful and productive labour which the 
 young will have to accomplish in order to 
 organise the new foundations of the new 
 Roumanian State. I see the gates of paradise 
 opening and a superstitious fear bids me close 
 my eyes ; it is too beautiful ! {Long and 
 repeated app lause . ' ' Bravos I " ) 
 
 The task of writing a living epic has fallen 
 on the shoulders of our generation, though no 
 generation has been less prepared for the heroic 
 life. We are the first Roumanian generation 
 which has inherited without producing. 
 
 It is the labour of past generations, their 
 sufferings, their warlike deeds in time of war, 
 their diplomacy in the period of diplomacy, 
 which have set up this tribune. It is to their 
 sacrifices that we owe the right of speaking 
 as we now speak ; to this we have contributed 
 nothing. {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 Our generation, which lived during the too rapid 
 growth of wealth in Roumania, has a taste for 
 comfort which does not urge us to heroism. Is not 
 the factitious life of Bukarest during the 17 last 
 months, during which is unfolded the tragedy of 
 the Roumanians who die under every flag and 
 
108 
 
 suffer everywhere, an insult to the grief of the 
 nation ? {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 This noise of traffic which is heard even 
 on this tribune where we discourse of the sacred 
 mysteries of our race, does it not show how 
 little this generation is prepared for the part that 
 it ought to play ? {Prolonged applause.) 
 
 And, notwithstanding all, chance has willed 
 it that it should be this generation which 
 accomplishes our destiny. It will either dig the 
 grave of the labour of centuries or it will create 
 an epoch so beautiful that the vision of it plunges 
 me into humility and blinds me with excess of 
 light. {Prolonged applause. " Bravos ! ") 
 
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