Romanian Campaign of 1916.The Invasion

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Then comes the phallanx of those which died in the year of glory ,at which preparation they have participated in such great measure.Captain Clayaus,killed by the expplossion of a grenade at Pralea ;Lieutenant Henry Jean,killed at Varnita :Captain Vernay ,dead at Marasesti ;Captain Berge,fallen at Oituz ;Captain Richard at Momiia;then Streicher,Delafoy,Haldy ,Cordonnier,Cassanova ,Officers of Marine Begouin,Demaru and Carriou.Sister Genevieve de Goutel,of which noblece of spirit was well over the ilustrous family from which she was descendingfrom .And next to the great Clunet ,the French Medics Dufreche ,Santoni,Germain and the unforgetable Adain ,which has found ,for all his conpatriots ,the formula of sympathy carried for us:

En dix -neuf -cent -dix-sept ,au Roumain victorieux,

Le Francais pourra dire,en faisant ses adieux;

Je n'en pas connaissais q u'une ,et j'avais deux patries;

La France ,mon pays ,et puis ,la Roumaine.[1].

And next to these ones many less known or completely unknown ,were sleeping the forever sleep under the hills of Moldavia ,sealing ,with the seal of their spiled blood ,the connection of eternal gratitude towards France the great,glorious and full of gratitude *.

In the eve of the painful day ,the romanian parliamentaries came to General Berthelot and presented him with an address of omage and a gift:an exemplar of the rare Bible of Serban Cantacuzino.The address has been read ,with the voice drawn in tears ,by Delavrancea.It was saying that"the feelings of gratitude of the army and Romanian nation will forever accompany the live memeory of our great friend leaving".Everybody was crying .Berthelot answered overwhelmed by emotion :"France will not permit the kneeling of Romania".

A delegation of the Romanian universities professors has given to the General a memoir for their coleagues at the French universities .It was send the guarantee that Romania will not bend down to the enemy ."Nothing which is made at you ,which are happy that are able to figth for the triumph of the commune cause will note remain strange to our hearts in pain.Our hope is leaning on the unmoved faith that Humanity has not endured for 2000 years ,such painful sufferings ,to end up to suffer the most brutal and cinic of tirany ,knnew today.In your days of happiness ,do not forget Romania,of which last shout of supreme pain arrives to you even in the moment when she is dragged to a suplice,not deserved".

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And in the evening of 12th of March at the small train station of Socola ,a long train ,which has the members of the French Military Mission ,could be spotted through the fog and darkness.Although the leaving has not been announced beforehand ,thousands of people wanted to salute at their leaving ,from H.M. the King until ordinary soldiers ,all which have been in touch with the messemgers of the noble nation and knew to treasure them.Out of the masses of the crowd is rising ,in the darkness of the nigth ,strong accents of Marsilieze and the solemn ones of the Romanian Royal Anthem.The trembeling ligth of the few torches does not permit to be seen the rows of tears roving the faces of those leaving ,as of those that stay.But when the train set in to move in the shouts,drown in emotion ,of "Vive la France!" of those that stay of "Long live Great Romania!" of those leaving when ,in front of the pained crowd passes tha carriage on which stepdoor ,General Berthelot was keeping himself straight ,with the hand to the Kepi ,and after him the endless convoy of carriages with filled windows by officers and soldiers of friendly France ,when,in everybodies soul was placing strong the thougth that this leaving could not be definitive and that it will come the day full of sunshine when,ahead of his Army ,the messenger of victorious France will step again ,on Romanian soil reawakened ,to away with sword of fire the enemy!

* In december 1918 after the closing of the general truce and the reconstitution of the country ,has died of flu at Iasi General Laffont,former inspector of the Artillery in the French Mission .One of the most devoted friends of Romania ,he has remained in the country with us,in the dark days which we went through after the closing of the peace .His earthly remains sleep the forever sleep in the "Eternitatea" cemetery in Iasi.

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Mournings

The figthers of the national cause ,the princes of breakthroughs which had to come ,were leaving one by one,taken down under the burden of the country's catastrophe.

Doctor Istrati[2] ,that enthusiast spirit of savant ,dies at Paris and his body is incinerated in the crematory of Pere Lachaise.Diamandi dies during the travel to England and his body rests at the bottom of the sea .Xenopol ,one of Take Ionesu intims ,dies at Tokyo.

At Iasi ,close eyes Barbu Stefanescu Delavrancea.It is after the death of Nicolae Filipescu ,which took place during the military desastres of autumn 1916 ,a symbolic ending.In front of his grave ,the university professor Ioan Petrovici expresses in impresionant words the tragic greatness of this death ,which happened in the most darkest times of our existence ,the whole cry of pain filling the souls of Romanians ,as the glimpses of hope are reflected through tears:"...Anothe mountain peak which we are losing ,another height crossing beyond our boundaries!...For a long time it did not felt such a deep silence ,as is the one descending now around us!...Creators of heroes ,of tragedy ,it has been given to him ,himself, to end in the sawing of the most terrifying tragedy .Dies taken down without being able,like the heroes he created after his face and resemblance ,without being able to shout his suffering which was burning his spirit ,in the shining tirade of a shaking ending.Because in the tragedy which took him down there is no talk ,it is only said by eyes and tears from the eye brows.

Sleep poor soul and uncaressed!Rest in the grund of this Moldavia ,hospitalier of all sufferings .Go to sleep facing East,to see only the flowers which apeear from the valleys ,not also the myst descendng over the mountains !May the winds bring you only the sound of falling chains ,not also those of the ones that grasp!Dream what you could not have seen and forget what you saw!"

And in the enslaved Bucharests gives his soul the poet George Cosbuc ,vigorous life from Nasaud ,which has come in to the Capital of the free kingdom to sing not only the sweet ideeas of villges ,but also the stubborn energy of the proud lads of the lands of Ardeal.

The wounded country was reaching the deepest abysses of her national desastre.

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The return of the disbands

Th preliminary peace has forced Romania to demobilize the greatest part of her Army ,keeping only the Divisions from Basarabia with war effective,and the eigth Divisions in Moldavia ,with very reduced effectives.The officers and reservist soldiers were demobilized:those originary from Muntenia could return to their homes.

The return into the occupied territory was made by a series of formalities which were humiliating and bringing moral injuries to the glorious figthers.Especially that ,for the most part of them,they were taking place in the passing region over the Front line of Marasesti,which was reminding to the Romanian soldiers tof he victory over the germans and was not thus giving to these ones the rigth to take airs of victorious face to Romanians.Corporal visit ,disarming,deparazitation,placing in columns escorted by german guards ,long marchings by foot ,surrendering of the uniforms to the german authorities of occupation ,the obligation of presenting to control ,were procedures which were filling with bitterness and revolt the demobilised soldiers.

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On the contrary ,the Romanian population of the occupied territory has made to the demobilized soldiers an enthusiast reception .For a year and a half ,the enslaved people have not seen the Romanian uniform but carried with humiliation by prisoners subjected to labours.And now were arriving in groups the officers and soldiers ,proud to wear an uniform which covered with glory all the valleys of Trotus River ,Susitei and Sire River.If they were not entering in triumphant way it was because they have been defeated by fatality,and not by the enemy.

The arriving of the demobilized soldiers has provoked a reflaming of the patriotic feeling.Especially in Bucharest ,the demobilizeds have been covered in flowers and aclaimed with enthusiasm.Thousands of people were waiting at the train station the arriving of the convoys ,which then they accompanied on to the streets ;shouts of "long live Romania" were thrown not so much as a despice addressed to the occupants germans ,but started from a need to release of the spirit ,for so long comprimated.The german authorities have been surprised by this manifestation of a population ,of which felings they considered atrofiated by a year and a half of slavery.The feeling of the conqueror felt injured;his own situation seemed to him endangered .An ordonance,severe,of the military police ,german,prevents the population that such manifestations are forbidden:"In the appreciation of the patriotic feelings of the population at the return of the demobilizeds of the Romanian Army ,it is attentioned that it will be dealt with the most severe way against the attitude of fulish elements ,which carry the vengeful character against the allied central powers subjects ,or those who have the tendency to bring unrest amongst the population.It is so forbidden in an express mod :any crowding which obstacles the public circulation ,the accompanying of the demobilizeds of the Romanian Army ,the ovations ,speeches etc."Follows the usual threat of the rigours of fines and jail for contraventions.

The occupant has received an elocvent revelation .The Romanian patriotic feeling has not ben defeated ,and the crowd of the estranged ,which were sitting with heads down in front of the masters ,must not be mistaken with the country .

The return of the demobilized soldiers has had also another follow up.The population in the occupied territory ,which have been held in complete ignorrance over the events in Moldavia ,or have been informed only by tendentious news which the enemy was publishing through its press ,has found out now the truth .Its moral grew and the resistance of the spirit strengthened.

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The martyr of the Romanian prisoners

Altogether different feelings provoked the come back of the Romanian prisoners from enemy camps.It has been an explosion of feelings of pain and indignation.It has been revealed the criminal and murderous conduct to which the enemy gave himself towards the soldiers fallen in his hands and taken into captivity.Out of the mouth of the come back ones ,the Romanian nation could find out the whole sad story of the terrifying martyr endured ,which until now came to our ears only rare news.

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At ancient people,the fate of the caught ones during war was cruel.The chiefs were killed directly,or by rafined tortures ,after which they were dragged in the crowd of the winner and mocked.The commoneers ,soldiers,became slaves.This barbarian treatment of the captive ones kept until late ,during medieval times and even in to the modern ones ,to some nations way back as civilisation.Slowly though ,has made way the conception of that the warrior caught and disarmed ceases to be a dangerous enemy,and the replacement of the mercenaries armies by national armies has reconsidered the role of the soldier and thus made that the enemy soldier to be treated in the same way as the own soldiers,one and another fulfilling the holly duty to its country ,with the risk or losing the life.The international conventions have translated these principles in precise obligations:the prisoner must be detained to be put into impossibility to figth;he must be however treated conform with his rank ,sheltered and fed,without asking of him anything contrar to the dignity ,feelings and duties of this one.

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The Mondial War provoked to some nations a recrudescence of the atavic /primar instincts.Maltratation ,torture and killing of the prisoners seemed to have been executed by the germans and bulgarians after well established plans.If the thing is no wonder for bulgarians,it is surprising on the part of the germans ,nation with pretention to have reached by culture and civilisation a higher ethical conception.It has been proved though,with this new occassion,how thin was the shine of this culture and how imperfect was masking a fond of barbarianism and egoism,ferocious.The great number of the prisoners and the lack of aliments their country had ,because of the blocade exercised by the Entente's countries ,does not justify the svagery of the system.Because it is about ,not about the lack owed to the general crisis ,but by conscious organization of the most atrocious sufferings ,both physical and moral ,made with criminal aim to mock ,humiliate and kill in the end ,slowly the unfortunate ones fallen in to their hands.

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After official data of germans,the number of prisoners taken by the enemy was,in the spring of 1917 ,almost 80 000 in the camps in the enemy countries and 33 000 in the occupied territory;to these ones have been added aproximativelly 20 000 Romanian prisoners taken during the year 1917.

The treatment to which were subjected the Romanian prisoners in german camps was a treatment of exhaustion ,physical and slow killing.The food was much lower than the most elementary need of the physiologic functions of the organism .In general ,it was reduced to a boil of a turnip cabbage and a very small piece of bread ,fabricated by all kinds of remains after cereals work out ,repulsing composition to the sight ,indigest and damaging to the organism ;sometimes this one was missing as well.The prisoners were taken behind enemy lines in France and Italy and put to hard labour of digging for fortifications under the threat of the whip and bayonet of german santinels.Many died killed by the fires of adverse artillery ,which was reaching them;most of them died of exhaustion ,hunger ,cold,and by maltratations*.

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In the officers camps of Sopronnyek ,in hungary ,Danholm and Krefeld in germania ,the officers prisoners were held in circumstances in which a deceiving appearance must mask the terrifying way of a deficitary regime of alimentation.In most of the camps though ,was not held any maintainance of this hypocrisy .The camps at Strohen ,Breesen,Kustrin,Tukel ,Breeskow ,Lamsdorf,Ostffyasszonyfa,have been real cemeteries of the Romanian prisoners.In some of them were dying some 50 -60 daily.This is how it is explained why half of the number of Romanian prisoners have died in captivity*.Cemeteries of thousands of crosses are spread in all corners of germania and austro-hungaria .The ones behind figthing fronts have remained on French soil or Italian and are taken care of with piety by brother hands.

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Next to the maltratations suffered from the part of the enemy ,were added those suffered by some camarads of arms.Some of the Jewish soldiers ,prisoners ,thanks to the knowledge of german language which they spoke in jargon(bad) have imposed as translators and became quick to get the job of supervisors of the Romanian prisoners.Some of Them have abused in an odios way of this role.

If the germans have murdered in a slow way their prisoners ,the bulgarians have robbed them and assasinated them.The prisoners convoys taken during the first figths of the War ,have been attacked by bulgarian soldiers .The prisoners were undressed by the coats and tunics ,boots and packs ,transformed in bare foot beggars ,hit with the rifle bed or with bayonets by the ones which have robbed them and then killed,at the smallest opposition or resistance.The civilian population of the villages attacked the convoys.The roads of these ones were scattered with dead bodies .Day after day they have been subjected to the torments of thirst and hunger ,partly from incapacity of organization,partly for revenge.And when a prisoner was trying to get out of the line ,to put a stop to his thirst from some mud water found in the way ,the bullet of the santinel was putting him to the ground.

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In prison camps ,officers and soldiers have been held in much worse conditions than a farmer keeps his animals;sheds which offered no shelter at all against cold ,rain or snow ,crowded to suffocation in a filth undescibeable ,invaded by parasites ,without being able to change clothes or wash up ,and as food,the "eternal national bulgarian" meaning boiled wheat with water which ,to be eaten ,had to be used the hand from the commune pot.The prison camps at Tulovo ,Kardjali ,Ohrania ,Sliven have been the graves of thousands of Romanian soldiers ,and the ones at Haskovo ,Ustovo and Vlahovo,the torture places of the officers.

A convoy of 400 officers is carried on to the savage roads and rocky in Rodopi Mountains and put to work to the stoning of a driveway.The officers refuse this humiliation :amongst them are representatives of the most culte blankets of the country;university professors ,deputies (from the Chamber of Deputies) ,magistrates ,doctors ,ingineers ,priests which took part in to the figth as reserve officers .The officers are beaten with rifle beds and incarcerated ,where they are held without food several days ;they still refuse to humiliate and prefere to die of hunger.Infuriated ,the bulgarians have taken the officers in the city square Ustovo ,in the day of 29th of November 1916 and there ,in the middle of the population ,have throwed them to the ground ,undressed them and beat them to the emty skin with wooden sticks,giving each one 25 strokes ,till blood was pouring out.Amongst the beaten officers were also wounded ones into the figths ,with unhealed wounds .The population could not take the show anymore and run away,terrified.The same scene took place,after a few days ,with another group of officers,at Vlahovo.

The story of these attrocities ,made out from the mouths of tens and hundreds of victims ,confirmed by the international control organs ,has rose up to paroxism the hatered of Romanians.With tears in the eye was looking the population to the yellow spectres ,dressed in rags ,which were crawling the streets ,at their return from imprissonment ,in this spring of year 1918.

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*Amongst the german guilties of which bringing to trial has been asked by the French ,in conformity with the stipulations of the Versailles treaty has also been general Hauff,the commander of the 26th division de Landwehr wurtemberger,which gave himself against the Romanian prisoners ,brougth in the region of the city of Mulhouse in Alsacia ,for works behind the Front,at the most savage crimes(murders).The file of the named Hauff is full of declarations /statements of the French in the localities in which were the martyrized Romanians ,of which reading produces an impression of deep horror.The german brutalities were applied not only to the prisoners ,but also to the inhabitants ,which,touched by the martyr of the Romanians ,dare to step over the rigorous consignes ,to try to help ,usually by throwing them a piece of bread .There is no village around Mulhouse to not find some tens of graves of the victims of Hauff's men ,which have died of hunger ,cold and maltratation.

* To away the public oppinion indignation from these organized attrocities ,the germans have tried a derivative ,rising a shout of alarm over"the assasins in mass in the inferno of Sipote",the prisoner camp of germans in Moldavia114.In reality ,the morality of the german prisoners of Sipote is due to the epidemic of exantematic typhus,which rove the entire Moldavia ,and the percentage of that mortality is much lower than the one of the mortality in many camps of the Romanian Army ,and incomparable with those of the Romanian prisoners in german prison camps.

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(A group of Officers of the French Military Mission in Romania)

(Colonel Victor Petin ,the Chief of General Staff of the French Military Mission,together with a group of Romanian militars,on the Front)

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Red Cross

For to ease the sufferings of the prisoners has intervened especially the private initiative .Ahead of this generous initiative has been the Red Cross ,with its branches ,spread all over .The highest of the Christian virtues ,charity ,broke the barriers of blood and fire and spread in the infirmeries and torture prison camps her touching balsam.

The Romanian Red Cross has separated its generous and fecund activity between Bucharest and Iasi .At the declaration of the War ,it has been set to the government dispozition 62 fixed hospitals and six campaign hospitals ,with a total of 14 000 beds.After the occupation ,the sections of the Red Cross ,which has remained at Bucharest(the Red Cross) ,has taken under its administration also all the hospitals of the state ,the help of the invalids and war orphans ,sheltering and the food of the refugees in the lands more haunted by the terrifyings of the War.Then,its care went toward the missfortuned fate of the prisoners of War .Only in the occupied territory have been helped 65 400 prisoners with money ,food and clothing.Connecting itself with the sections of the Red Cross abroad and with the bureaus of international assistance ,her welldoings have flowed also over the bodies and souls shaken of the missfortuned in the field of battles :money and 58 000 mail boxes with aliments,clothes and books have been send for the prisoners interned in the enemy camps.A regular service of correspondence ,which has expedite more than 350 000 letters and informations for prisoners and civilians ,has descended into the darkness and pain of their souls the news of joy and hope from the dear ones ,left so long ago.

It has to be mentioned all together special the Committe of assistance of the Romanian prisoners from Geneva,which has unfolded an imense work for organizing the masterpiece of help of the Romanian prisoners in bulgaria.The name of the president of the Committe ,the Alsacian ,Max Dollfus and of Mrs. Ed.Herriot ,the wife of the mayor of the city of Lyon ,will have to remain,amongst others ,deeply engraved in the hearts full of gratitude of the martyrs in the bulgarian prison camps.

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In the ferocious tableau of the War ,in the savage unleashing of the most primitive instincts ,in the vision of bloody apocalipse ,which seemed that would swallow all that the Human Kind has earned by culture of some few centuries ,what a ray of ligth clean and elan giving was bringing this side such less known ,and still so rising ,of the huge activity of these communities of chosen humans ,which have sacrificed their time,their work and peace of mind for helpping of their kinds on over the furtherest borders.And how beautiful sound the words with which the Alsacian ,Dollfus resumed the activity of the Committe presided by him in the closing session in february 1919!Tasking the Romanian delegate of the Red Cross to transmit his cordial salute to all those of which fate has been watched over for two years with noblece,he has ended with the words:"This salute is transmited by the Genevezi members of the Committe ,citizens of a city ,which knew to show the World ,for four years ,that it has understood that the real charity must radiate over all the enemies ,and by her Alsacian president ,which has learned as themselves ,by painful experiences ,how hard and harsh are two words:exile and sufferings"

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Marghiloman government

In the middle of the grave difficulties of all kinds ,Marghiloman government was looking to organize and consolidate.The greatest of these difficulties came from the strange situation of the country which,with all the closed peace ,continued to be broken into two halves by the line of the enemy Front.The chains of the Peace of Bucharest have not unitet Muntenia ,enslaved,with Moldavia ,vasal.The ministers had to separate their activity between the two capitals ,travelling from one to another.The ministries were also separated in two :half at Bucharest and half at Iasi,having each two general secretaries.

At Iasi ,the activity of the government was controled ,about the execution of the treaty ,by a german military mission ,which have established in the Capital of Moldavia,under the leading of colonel Brandenstein.

In the occupied territory ,the administrative authorities continued to function as before ,under direct control of the liaison officer.Because the germans did not understood to evacuate the country and neither to ease even a little the occupation regime.The pray continued to be held tight with claws .For the inhabitants to not make any ilussion ,even the second day after signing the peace ,an ordonance haste to announce the population that the military police ,german,remains with all attributions of the past ,asking to receive the same obedience as until now ;otherwise severe punishments will be applied.

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Between the two halves of the country ,the communication was not free ,but subordonated to an authorization ,beforehand and to a control in detail and vexatory.The flotant population from Moldavia ,refugeed in Muntenia and Dobrogea ,which was living in very precar conditions of food and shelter ,could not cross this side to return to their homes ,families ,interests and things ,but only based on of special permit ,issued by a police institution established at Bucharest ,"Pass-Zentrale".This office was examining in an individual mode,every application and was not giving its aprobation but only in a wake of a minutios investigations made over the certain person and the past of the solicitant.For that the return of these inhabitants as well as of the numerous disbanded soldiers in the occupied territory to not diminish the food stocks ,which the occupants wanted to keep it available for export in their countries ,the germans were obliging the Romanian goverment "to ensure the well being of the ones returned to their homes ,by a corresponding importation of aliments from Moldavia".Speculating this odious condition ,the occupant was imposing to Moldavia drained out of resources the surrendering of some imense quantities of grains and was finding in in the exact and prompt unfulfillment of this spoliation ,the pretext of numerous vexations and scams.The mail was subjected also to a severe censure for letters and to rigorous restrictions for packages(mail).Between the two sides of Romania was maintained an ermetic closed border.

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(French Marshal Joseph Joffre in visit at Marasesti-1921)

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Not a sweetness of life could be felt in the occupied territory.On the contrary .The official plunder seemed to increase both as intensity ,and as shamefullness of the used methods.From the contry it is requisitioned everything that can be found .The mask was off now.There was no need of pretending anymore.The military guards lift from the aria(crop field) all production not leaving even the seed for the next year.The germans feel that their remaining in the country could become short and do not care about seeding the fields anymore,rising in the same time the last grain in the peasants reserves.An ordonance of the military government ratios even the food of the peasant :a rural has the rigth to a mamaliga(romanian food made of boiled milled corn) of 500 grams a day ;by exception if ill ,are added another 25 grams of flour!The alimentar situation is grave in austria .We must save it with our starvation.

There are carried in mass the cattles ,the forests are devastated with fury.The raw materials necessary to different needs of the population are concentrated to private persons ,especially to the Jews ,german agents ,in this way the milk ,the wood for fire ,eggs,wine .These speculators are lifting from the producers ,on requisition prices ,these products and resell them with ten times the price ,under the protection of the monopol.Especcially in the country side the plundering has the proportions of a brigandage ;the villages are surrounded by military guards ,the houses are turned upside down,atticks and sheds ,lifting not only the products of food left,but also sheets of postav ,blankets of wool ,any reserve of raw material .

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It is as they wanted,before leaving,to drain out anything left through the houses ,an ordonance given in March 1918 announces that "It will be gathered and lifted soon from house to house ,with imediate payment (!) rags,bones, metals ,bits of gum ,old boots ,rubber boots,laundry and clothing ,paper,glass ,caps of any kind and any kind of animal hair...It is reminded seriously over the punishments foreseen by the ordonances..."

All kinds of robberies have been organized ,with a diabolic inventivity ,during the exchange of prisoners and of maintaining the occupation army.And the paper coin starts to invade the market more and more ,threatening the future of the country.

Marghiloman has disolved the Chambers and announced new ellections ,in which wake had to come out the law gatherings ,which had as first duty to ratify the enslaving peace,imposed by the enemies.The other parties have refused to participate in these ellections ,in which Dobrogea was not represented and which,in the occupied territory ,had to be acomplished under the bayonet of the enemy.Because of this ,the Chambers of Marghiloman government have been constituted only by members of his party and by few deputies ,indepndent, among which was also General Averescu .The General which has been ellected in five places ,sign of a popularity which would take proportions of idolatry ,wanted to enter the Parliament ,to rise his voice against the ratification of the peace treaty.It has been the only protest in the Room.Beyond,the ratification has been voted in silence ,without any discussion .On the contrary ,in parliaments of berlin and Viena ,the discussion of the ratification have bee long and noisy.It has been made again the trial of Romania ,to which have been throwed the most vehement attacks,and the most thick injuries.A full harmony has been manifested in this matter in german Reichstag ;starting with Westarp conservative and Rewentlow,passing through liberal Stressmann and ending with the socialist Noske,all have invectivated Romania ,expressing their satisfaction that she has been robbed as she deserves for her treason,but expressing also the regret,that she could not be choked all together.

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Once the ratification voted ,the Parliament passed to the execution of the other humiliating obligations ,imposed by the germans amongst the conditions secret of the treaty of peace.In this way,the law of forced works enslaves the work and the person ;it is applied to land workers ,forests ,mines and petrol.It is the transformation in law of the ordonance given by the military government during the occupation.It is voted the grounding in block of the Jews(give land) as well as general amnistia of the desertors and nation traitors.

The demobilisation of the Army and sending the soldiers to their homes ,one of the chieftains conditions of the treaty ,has been executed under the supervising of the german military mission,installed at Iasi ,to supervise the execution of the treaty.A great number of officers have resigned ,not wanting to keep their Commandments in the humiliating atmosphere to which they were subjected:among them ,big chiefs ;Generals Prezan,Averescu,Iancovescu etc.For earning the sympathy of the Officer Corps ,have been made advances on a large scale without keeping any proportions among ranks.The Army had an extraordinary big number of majors and no lieutenants and sub-liutenants.The surrendering of the War material ,especially of Artillery ,is executed though with great difficulty .The Romanian military commissions have made everything in its power to delay this surrendering and gave only small and worn out material.Flaming discussions and threats on the german part have not had the expected result.The greatest part of the material and,especially ,the quality one,has been hidden ,for the future hoped needs.Even the points of demobilizing of the troops have been partly deluded and was kept under arms a much greater number of men than the expected one.These works ,which the germans realised ,forced them to keep in the occupied territory an impozant force-10 divisions -which otherwise ,could have been transported on the Fronts were were given decissive battles.

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The most important of the conditions imposed to Marghiloman was the measure of revenge against the national political leaders .Taking out of the politic life of the country of these leaders was asked with inssistence by germans.Delaying its execution and hesitatings of Marghiloman rose against him a turmoil in the press and german world.Marghiloman complies.As an ability ,it has been arranged that the suing request to come from the parliament and not from the government ,and the apparent motiv of the suing was not the entering in the War ,but his lack of education ,which have lead to desastre.In this way was given an appearance of elimination of the political side of the matter,setting the trial on the matter ,more sympathetic,of going after an incorrect and bad will administration.A parliamentary inquiry has been instituted to gather the evidence of culpability of former Government of Bratianu -Take Ionescu.

The members of the former government have addressed to the president of the Chamber of Deputies a dignifying note.The former ministers contest the moral authority of an ordered trial by forigners against which country they rose up arms ,as the legal authority of a parliament ellected under foreign bayonets.The result of the action of the government which have declared the War will not be seen before the general peace;then it would be able to be look the circumstances in which it has been prepared ,declared and carried(the War).That is why ,the members of the former government declare that they will not answer to any of the trials ,to make declarations and present documents ,which will only be to the use of the enemy and endanger the outcomes of the War;they will not oppose any defence to the blames brought against them ."Our judgement/trial -ends the document-would be made only by the national conscience ,when it could freely speak ,and by the history ,which will evolve the blessed outcomes of today martyrs".

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In this way,the members of the former Government,adopt a passive attitude and refuse to enter on the way of excuses.Bratianu advices H.M. King Ferdinand to not oppose to any of the actions ,political,enterprized by the government in the country ,which could create to the Crown difficulties in these difficcult times;he advices to promulgate even the law by which the government was modifying the organization of the Cassation Court ,in this way to compose a sure majority of condemnation of the former Government.In only one direction ,the attitude of H.M. King Ferdinand had to be intransigent :in the foreign politics.H.M. the King must not give to the Entente the impression that Romania has crossed in the other side.

But the parliamentary inquiry is extended.The government hesitates ,caught between the pressures of the germans and its conscience scrupules.To give the impression of a resolute attitude and of an energic proceeding,he orders the arrestation of one of the accuzed ministers:Al.Constantinescu ,the former Minister of Domains and Interns.There are arrested few more high dignitaries of the police authority and safety service.The arrestation of Constantinescu ,one of the most active Ministers during the War,a real capacity of organization,which during the difficult time of the remaking (winter 1916) brought priceless services to the country ,gave the occassion of great sympathy for the arrested one ,from the part of the ministers of the Allied countires,which have visited him and brought omages in the jail.After two weeks ,Constantinescu has been freed ,in the aclamations of Iasi population.

The matter of bringing to trial of the War Cabinet has been buried.The star of the central powers started to go down:together with her ,the satelite was entering also in obscurity .The days of Marghiloman government were thus numbered.

....

[razu]

(Uniform and decorations belonging to H.M. King Carol of Romania)

"Because the enemies of Romania which want to bring greatness to H.M. King Carol ,insulting Him through the affirmation that he has remained German until his last moments,would have found out by the declaration made by I.C.Bratianu in the Parliament of Romania ,that the first Romanian-Russian Convention in 20th of September 1914[27] has been closed with the knowledge and aprobation of H.M. King Carol*.

*"I want to declare that the politics of our connections with the Allies ,we have not made ,as it has been said ,against the will of H.M. King Carol ,we have not made it in concealment of Himself.All I have worked ,I have worked as a loyal servant of the country and of the Throne,with the trust and knowledge of the Sovereign".

[27] The Romanian-Russian Convention has been closed at 26th of September /1st of october 1914 .It constituted a notable Romanian diplomatic success and,in the same time ,reveals in fact the Ententeophil orientation of the Romanian foreign politic which was the same with the one of acomplishing national and state unity of the Romanians ,was the expression of this one."

by Constantin Kiritescu