ABSTRACT

III. RUMANIA. RUMANIA1 is the third of the Balkan states to demand out attention. Before the War, it consisted of Wallachia and Moldavia: two districts lying the one to the south of the Transylvanian Alps and the other to the east of the Carpathians. They were formerly autonomous provinces of the Ottoman Empire: but, since 23rd December, 1861, they had become, with the Dobrudja, an independent Principality. In area and population the Principality, before 1914, covered 53,689 square miles and had 7,516,418 inhabitants. But, since the War, the kingdom, as it became in 1881, has been more than doubled in size and resources. It now includes an area of 122,000 square miles, and has a population of 17,500,000. The territories gained are Bessarabia, from Russia: and, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, those districts of it which might once have been described as Rumania Irredenta, viz., parts of Transylvania, Bukovina and the Banat. The chief towns of the country are Bucharest, the capital; J assy, the capital of Moldavia; with Galatz, Braila, Ploesti and Craiova. The kingdom of to-day corresponds, as nearly as possible, both in situation and extent, to the ancient Dacia: and its history falls into four recognisable but very unequal periods.