Romanian Campaign of 1918 .Resurrection.

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The city is in celebration .In a few hours the entire look of it has changed .All firms and german inscriptions have been taken down ,sometimes in the noise of the windows on which they were written.The redactions of the germanophil newspapers ,"Lumina","Steagul","Gazeta" ,are devastated by the crowd.Thousands of flags and carpets pave the houses faces and of balconies ,and the streets are filled by the crowd which,with arms filled with flowers ,await the apparition of the French.But these ones retained few days at Arges , by the difficulty of transports ,do not show up yet.For a few days the Capital will live a life of enervating waiting .All communications are interrupted ;there is no telegraph connection or telephone ,no communication ,either with the French ,or with Moldavia .It is known only that the driveways are filled by german armies in retreat ,which devastate the villages in their way and destroy the communications behind.The services of organized safety are missing ;all nigth echos rifle shots.

Only at 16th of November could be established a link between the government at Iasi and Berthelot ,which is authorized to take administrative measures and of guard in this territory ,without master.The Allied Armies have advanced and acntooned at Jilava ;groups of French and British officers start to appear on to the streets of the Capital and are saluted with enthusiasm by the population.

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The end of Mackensen army

Mackensen army started the retreat in the nigth of 10 -11th of November on two columns .The Eastern group ,formed by the troops of the 63rd commandment ,which constituted the army on Siret River Front ,was retreating towards Buzau passes,Predeal and Bran with direction Brasov and Sighisoara .The principal group -commandment Scholtz -formed in its majority by troops arrived from bulgaria and Macedonia ,was retreating along Olt Valleys,Jiu and Cerna.The II-nd army ,on line Varset -Cinci Biserici ,was protecting towards West the flank of group of armies Mackensen

The troops in retreat destroy the bridges on the driveways and railways ,set fire to deposits ,disarm and take prisoners ,the Romanian geandarms ,shoot inhabitants ,make requisitions ,rob all they find in their way .To cut the retreat of the german armies ,Berthelot has telegraphied to the Romanian Commandment at Iasi to suspend the advance of the Romanian Army in direction Focsani-Buzau-Ploiesti,which has started ,and to action in direction Oituz -Brasov.

In the day of 12th of November though,Berthelot receives and transmit the news of closing the general truce on all Fronts and of ending of any figthing operation.The germans can now to continue the retreat in complete quiet.At 1st of December ,the last german detachments have crossed the Carpathian Mountains .The Romanian territory was free.

The marching of the german armies is delayed by the heavy winter and by the difficulties in hungary.The soldiers start to enervate and to revolt.They organize in soviets,maltratating their officers ,attack and rob transports ,sell through villages on nothing the stolen things in Romania,the materials of the army and horses.The term foreseen by the truce treaty for the evacuation of the occupied territory by the germans ,has long past.The army is left to continue its road ,but Mackensen is interned by the hungarian government of count Karoly [26] in Foth castle ,near Budapesta.From here he has been transported in the castle of count Chotek ,at Futtak ,near Neusatz ,in the vecinity of Danube River,and from there to Salonic ,from where he has been freed only in November 1919,permitting him to return to germania .marshal Mackensen was fulfilling thus the engagement made to his soldiers ;he was reentering in patria as the last soldier of his army.

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The resurrection day

In the day of 1st of December 1918 ,the freed Bucharests were dressing the cloth of celebration .The King was reentering in the Capital of the country ahead of his heroic Army .It has been a day of great and overwhelming emotions ,which are given to be lived only to the nations which conquer happiness going through most cruel sufferings.The nigthmare has passed;it has lasted for two years .The awakening has come ;it was as such as we did not even dare to wish for in our most daring creations of our minds.

With pride ,H.M. the King could declare:"When I took the inherritance of the one that put the bases of modern Romania ,I have promissed ahead of the representatives of the nation that will be a good Romanian .I think I have kept my word.Hard have been the times ,great have been the martyrs ,but shinning is the reward ,and today I can say with clear forehead :<<To God and to my people I have the clean conscience >>"-

In this day of Resurrection there has been no inhabitant of the great trialed Capital to not run to see the triumphal cortege and have not been eyes to not shed tears.

In the head of the Royal cortege was the King ,having next to Him ,Queen Maria and General Berthelot ,all three on horse back.After the three makers of victory ,was coming the Army ,the Regiments of Marasesti ,Marasti ,from Oituz and from Ciresoaia .Then ,Units of the Allied Armies ,French,British ,Americans representatives of the illustrious Army which was covered by glory on the fields of battles of the West.

But ,over the shining bayonets ,over the flags fluttering with pride ,the wet eyes of the onlookers were breaking the space ,and the thought was going faster ,aiming further...

....At Alba Iulia ,in the old Capital of Mihai the Great ,was closing in the same time, by the will of Romanian nation ,gathered from all corners of Ardeal ,the greatest act of the history of Romanian hood .

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Their Majesties King Ferdinand and Queen Maria of Romania

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Romanian Royal Carriage /central military museum of Bucharest

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[1] The submarine warfare unlimited,despite the heavy losses provoked to the Entente ,did not train the exitting of Great Britain from the figth ,nor could had obstacle the crossing of Atlantic ocean by the North-American Expeditionary Corps.In these circumstances ,the german commandment put all hopes in a decissive offensive on the Western Front in 1918.

[2] The german cannon "Bertha " built by Krupp factories ,has bombed for the first time Paris at 23rd of March 1918.The goal of the germans was especially a pshychological one:demoralising of the inhabitants of the French Capital.

[3] Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) ,General and Marshal of France (1918) ,has been tasked by British and French governments -at 26th of March 1918-"to coordinate the action of the Allied Armies on the Western Front".Then,his prerogatives have been enlarged ,becoming the unique Commander on the Front in France.(see G.Clemenceau ,The greatness and biterness of a victory.Memoirs)

[4] At 15th of September 1916 ,in the frame of the British offensive in Somme area (France) have participated for the first time massive the tanks.

[5] "The second Battle of Piave" has been unleashed at 15th of June 1918 .The austrians have attacked from Astico at Adriatic Sea ,obtaining successes on Asiago Plateau and at Grappa and managing to cross Piave.But,at 16th of June their offensive has been blocked ,the Italians counterattacked between Montello and the sea (17th of June) .The austrian failure was obvious at 18th of June.

[6] Grece has entered the War -under the leadership of a cabinet Veinzelos -against the central powers at 29th of June 1917.

[7] The Allies have conquered Uskub-on the Front against bulgaria -at 29th of Septmber 1918.The bulgarian army has been completelly disorganized.

[8] The bulgarian army was relativelly numerous .By the end of 1915 ,when she entered the War ,she had 15 908 officers and 600 772 soldiers and under -officers.

[9] See text of the truce convention ,la Guerre europeenne.Documents 1918 .Conventions d'Armistice passees avec la turquie ,la Bulgarie ,l'Autriche -Hongrie et l'Allemagne par les Puissances alliees et associees,Paris ,1919.

[10] Ferdinand of Bulgaria abdicated at 3rd of october 1918.Boris the III-rd de Saxa-Coburg has been the Czar of Bulgaria in period (1918-1943).

[11] During the campaign of 1918 ,the British have concentrated their forces and efforts in the Close and Middle Orient to take out and destroy Ottoman Empire.In the period 19-30 September 1918 ,the British have unleashed and enterprized a strong offensive in Palestina and Siria .At 30th of September they have occupied Damascus ,and at 26th of October have reached Alepul ,preparing to invade Anatolia.

[12] The truce between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire has been closed at 30th of october 1918 in the Mudros Harbour ray .See text ,in Guerre europeenne.Documents 1918.,la Guerre europeenne.Documents 1918 .Conventions d'Armistice passees avec la turquie ,la Bulgarie ,l'Autriche -Hongrie et l'Allemagne par les Puissances alliees et associees,Paris ,1919

[13] at 1st of November the Serb troops entered in Belgrade.The French Cavalry has reached the the Danube .In other sector the French have reached Danube as well from 19th of October.

[14] Starting from Grece ,from Salonic ,the troops of General G.F. Milne have started the advance towards Constantinopol .At 29th of October 1918 these troops -in which tere were British ,French and Greeks-were threatening directly Constantinopole.

[15] In front of national desastre ,the Kaizer of Germany Wilhelm the II-nd run at 10th of November in Holland,and at 26th of November 1918 has signed the abdication act.Carol the I-st of Habsburg left at 11th of November 1918 austria heading towards hungary .At 13th of November has been however forced to rennaunce his imperial prerogatives and Royal ones.

[16] "Baupaume has fallen,Peronne has been conquered..."

[17] Paul von Hintze replaced Richard von Kuhlmann ahead of foreign ministry.

[18]About the revolt in 27th of September 1918 and proclaiming by bulgarian soldiers uprised of the republic.

[19] austro-hungary and germany requested truce at 27th of october 1918.however the truce between the Entente and austro-hungary has been closed at 3rd of November 1918.

[20] "I am a prusian..."

[21] The first verse of the national anthem of French.

[22] At 27th of October 1918 the Italian troops being in decissive offnsive are victorious at Vittorio Veneto ,breaking the austro-hungar Front and advancing then ,from 31st of October on the entire Fron.austro-hungaria cannot continue the War.In the name of the Entente ,Italy signs the truce with austro-hungaria at Villa Giusti(Padova) .Se text of the accord in Guerre europeenne....la Guerre europeenne.Documents 1918 .Conventions d'Armistice passees avec la turquie ,la Bulgarie ,l'Autriche -Hongrie et l'Allemagne par les Puissances alliees et associees,Paris ,1919

[23] The burgess- democrat revolution unleashes in Budapesta at 30- 31 of October 1918.At 30th of october have started the burgess -democrat revolution in austria .

[24] hungary has signed with the representatives of the Entente the military Convention of truce at Belgrade in the day of 13th of November 1918.

[25]"The French are arriving!"

[26] C.M.Karolyi (1875-1955).hungarian politician.The burgess- democrat revolution in hungary ,started at 30-31 st of october 1918 ,led to the formation of a government by independence party ,radical and social democrst ones,led by C.M. Karolyi.

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Chapter IV

THE COLLAPSE OF AUSTRO HUNGARIAN MONARCHY

On the brink of catastrophe

The turn of the War could be felt in austro-hungaria more than anywhereelse;the Habsburg Empire suffered of two sicknesses which undermined her existence.

One of them was the constitutive country ,the originar evil of this artificial organism.The Monarchy has been birthed by forced union or clever one ,of so many nations which had nothing in commune ,to keep them united:not connections of feelings ,nor of permanent interests.When the only element uniting them -the force,started to crumble ,the elements kept by force together started to scatter.

The second disease was the exhaustion provoked by the War .Nowhere ,as in austria itself,the hardships of War were so hard endured.They have become insuportable for a population which did not find the strength for sacrifice in pursuing an ideal.Escaped by the danger of the firsts collissions which endangered her existance ,austria wanted now only a cease of the War with keeping of the "statu quo ante bellum".The anexionist politic of the germans and bulgarians was beginning to press austro-hungary now,which was seeing in the greed of her allies the principal cuse of extending the War.austria was feeling that her existance is threatened by the decomposing ,intern,which was accentuating as the War was extending further.That is why she was looking for peace occassions and was prepared for all kinds of compromises.

This thing was though not easy anymore.Caught between the german militarism and hungarian intolerance ,the Monarchy had to drag after her the projectile of War tight by the leg and to step further on a road at which end did not shine any flame of an ideal to ligth ,to guide and atract.And the road was becoming a calvary ,more and more difficult to climb .The belief in final victory was weaker more and more.The uses connected by successes were more and more problematic.The mozaic of nations which were making the Monarchy were feeling less and less solidar ones with the others;some of them were gravitating outside the borders and were maintaining clear connections with the enemy.The spectrum of hunger was grimming with threat.From one day to another ,austria could remain without bread ,with all the draining out of occupied Romania.Hunger ,tiredness ,discouragment ,pessimism ,these were the characteristics of austro-hungary in the last year of the War.

What was giving an aspect of outstanding gravity to the crisis ,was the fact that even the army was starting to feel the exhaust and general discontent .In different garrisons and in the fleet uprising produces;the soldiers do not want to leave on the Front,maltratate the officers ,devastate deposits and even cities ,rise the red flag .At Judenburg ,in Stiria ,the Sloven soldiers shoot their officers and then refugee in the mountains.A Serb regiment takes with assault the city Cinci Biserici(Five Churches) ,after a machineguns attack.At Plezn,the Cehs(Czechs) refuse to make service anymore and desert in mass .In Cracovia ,the population attacks in street the german officers ,burns the portraits of the Emperors and manifest for the victory of the adversaries.In Budapesta ,the 32th hungarian regiment ,do not want to leave on the Front.In Hertegovina ,a battalion mutinies.At Pola ,the sailors from the arsenals mutiny;the movement stretches to Cattaro[1].The crews of the torpedo boats rise the red flag.

The mutineers arrest the amirals and the officers and ask peace by T.F.F.A naval division is send against them and,only after long tratatives ,manages to disarm the revoltees.A number of 348 sailors are sued and the trials is going until the autumn ,when the guilties are amnisted.

The hunger and uselessness of the figth exasperates the soldiers.They do not want to go to useless slaugther.The former prisoners in Rusia ,freed by the revolution and by the separate peace and returned to their homes ,find their houses destroyed ,families figthing in lacks of all kinds.The fired ones and penssioneers do not want to return on the Front,forging their military papers and wander through the country ,making all kinds of bussinesses.Under different pretexts and missions,the officers make way through the country ;there is a continuous swarming between Ucraine and Italy ,between Italy and the Balkans.The villages are filled by the "hidden ones" ,which the population hides them.The government conceals things,but the contagiousness of unhappyness and the revolt is spreading The man from the country ,used as militar on the Front with obedience ,comes home on leave,stumbols over mizery and suffering of his family ,listens to the free critic and his mind opens over the uselessness of the efforts and the martyrs asked from him.The austro-hungarian army is now an inert organism,agitated by contrar tendencies ,without spirit.She drags hard the yoke of War which some part of the soldiers cannot understand anymore ,and the other part rejects it.A powerful blow -and she will throw down the yoke.

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Between peace and downfall

Three years has lived austria under absolutist regime .the two pillars of this regime have vanished from the political arena and from this world.Franz Joseph has died in the autumn of 1916 ,and the prime minister Sturgkh fell taken down by the revolver bullet of socialist Adler[2].The new Emperor summoned the parliament ,from which he hoped to find a solution of the problem of nationalities.It was the safety valve of escaping against the brutal detente of public discontents.But three years of War changed many things.The nation,to which it has been asked from the blood sacrifice ,was expressing now with courage the feelings and intentions.Because it was not anymore masses of servants ,trembling under the whip of the master ,but armed nations which were thinking that the time has come to make their own fate and had the strngth to do it.

Numerous manifestations from the War did not let any doubt over the feelings of the nationalities from within the Monarchy.The political refugees have constituted in neutral countries ,in national commeeties ,in connection with the adversary.Regiments of Czechs and Croato-Slovenians were figthing in the Russian armies and Italian ones against austro-hungary.The Czech professor Masaryk was leading in the contries of the adversaries the cruciade to unborn austro-hungary.

At 30th of May 1917 opened the gates of Reichsrat from Veien ,which stayed locked for three years.The attitude of the chiefs of nationalities did not let anything to be desired as precision.Stanek declared in the name of the bohem nation that the dualist form of the Habsburg Monarchy must be removed and the Empire must transform into a federation of national states,free and equal .Based on the natural right of free determination of states and based on the historical wrigths of Bhoemia ,Stanek asked the reunion of all CzechSlovakcs ina democratic state ,in the historical frontiers of the Bohemian state .The punch was good.The death of the dualist Empire was hitting strong in hungary ,which was mastering the Slovak territory.The crown of Saint Venceslas was the breaking of the crown of Saint Stefan ,both mastered by Carol.At the attack started from the North ,came to add the attack started from the South ."The South -slavic Club" has not remained in debt with the reply.He has asked "the unification of all Slovens ,Croats and Serbs living in the territories of the Monarchy in an independent state ,free of any foreign sovereignity ,build on democratic bases ,under the scepter of Habsburg-Lotaringic Dynasty.In the same sense spoke the representatives of the other nations :the Poles which had their national satut ensured by Ruteni.

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The nations have spoke clearly.The government Clam-Martinitz [3] fell under the imputation that he did not feel well the parliamentary terrain ;the minister of Agriculture Seidler [4] took his place.But the parliament refuses any concur to the government ; refuses the bill for the measures taken during the three years of absolutiste guvernation based on the celebre article 14* ;refuses the sanction of penal condemnations for patria treason.The Emperor thought that he can win the sympathy of the nations by generous gestures ,by clemence measures.he gave the general amnistia to all political condemnees.The act was though interpreted as a constrain measure ,which had nothing in common with the matter of nationalities.

The peace tratatives with Russia sovietic,and the wilsonian program[5] came to give two big blows to austro-hungary ,which have agravated the her intern sitution ,by encouraging the oppressed nations.

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(Regiment of soldiers from the former austro-hungarian army of Romanian origin)

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By the opened window at Brest -Litovsk ,trotki was helding speeches of revolutionary propaganda to the nations of Europe.The right of autodetermination of nations,the sovereign principle postered by the rusian revolution ,was hitting in the political structure of austro-hungary."Each nation has the right to choose the form of state and the connections he wants",spoke sententious trotki .And in the face of the bolsevic dictator ,Czernin ,tight with the door by the need to close as soon as possible the peace ,was entangeled in answers and was seeing himself forced to accept the formulae ,making the reserve that it applies to all nations ,with the exception of those of austro-hungary .But the aliments crisis in austria was threatening with an ending of catastrophe ,and the tratatives ,held on stop by trotki's dialectic and by the annexionist greed of germania ,was eternizing.In absolute need of peace ,not being able to close it with Russia ,Czernin invents the peace with delegations of new born state of Ucraine .trotki attentions the plenipotentiaries of austro-germania that he closes peace "with some delegates without a country ,because the only territory over which this ones dispose still ,are the chambers they occupy in Brest -Litovsk".In vain ,the central powers need very much this first peace of the mondial war ,to impress the adversaries ,and austro-hungary -especially - needs absolutelly by the Ucrainian deposits of food,which they hope are considerable and full to the brim.

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*The 14th article of Law of 1867 was:"If the need appears to take dispozitions for which the asentiment of the parliament is necessary ,when this one cannot reunite ,then can be published the decrees of the law under the responssibility of the entire ministry".austria has governed the three years from the start of the War under the regime of this article.

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To close this peace ,problematic,Czernin is forced to make a humiliating concession and unparalleled grave .He recognizes the revendications of Ucrainians over Galitia ,Bucovina,Rutenia and Holmul and engages ,by a dispozition ,secret, to undergo to a Crown council ,austro-hungar,the solution conform of this matter.In this way,forced by hunger ,the Habsburg Empire bends his necks in front of the boys Sevrjuk and Lubjinski ,which had the pretention to represent Ucraine ;he received in fact the appliance of the principle of autodetermination!

The attitude of Czernin at Brest-Litovsk had an echo in the country.At 6th of January 1918 ,the Czechs unapprove by a solemn motion the Foreign minister of austro-hungary ,which-in his public declarations -was forbiding "any foreign intervention in the intern rapports of the Monarchy'.The motion/document rots the opressing of the CzechSlovak nation by the germans in austria and by the "hungarian oligarhy" and makes appeal directly to international laws ,to establish the form of their future state.The motion says nothing this time about the austrian federative state ,nor about the House of Habsburg.

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Two days before Wilson was unfolding his peace program ,cristalized in the celebre 14 points.The paragraps about the frontier rectifyings of Italy ,of the evolution by itself of the austro-hungarian nations ,at the Balkans states and at Poland ,were confirming the engagements taken previously by the figthing forces of the Entente and were reading the sentence of death of the dualist Monarchy.

The fate of austro-hungary was now decisively decided .She will have to choose between waiting her death to come from adversaries and taking it by herself.Only one miracle could escape her ;victory.With the desperation of the cards player arrived to his last penny ,austro -hungary was putting her hope ,in the spring of 1918 ,on the daring card which Hindenburg and Ludendorff were playing in France.The game had been lost in June 1918 ,Boroevici made the tentative supreme on the Italian Front on Brenta and Piave .The battle had been lost this time again[6].

Hopless,austria returns at the trials of compromises internal.Reichsrat opens again in summer 1918 .This time under less favorable auspices.The Czechs are inconciliable.The problem of the Slavs from the South had to be let aside ,of fraid to not upset the huingarians ,which have half of the South-Slave territories .With the hungarians ,though,the government is in conflict on the matter of aliments ,which the hungarians refuse to give to austrians.The Poles were irritated because austria has promissed to Ucraine the Polish land Holm.The social -democrats were unpleased because of the attitude of the government at Brest -Litovsk ,in the matter of autodetermination of nations .The scandal provoked by the publishing of the letters of Emperor Carol towards prince Sixt of Bourbon, ,in the matter of separate peace tratatives with the Entente ,forced the Emperor to make the road at Canossa and to increase the subordination of austria towards the german Empire.

The austrian parliament took attitude ,hostile,towards Seidler and was refusing the provissory budget .Seidler fell.his successor has been Hussarek[7] ,Church law professor at vien university ,of which uncolored program of governation was based on compromises ,promisses and oportunism.

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In the mean time ,produced the great extern events.At 8th of August ,the French and the British reputed the great victory on Somme.Its effect over Ludendorff has been depressing.The chief of the great german headquarter got the belief that the War cannot be won and so ,must be ended before being directed to dezastre.A conference ,held at Spa ,decided the trying of a meditation of peace by using of a neutral power.It must be made in a moment which the great german headquarter will think favorable and namely ,after a consolidation of the Western Front.But austro-hungary was not capable to wait that moment.The decline of the german military power worsened the internal situation .The nationalities were not hiding their happyness .The CzechsSlovacs have been recognized by Entente as figthing force.In Reichsrat of Vien,the deputies from CzechoSlovaks aclaimed the Czechs figthing in the adversaries ranks ,against the Monarchy ,as some heroes of the nation-and the cannopy of Habsburg Parliament did not collapse over the daring ones.austro-hungary was incapable to held the War and the catastrophe was emminent.

At 14th of September ,Burian ,successor of Czernin ,launched a proposition of peace in the name of austro-hungary ,towards the figthing powers ,inviting them to a meeting of delegates in a neutral country,to proceed to a conversation ,confidential, and without obligations,based on Wilson's proposals.Clemenceau did not answer direc ,but by a speech of the French Senate ,in which he declared that "no tranzaction is possible between law and murder".Lansing ,the Foreign minister of the United States answered by a refussal,about which Reuter agency found that it is important to mention that it has been written in 30 minutes after receiving of the note.In the same time ,produced also the catastrophe of bulgaria .The central powers received a dicessive blow and was isollating turkey which ,defeated by Siria ,was also preparing her exit from the alliance and from figth.

On the Western Front ,the germans suffered defeat after defeat .The resistance was more and more difficult ,and the moral of the nation deeply shaken .Under the burden of defeat,germania bend the knees.At berlin constituted a government parliamentary under the presidency of Max von Baden[8] ,comprising the representatives of the different parties ,including the socialists.At 5th of October ,two radiograms ,left from the two Capitals of the central Empires ,offered to the president of the United States the peace of the fourteen point.

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Too late!

To unite the talk with the deed,the leaders of austria were making big efforts to create inside the Monarchy a situation in the sens of Wilson's ideeas.It was the best demonstration of sincerity of their intentions ,which the Monarchy was offering to the powerful president.The radical change of the structure of Monarchy in the sense of federalization was the only solution.it was though too late .The Czechs of which state was now recognized by the powers of Entente ,did not want to discuss anymore the matter.The problem of the Slavs in the South was connected by hungaria ,and this one did not want not even "in the tearing of her head" to make any concession:hungaria must be preserved untouched ;even the hungarians were reclaiming the attachment of Dalmatia to hungaria!Send by the Emperor in the the slavic (Slavs people) ,to see personally the situation and to appreciate the gravity ,Tisza listens with surprise and with indignation the wishes of the population ,Autodetermination,national states ,were uncomprehensive things for the intolerant spirit and anacronic of the hungarian sovinist.He saw still that he is on the edge of an abyss and answers furiously to the delegats:

-"It is possible we collapse ,but before we collapse we will find enaugh power to crush you!"

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The answer is characteristic for hungarian mentality.The pride and blindness of the hungarian men of state will give the blow of death to the austro-hungarian Monarchy ,as they ,until now,have been the most active ferment of her decay.

Tired by discussions in vain with the hungarian nationalities and with the hungarians ,the austrian government decides to haste the ending.At 1st of October ,Hussarek unfolds in Rechsrat the program of reorganization of austria based on federalization.The program was a daring one ,but full of hesitations and inprecissions ,provoked in the most part by the wish to manage the integrity territorial ao the hungarian Kingdom.But the Slavs did not want to discuss anymore:

-"The bhoemian matter will be solved together with the other Mondial matters by the international congress",declared the socialist Czech Tussar.

-"No power in the world will not be able to separate the Croats and Serbs by Slovenians !" exclamed Korosck.

-"We want unique front of the three Slavic states ,from Danzig ,over Prague ,until the Adriatic!" shouted Stanek in front of the prime minister of austria And the request of Hussarek to enter in discussions for finding of the forms most suited for the new organization ,the chorus of the representatives of the nationalities answers:

-Too late!"

Emperor Carol calls the chiefs of nationalities at Baden ,the residence of the great headquarter ,where the Emperor thought himself safe ,under the defence of the trustful Tirolian division"Edelweiss".He hopes that by conversations and interventions will be able to change their minds .All declare though that there is no time for discussions .Facts are needed .And the Emperor decides to address to his nations a manifest by which to announce them the making of the federalization of austria.The decission is about acomplishing two factors at once:his nations and Wilson.The austrian government struggles to find the formula which,making happy some ,to not rise up the others.Because in hungaria is announced the storm.Never hungary will not admit the breaking of her integrity ;a concession made to the Croats and to the Serbs will be followed by concessions to Romanians ,Rutens ,Slovaks ,germans .And Wekerle threatens hussarek with a series of grave repressalies ,from which imediate one is that hungary will not give a grain no more to austria .To keep"the integrity of hungaria " means though to not solve tha Slavs matter from the South and to refuse the unification of Slovaks with the Czechs.

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The austrian government has to give in.The Emperor's manifest "To my faithful nations of austria" appears at 17th of October.He announces that "austria will become ,in the sense of the wishes of her nations,a federative state ,in which each nation to form a state community of itself ,in its territory".He admits to the nations the right to free dispozition and makes appeal to the constituting of national advices ,formed by the deputies from the parliament of each nation ,to represent the interests of the nations one from the other ,as to the central government .When however,to give precisse explanations,the manifest held in generalities.Outside the Polish state and by Trieste city ,was not mentioned any other of the other states.The explanations of Hussarek were completing the manifest ;it was foreseen an austro-german Empire ,formed by the german provinces of austria ;a kingdom of Bohemia ,a kingdom of Haliciul(Galitia and Ucraine) ;one of Ilyria ,formed by the unification of the Southern Slavs.The Pols from Galitia were reuniting to the Polish state ,and the matter of Bosnia and Hertegovina and the Romanian matter remained opened ,given their connection with Ucraine .To rest this one ,the manifest had the fatal phrase :"the integrity of the countries of holly hungary will not be touched at all".

The manifest did not produced at all the expected result by its authors.It did not succeed to thank noone and,less than anybody ,just the hungarians which they wanted to treat with care with the price of sacrifying of the other states.the hungaria government answered by the ploclamation of independence[9]."Because -declares Wekerle-austria has organized on federative bases ,we sit on the basis of personal unification and,as a result,we will organize our politic ,under economic rapport as wellas of national defence ,in an independent way'.

The masterpiece of Deak and Beust smashed.The Dualism of 1865 [10] has been unbirthed.

Wekerle thinks that he can satisfy the Croats ,promissing them a reviewing of the treaty of 1868.but the Croatians do not come to the meetings anymore ,of the parliament of hungaria .They do not consider themselves as belonging to hungaria/hungary.

All the nations of the Monarchy reject the manifest .The leaders of the nations ,summoned by president-minister ,decline the invitation or come to make protests.All over are formed national states ,but they assume the governments of the respective countries and do not want to know by the central government of Vien.In Agram ,the national gathering refuses to aknowledge of the exercising of the right of free determination and ask the birthing of "a national state Jugoslav ,on all territories where Slovenians live ,Croats and Serbs regardless of frontiers or provinces".In Lamberg ,the Ucrainian Constituant proclaims "the Ucrainian state which stretches on the whole territory etnographic of Ucraine'.Not the first ,nether the latter ones do not wish to take in to account the old frontiers ,plolitical of the Monarchy;they know now only etnographic borders.The national council Czech ignorrs the manifest:he launches the own proclamation ,in which insists over the fact that the Bohemian matter is not an austrian one anymore ,but an international one .The Poles made already their national state ;they are now outside austria .The italians do not want to discuss ;they are in awaiting for the events .The latter ones ,amongst all,the germans from austria proclaime at 21st of October the austro-german state.

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The old austrian state did not exist anymore.It is true,in Vien has remained an austrian government .In their administrative ofices ,there were still working clerks.But the"machine of the state was going in empty,like a mill without grains"199.

In the midst of this chaos ,arrived the answer of Wilson to the proposition of peace made at 5th of October .It was the blow of grace given to a dying one.The government of the United States declared that he cannot occupy by the proposition made ,because the situation has changed by important events .That exists a state of War between CzechSlovaks on one side and germania and austria-hungaria on the other .That the National Czech Council -Masaryk ,Benes-is the government of a figthing force and so ,only this Council is in more right to negotiate the interests of CzechsSlovaks ,than the president of the United States .in the same time ,United States declares that they have recognized the right of freedom of Jugoslavs ,in the most complete way.

austro-hungary ceased to be a unitary state : two states detached by her body.

Blow after blow.At 24th of October ,the aniversary of the defeat at Caporetto,the Italians ,helped by the French and the British ,start an offensive in great style on the whole Front[11].The enemy strikes an army which has now no patria.

Hussareck and Burian resignate.The Emperor names president-minister proferssor Lammasch ,a celebrity in international Law and a known pacifist ;his mission is to liquidate old austria.The Foreign Minister is appointed count Andrassy ;his mission is to liquidate the War .And ,in the nigth of 27-28th of october ,the telegraphic wire was carrying ,from Ballplatz of Vien through Stockholm towards Washington ,the desperate appeal for the separate peace ,which the dying austrohungary was imploring to Wilso;

"The austro-hungarian government declares ready ,without waiting the result of other tratatives ,to enter discussions for closing of a peace between austria-hungaria and the adverse states and of a truce on all austro-hungarian Fronts".

All peace conditions imposed by Wilson were declared as accepted beforehand .The breaking from germania was acomplished .only the peace to come ,before the defeat which was drawing on the Italian Front to not change into desastre .because noone was making any illussion now over the result of the great battle started :the complete collapse of this army without patria ,the overflowing of the armed bands over the austrian territory ,plunder ,anarchy...

but ,on the field of battle ,from the Mondial cancelaries of diplomats ,as from the camps of nationalities ,sounds a fatal echo :too late!

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Finis austro-hungarie !

The epiation started for the states of the central powers.The pray politic has been defeated and the culprits were waiting for their sentence.bulgaria and turkey were to the ground.austria was collapsing.germania was kneeled down and taken by the fibrilations of her last moves.Alone Ucraine ,overwhelemed by a national frenezy without borders,was cradling in some illussions which touched the unconsciousness.She dennounced the dualism ,broke connections with austria ,was preparing to separate her army ,the leading of the foreign policy and of the finances.the venerable pragmatic sanction ,which for two centuries -from 1713 -has dominated the constitutional life of the Monarchy ,has lived its life.the hungarians wanted to keep only the personal union with austria.With this ,hungary was counting herself disengaged by any responsibility for the War carried so far,without any obligation to the nations which she held oppressed ,at shelter of any threat by the victorious adversary.Clenched in the intangible doctrine of her territories and even of her constitution ,no power in the world coul budge her.The right of nations to autodetermination ,the constitution of national states ,the whole ideology of the russian revolution and the new bible of Wilson ,which has conquered the nations ,had to volatile in front of the frontiers of the independent state of hungary,defended by the milenar crown of Saint Stefan!

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The hungarian blindness had in it something pathologic.The hungarian politicians were asking a "sanitary cordon" around ucraine ,which to defend their country against the smels of decay from austria.hungaria had to remain an island unmoved and peaceful in the middle of the stormy ocean which agitated the nations around her.

Amongst the hungarian politicians rises a new man ;count Karolyi[12] ,the chief of the independentist pasoptist(refering to 1848 revolution) hungarian party.Demagog and oportunist ,unfolding with hypocrisy a program of concessions ,democratic,promissing peace ,he earned day by day a popularity which was imposing him as the man of the situation.Leaving the boat which was taking water,he begins to simulate friendly feelings towards the Entente ,declares that is necessary a change of the foreign politics and -through the mouths of his partisans -shouts loud to be heard by Europe :"We are friends of the Entente!".With this oportunist luggage ,count Karolyi was asking the power ,declaring himself the only one able to save hungaria with the credit of his person.

In this time though,the process of liberating the nations was making its way also in hungaris.At 18th of October sounds in hungarian parliament the voice of Romanian deputy Vaida -Voevod.He reads the decission of the Romanian nation ,expressed by the decission taken by the Executive Committe of the National Romanian party at Oradea: the Romanian nation does not recognize the hungarian government and parliament the right as representative of the Romanian nation;the Romanian nation reclaims for her the right to decide alone for her faith and her placement amongst the other free nations ;any decission take by someone else ,than her law organ ,which is the Executive Committe of the National Romanian Party ,will declare it null and without value.The Slovak Juriga follows after the Romanian deputy and asks the same for his nation ,and Ossoinak deputy reclaims peace for Italian Fiume .Shouts of insults cover the speeches of the deputies of the oppressed nations .Wekerle and Apponyi grabs spasmodic the integrity doctrine .but the effect has produced itself.The phantom of collapse ,forced the "sanitary cordon" and went inside the hungar parliament.

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In the general enervation arrive two news which turmoil even more the spirits agitated of the hungarians.At Debretin ,during the solemnity of inauguration of the new university ,in the presence of the Emperor ,the military music has sang the imperial anthem ,the detested one "Gott erhalte ...".In the hungar Chamber is a shout of indignation .So the hungarian independence is not fact :the austrian holly spirit continues to dominate !At once arrives the second news :in Fiume ,a Croat Regiment has breached the hungarian Hanovezi Barracks ,disarmed the hanovezi and has occupied the city.It was the signal of separation of Croatia by hungary by violent way ,the beginning of hungary 's dissasembling .Great emotion.Wekerle announces the resignation of the cabinet ,to make possible the formation of a government to comprise all parties in parliament and outside it ,in this tragic moment .The mission of the new government would have to be the ensuring of the borders of the country and recalling in patria of the soldiers outside the country.

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At Godollo ,the Royal residence in Budapesta ,is great boiling.The young Emperor-King has on his arms three crisis : of the austrian cabinet ,of the Foreign Ministry and of the hungarian cabinet.For solutionating of this last one ,Karolyi imposes himself ,as the man of the situation .The Emperor hesitates.He do not trust in Karoly ,which wants the breaking with germania and recalling the troops .Carol leaves at Viena to solutionate the other crisis by appointing of Lammasch and of Andrassy .For resolving the crise from hungary ,he has left archduke iosif with full powers ;this one improvises a cabinet Hadik.

Deceptioned and indignated ,Karolyi gives the blow.In the nigth of 25-26th of october ,the representatives of Karolyi party ,together with the socialists and radicals ,gather in "Astoria " hotel ,and constitute in the hungarian National Council and decide to grasp the power in their hands,"for the holly receiving of hungary' ,based on independance in all directions ,of imediate peace ,of imediate recalling of the troops .It is the revolution ,aclaimed by the imense crowd of the workers ,students ,tens of thousands of soldiers run away from the Front ,which were swarming through the city.

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The police and the army of the town garrison associates to the crowd :the revolution is triumphant .In the name of the Monarch ,ArchDuke Iosif passes the power to Karolyi ;Hadik government lasted two days.And imediatelly ,the War Minister ,Bela Linder ,gives the order to the hungarian troops on the Italian Front to leave the Front and to return home.

The last days of October are the days of agony for austro-hungary.On the Italian Front ,after three days of hard resistance ,the catastrophe produces .At Vittorio Veneto [13] ,the soldiers of the hungarian divisions throw away the firsts arms .The austrian Front was broken.The austro-hungarian units start a disorder retreat ,the reserve refuse to enter the figth ,the army enters dissolution.hungarians,Czechs,Croats,Pols ,even austrian germans have only one thought now :to return home.The War had no interest whatsoever for any of the nations of the Monarchy in decomposition ;it was over.At home awaited them a passionate figth :the national figth.The trains and vehicles are taken with assault .The munitions and war material are throwed down,to ease the running.The units in dissolution flood the North of italy ,then step over the frontier of own country,pulverising in bands which arson and rob.The austro-hungar army ceased to exist.

At 29th of october the National gathering in Prague decided the detachment of Bohemia by austria .In the same time the Slovaks were separating from hungaria .The CzechSlovak Republic has been proclaimed [14] in the middle of popular enthusiasm.At Agram ,the National Council voted the resolution by which the Slavs countries from the South were breaking connections with austria and hungary and were declaring their independence[15] .The gathering aclaimed "the union of the entire nation of Slovens ,Croats and Serbs on their entire etnographic territory ,from isonzo to Vardar ,in a sovereign state and independent".The garrison ahead with its commanders , make the oath of faith to the new state.In the sounds of military music ,the population jubilates .The Jugoslav state has been born.austria had no access to the sea anymore .The austro-hungar fleet was threatened to become pray to Italians.To save it,the Emperor gives it as gift to the new Slav state ,the inheriter of the maritime land of austro-hungary.

At 30th of October ,the Emperor was offering the truce to italy.At padua ,the austrian parliamentaries ,after three days of penible discussions ,had to subscribe to the humiliating truce [16] which meant the unbirth of the military power of a great Monarchy which has dominated for centuries the history of Europe.And as ,from the Baltic to the Adriatic ,the revolution was spreading melting huge armies ,collapsing political settlements which seemed eternal and covering under their ruins millenary dynasties ,at Budapesta were taking place two symbolic deeds.

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Tisza ,the incarnation of the chauvinist hungarian politic ,the man which had contributed more than anybody else to the collapse of his country by his patriotism without limits, teaching blindness and intolerance ,was falling assasinated by the soldiers ,paying with his life the blame to have been one of the authors of the Great War and of the missfortune of his patria.

And in a hotel room ,the romanian Mitropolit(church head in Orthodox religion) Vasile Mangra ,the man which sold his nation for the mitropoly cane ,just as Judas has sold Christ for a fist of silvers ,was putting an end to his life ,swallowing a strong dose of Veronal.

The last act of the Central Powers was closing to the end.

At the horizon ,appears the fog of arsons ,flamed by the bands of mutineers of the former austro-hungar army .From behind the scene were dissapearing in crowding the leading actors :the Monarchs were losing their crowns ,the generals were breaking their swords .in the middle of the scene were laying the dead bodies of two defeated:the principal intrigant and his toll.

The curtain falls fast...[17]

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Chapter V

THE UNIFICATION OF BUCOVINA WITH ROMANIA

Bucovina martyr

On the ruins of Habsburg Empire ,the nations of the former Monarchy were fast to organize themselves in national states.

Bucovina has suffered during the War like no other province of austro-hungaria.Placed in a sensible point of the figthing Front of the Orient,neighbour with Romania ,the conquering of her territory had to satisfy strategig necessities and to use to political demonstrations.Theree times occupied by the Rusians ,three times reoccupied by austrians ,the land of Bucovina have been one by one sweep by the plough of the figthing armies ,the cities and vilages devastated ,the population maltratated and robbed.A police and tirany regime ensured to the austrian colonel Fischer a place of shame in the gallery of the executioneers of the Romanian nation.

A strong national reaction spirited the Romanian population of Bucovina in the decade before the breaking of the War.The influence of the national-cultural movement unfolded by Nicolae Iorga with the help of "Semanatorului" (Sower newspaper) have been overwhelming over the intelectual youth of Bucovina ,and the quadricentenary of Stefan cel Mare,celebrated in 1904 in Bucovina ,as well as the exhibition of 1906 from Bucharest ,brought together the masses of the Romanian hood from Bucovina by the brothers from the old Kingdom.The conscience of the blood relation awakens ,the sympathy for the brothers evolves and the Romanian tricolor(flag) starts to be in all public manifestations present at which the Romanians from Bucovina were taking place.

But the austrian Bucovina had in the person of colonel Fischer ,the commander of the geandarmery in Bucovina ,the most vigilent and ferocious cerberus.The transformation of the Romanian spirit could not escape to the rutined policeman.He gave the alarm ,signalling the great danger :the shaking of the austrian state ideea and the connections which were made between the Romanian politc leaders from Bucovina with the ones in the Kingdom.The Romanian tricolor ,has been considered as seditious embleme and carrying it in the public has been forbidden.In 1913,the precipitation of Romanian in the Balkans conflict made colder the relations of the Kingdom with austria.Fischer set the Romanian population of Bucovina under observation by geandarms ;especially the intelectuals are considered as "infected by nationalist Romanian ideeas " and as partizans of attaching of Bucovina to Romania.

The breakout of the Great War and the introduction of the military dictature has given Bucovina on the hand of colonel Fischer and its geandarms.

Bucovina has been for the first time invaded partially by Russians in the months of September and october 1914,and the second time at the end of November ;this time entirely.The friendly and joyful attitude of the Russians made to establish between them and the Romanian population sympathy relations.The military and civilian clerks from the border of the old Kingdom (Romania) towards Bucovina entered friendly rapports with the Russians and participated together with them at different cordial manifestations,transformed in political manifestations of broderhood of arms for the realization of the national ideal.

In february 1915,the Russians evacuated Bucovina ,over which flowed agin the geandarm soldiers of Fischer .The austrian regime lasted until June 1916 ,when the offensive of Brusilov brought for the third time the Russians in Bucovina .This time the ROmanians enter in the War .The reserve which preserved the Romanians of bucovina dissapeared now .The manifestations of happyness feelings of the Romanians are now out.In August 1917 the Northern part of Bucovina has been evacuated by the Russians ,and in March 1918 ,in the wake of the prliminary peace at Buftea ,had to be evacuated by Romanians also the Southern part.For the third time Fischer rebecomes the master of Bucovina .He declares that he doesen't know in Bucovina but only"germans ,Jews and...traitors".His conduct was conform with this formulae.

The rage of the austrians against the "illegal" conduct of Romanians was increased by the fact that numerous intelectuals from Bucovina ,professors ,teachers,priests ,magistrates ,students and even peasants have left their homes ,some even from the outbreak of the War ,others after every come back of the austrians and went in to the free Kingdom ,where they have aestablished a very plentiful activity of information and propaganda ,by talk and writing ,in the favour of freeing Bucovina.Some entered as volunteers in the figthing Army ;others have crossed into Basarabia to contribute at the awakening of the Basarabian national conscience.The austrian authorities reestablished the link between the action of the refugees from Bucovina in Romania and the feelings of the ones which remained in Bucovina ;what these were feeling was expressed by the refugees .Noticing the dangerous character of the Romanian movement anty-austriac ,the austrian authorities proposed to exterminate it -as the Russophil one- by violent means :arrestations ,internations,deportations ,condemnations and executions .

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