What is the reason of this? One may put the question to himself, as really this sentiment of the nations corresponds too well with a secular and inevitable policy. Despite all contrary reasoning, one fact remains, and this is summed up in Transylvania and Bukowina and the five million Rumanians who are under Austro-Hungarian rule. There is for the Rumanians of the kingdom the unforgettable series of persecutions of every kind to which their brethren on the other side of the mountains are subjected--persecutions dating from yesterday and which are continued today. Only the day before the Austrian mobilization fifty students from the Rumanian Kingdom who happened to be in Brassow (Hungary) on an excursion were arrested and brought before the police authorities, and actually thrown into prison, because they dared display badges with Rumanian colors in their buttonholes.
"If I were to march into Moldavia," a Rumanian was telling me, "against the enemies of Austria, I would have to begin by sabring all the Moldavian peasants, who are crying, 'Down with Austria!' Of course, I never could do this!"
Under such conditions, if the waverings of the Government were to be explained, the task would be a hard one. In our opinion, they may be ascribed to different causes, the more important factor being the opinion of the King himself; but this alone would not suffice.
The King (Carol) is first of all bound to Emperor Francis Joseph by an old friendship. King Carol has never admitted that the diminution of his kingdom after Plevna was a right thing, and the toasts in Constanza (during the Czar's visit to Rumania early in the Summer of 1914) have demonstrated, for those who could read between the lines, in both the politeness of the Czar and the reserved tone of King Carol, that this sentiment had not yet disappeared.
In the face of this disposition, so firmly expressed, the Ministers and the party leaders of Rumania felt rather uncomfortable. It must be borne in mind that a parliamentary régime, properly speaking, does not exist; the Ministries do not fall by vote of the chambers of Parliament. When the King estimates that a Ministry has been too long in power, when he hears distinctly the murmur of the Opposition, then he calls a new President of the Council, who has Parliament prorogued and a new one formed--this is the exact procedure--according to his liking. By reason of this process, and also by reason of a special attraction which the Court exercises over a small, refined, and elegant society, the counsels of the King are inspired by the advices of his counselors.