Page 14 - Romania 100
P. 14

           hand, it offered the Central Powers a tactical advantage that seemed decisive in the outcome of the war.
Under these circumstances, Romania was forced to accept the Focsani Armistice of November 26/December 9, 1917 and to sign an enslaving peace in Bucharest on April 24/ May 7, 1918, to accept the loss of the mountainous region and of Dobrogea region and the enslavement of its economy
to Central Powers' interests
for 90 years. But this peace, the third after the other two that the Central Powers signed in Brest Litovsk with Ukraine
(9 February) and with Soviet Russia (March 3rd), finally compromised the German diplomacy and political elite, presenting it in the eyes of
the whole world as a band of robbers with whom no one had anything to negotiate.
In those dramatic months for what was left of Romania, on 27 March/9 April 1918, Bessarabia joined the Romanian kingdom, a country defeated in war, making thus the first step towards the formation of Greater Romania, and it cannot be said at all that it was a conquest of Bessarabia by the Romanian army.
Once the United States joined the powers of the Entente on April 6, 1917, not as an ally but as an associate, the alliance bearing the name of the Allied and Associated Powers, the head of the Western coalition became one of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century, US President Woodrow
14
Wilson, a leader for whom
the principle of nationalities
or the formation of national states was not just a promise to attract allies, but an ideal to be accomplished.
Even though the military situation collapsed dramatically for the Central Powers in September 1918, both in the Balkans and especially on the Western front through the intervention of American troops, the Entente leaders, mostly the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, urged Romania
to re-enter the war as soon as possible, and General Berthelot was sent back to Moldova
for this purpose as early as October 1. On November
10, Romania declared war
to Germany exactly the day before the conclusion of the Compiegne armistice, and so the end of the Great War found Romania on the victorious side.
The dismemberment of Austro- Hungary at the beginning of November 1918, when all the oppressed nations - Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes, Croats declared their desire to form national states - allowed the Romanians from its territory
to assert their desire to unite with Romania: the Romanians in Bukovina proclaimed the union on November 28th, and the Romanians in Transylvania, Banat, Crişana, Maramureş did the same at the Great National Assembly in Alba Iulia on December 1st 1918, a day for eternity, which since 1990 has been the National Day of Romania.
The way in which US President
Wilson imposed his principles
at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919-1920 was the third factor that helped the great powers recognize the already freely expressed will of the peoples of central and south- eastern Europe to form national states. In this way, the borders of Greater Romania, already drawn, have been recognized, a country that proved to be able to defend Europe by the force of weapons from the danger
of the Bolshevism that came to power in Hungary in March 1919, a country that is faithful to the principles of democracy, a country that engaged from the first moment in defending the political system founded in those years.
The century of tumultuous history that followed proved both the importance of Romania and its neighbors in the European constructions that have been attempted, but also the fact that Romanians and their neighbors have remained deeply devoted
to the values of democracy and started to reconstruct democratic states after the breakup of the soviet system in the years 1989 -1991.
Today, the celebration of the centenary of Greater Romania means the celebration and reaffirming of the democratic principle of the freely expressed will of the peoples, the most important principle that
can bring sustainability and cohesion to the European Union.








































































   12   13   14   15   16