ROUMANIA AND THE GREAT WAR.* ALL who desire to understand
the position of Roumania, and the relations in which she stands not only to the neighbouring Balkan States but to the Great Powers, should study Mr. Seton-Watson's well-informed and statesmanlike book, BOtifftettlia and the Great War. When the German Staff were considering what troops to send to South-West Africa, to put down the Herero rising, they are said to have declared that they must make a choice between men who could shoot but not ride and men who could ride bat not shoot—a portentous dilemma, since what was wanted was men who could do both ; who were, in fact, those military hermaphrodites, mounted infantrymen, or, as our forefathers would have said, Dragoons. In the same way what we want when, as at the present moment, mare confronted with the complicated and difficult problems of South-Eastern Europe is a book written by one who is an expert as to the facts, and who is also able to take a wise and sympathetic view of them on the political side. Unfortunately, it is not easy to meet with this combination. It too often happens that the people who know the facts intimately have had their judgments coloured by local prejudices. On the other hand, the men of judgment and good sense have not sufficient local knowledge, and therefore cannot speak with full assurance. Happily, in Mr. Seton.Watson's ease we get the desired combination. He is the mounted infantryman of our analogy. He can both ride and shoot. He knows the local facts, and be maintains a statesmanlike attitude on the main problems. Though he is a philo-Slav in a high degree, he can understand the position of that strange Latin colony in partibus infieletiunro which still stands possessed of the ancient Dada. Whether the Roumanians are in the true ethnological sense a Latin race does not matter. They talk the Latin tongue, they have a Latin culture and Latin aspirations, and that is enough. If not actually Roman by blood, they are at any rate Roman by adoption, and in the Roman law adoption was, and is, as strong a tie as birth.
As Mr. Seton-Watson points out at the beginning of his book, the Roumanian race has proved its birthright by its marvel- lous tenacity. It has kept the name and it has kept the language, and, still better, it has kept the Roman proverb, Romanul nu pere (" The Roumanian never dies"). In spite of the drums and tramplinge not of three but a thousand conquests, in spite of the Slav, the Hun, the Magyar, and the Turk, the Roumanians have managed to keep their heads above water and to constitute themselves the most powerful of the Balkan States. They have now reached the turning- point in their development. If they steer a right course, they should come out of this war a great nation, with Transylvania and Bukowina incorporated in a Roumanian kingdom of some twelve million inhabitants or more, a kingdom capable under wise development of very great expansion. If all goes well for Roumania—which, to put it briefly, means that the Allies, and not the Austrians and Magyars, should 'win —the great problem which the Roumanians will have to deal with will be how to treat the considerable number of Slays, Magyars, and Teutons—that is, the people of • Roumania and the Great War. By B. W. Beton-Watson. London; Constable and Co, [Ps. net.]
non-Roumanian stock and language—who will have to be incorporated within their boundaries. However wisely those boundaries are drawn, the annexation of Transylvania and Bukowina must mean the incorporation of a very consider- able number of people of non-Roumanian stock. If the Roumanians follow the awful example set them by the Magyars, and claim that Roumanian culture must prevail and that local minorities must be Roumanized and forced to renounce their nationality, their government will be as great a failure and as unstable as that of the Magyars. If, on the other hand, they prove themselves able to take a wiser and more sympathetic attitude towards minority nationalities, and will give the liberty they claim and so show themselves capable of empire, they may found a great and lasting State. The royal road to the absorption of local minorities is freedom and sympathy, not coercion and persecution. If the Roumanians will have faith in the claim for liberty which they have invoked against the tyrants of their own race, they will find that in a couple of generations Particularism will have died away, or, rather, changed into Patriotism.
Excellent is the advice on this point which Mr. Seton- Watson offers to Roumania, and offers in no dictatorial, professorial, or schoolmasterly spirit, but with full under- standing. Here is Mr. Seton-Watson's description of the practical difficulties of the Transylvanian problem. The passage is not perhaps absolutely clear without the tables referred to, but those who want to study the matter should buy his book and read it in detail :—
" most controversialists, in discussing the Roumanians of Hungary, content themselves with quoting the figures of al/ the counties inhabited by Roumanians, and make no attempt to divide them up on an ethnographical basis. The very largo non- Roumanian element in the area under discussion is then apt to be quoted as a proof of tho impossibility of solving the problem on a basis of nationality. My present analysis follows other lines. It will be seen from Appendix I. that in what may be described as the Roumanian area of Hungary (including of course the Szekel districts as a racial islet), there are, on the basis of existing county boundaries, no fewer than 2,058,887 Magyars, 730,962 Germans, 159,489 Ruthenes and 286,467 Sorbs, If we exclude those districts of the seven counties on the linguistic frontier which are purely Magyar by race, we reduce the number of Magyars from 2,058,887 to 1,488,651, and by a further process of division in the mixed districts along the racial fringe, it is possible to reduce the latter figure to 1,330,509. This, then, repre- sents the number of Magyars, who, according to their own official statistics, must inevitably be sacrificed, if the dream of Roumanian unity is to be achieved. In view of the facts alluded to in Appendix I., there can be very little doubt that these Magyars do not in reality number more than 1,000,000. Of these 501,930 are the Szekels of Eastern Transylvania, living in a com- pact mass ; and for them some special privileges must be secured. Under moll an arrangement the Roumanians on their side would sacrifice 163,089, consisting of small minorities scattered about in the otherwise purely Magyar and Sorb counties of the great Hungarian plain. In the Banat no human skill could disentangle the various races ; and a new frontier, based so far as possible on equitable racial division, would leave about 66,000 Roumanians in the now Serbia and about 65,000 Sorbs in the new Roumania. Under such circumstances it might be possible to devise some gradual system of exchange, by which the Roumanian minorities were transferred from Magyar territory and the Magyar (as opposed to the Szekel) minorities from Roumanian territory."
We wish we could reprint Mr. Seton-Watson's careful map, which shows at a glance what we can only describe as the Transylvanian ethnological " mix-up." Roughly speaking. Roumania stretches two arms round Transylvania, somewhat after the fashion in which the two arms of the German Empire embrace Bohemia. In the Transylvanian enclave between these two arms is a large Roumanian population intermingled with Magyars, Serbians, and Saxons. If the chief part of the Magyar population lay on the Western borders—that is, if in Transylvania the Roumanian people shaded off from the Roumanian frontier so that the parts nearest Roumania and most enclosed by her were the most Roumanian in character—all would be well. Unfortunately, however, the parts closest to Roumania and the most encased by the two arms are the places where the Magyars are strongest. After the exasperating way in which things ethnological are managed in South-Eastern Europe, the Roumanians in Transylvania are strongest away from their own people and when nearest the frontiers of Hungary. That is a problem which we do not say is insoluble—on the contrary, we think that Mr. Seton-Watson shows that it can be solved—but it is one which will require great tact and sympathy to solve in the right way. If any one wants to understand why the Roumanians of Transylvania desire so passionately to throw off the Magyar yoke and to join themselves to their kinsmen in Roumania, and why those Roumanian kinsmen are so anxious to help to free them, he has only to read Mr. Seton-Watson's account of the way in which the Magyars, not only in old days, but up to the present moment, have oppressed the Roumanian minority. It is a terrible but, unfortunately, a true indictment.
Our readers as they read this review will naturally say : All this may be very interesting historically, but what we want to know now is, what is Roumania going to do P We do not profess to be prophets, and we fully recognize the danger of trying to give Roumania advice, for such advice cannot but be coloured by our own interests, and therefore will naturally be looked upon with suspicion by the Roumanians. We may, however, say one or two words which are true, and which ought not to cause any suspicion in the Roumanian mind. If Germany wins, Austria wins, and if Austria wins, Hungary wins. This must mean the doom of Roumania's aspirations. The Magyars will never give up their hold upon Transylvania and Bukowina and their deter- mination to Magyarize them—that is, to force the Roumanians to give up their racial independence and conform to the Magyar standard in politics and general culture, But the Magyars know very well that they cannot do this if they have a powerful Roumanian kingdom on their borders encouraging their Roumanian subjects to revolt and look to a very different future than that prescribed for them by their Hungarian overlords. A triumphant Hungary, therefore, would soon find means for dominating Roumania and pre- venting her from becoming, as she would say, dangerous to the Magyar race. A powerful Hungary is not compatible with Roumanian aspirations. That may seem a hard saying, but it is a true one. We shall be told, perhaps, that the Roumanians, if they are wise, can safeguard themselves by a treaty with Germany and Austria—a treaty such as that which last Tuesday was publicly stated to have been offered by the two Emperors to Roumania. Our answer is to remind the Roumanians that no victorious Power ever pays black- mail, no matter how much it has promised it. It is of course true that the Roumanians would not regard such a treaty as blackmail, but the Magyars would. No doubt at the present moment they would sign almost any- thing to keep Roumania quiet. What is certain is that once they are safe and victorious they will not honour the bond. Probably pro-German Roumanians will reply: "There is no doubt a danger here, but is the danger from Russia less great P " We believe it is. We will not, however, argue that matter here except to point out that when the peace is made among its guarantors will be the two great Latin Powers of France and Italy and the independent Power of Britain. Personally we do not believe that Russia has any hostile intentions towards Roumania; but if she had, Roumania would find she had powerful friends.
Roumanians, in our opinion, will be specially unwise if they are frightened by the bogy of a Russian Constantinople. That the war will end in Russia obtain:ng Constantinople we are absolutely certain. It is also possible that if Russia gains Constantinople in face of the active opposition of a Roumania which has either stood sullenly aside, or else, incredible as it sounds, taken the Austrian side, the Roumanian position will be uncomfortable. If, on the other hand, Russia takes Con- stantinople with Roumania as one of her allies, Roumania may be absolutely certain that the maximum of freedom in the matter of ingress to and egress from the Black Sea will be guaranteed to her by the public law of Europe. Roumania must know that it is absolutely impossible for her to possess Constantinople. She must know also that it would be extremely dangerous for her should any one of her Balkan rivals hold it. Further, her statesmen must know that to yield Constantinople to some weak neutral State is a dream, nay, a delusion. Although it may seem at the moment to hurt her pride, Roumania will be far safer if the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are in the hands of a strong Power like Russia than in the possession of a weak State. Nothing can alter the geographical fact that Roumania's ports are in the Black Sea. Roumania will be very foolish if she spoils her future by what is in fact kicking against the pricks of her geographical destiny.
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