once may be allowed to pronounce his own literary epitaph. But this, it is to be noted, is the 'poetry' that was to say nothing that might not be said 'actually in life-under emotion,' the sort of emotion that settles down into the banality of a premature decrepitude: 'I grow old. I grow old I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I do not think that they will sing to me.' Here, surely, is the reduction to absurdity of that school of literary license which, beginning with the declaration 'I knew my father well and he was a fool,' 6 6 naturally proceeds to the convenient assumption that everything which seemed wise and true to the father must inevitably be false and foolish to the son. Yet if the fruits of emancipation are to be recognised in the unmetrical, incoherent banalities of these literary Cubists,' the state of Poetry is indeed threatened with anarchy which will end in something worse even than 'red ruin and the breaking up of laws.' From such a catastrophe the humour, commonsense, and artistic judgment of the best of the new Georgians' will assuredly save their generation; nevertheless, a hint of warning may not be altogether out of place. It was a classic custom in the family hall, when the feast was at its height, to display a drunken slave among the sons of the household, to the end that they, being ashamed at the ignominious folly of his gesticulations, might determine never to be tempted into such a pitiable condition themselves. The custom had its advantages; for the wisdom of the younger generation was found to be fostered more surely by a single example than by a world of homily and precept. ARTHUR Waugh. Art. 5.-GERMAN PENETRATION IN RUMANIA. ONE of the most striking and instructive facts brought into prominence by the present conflict has been the unexpected success of German efforts towards peaceful penetration. Articles in previous numbers of this Review* have dealt with the results of that policy in Italy, Belgium and France; the following pages are an attempt to trace its course in Rumania. The task is not an easy one. While in the west the phenomenon is almost exclusively economic in character, in the east, where the Germans found an open field for their activities, its aspect is much more complex and its form perhaps dominantly political and social. So far as the knowledge of the present writer goes, there is no special literature on the subject. Moreover, the powerful and thorough organisation of the system in Rumania, and the fact that it has the sympathy and support of an influential portion of the Rumanian population, bar access to its more intimate aspects. Finally, in the countries now at war with Germany the outbreak of the conflict necessarily revealed the methods and results of that policy, which is still working unchecked in neutral Rumania. For the same reason the writer has had to some extent to censor his own article. Rumania offers points of special interest for such an investigation. Not only was she the first of the southeastern European countries to establish a German dynasty upon her throne, but she was also the first to be drawn into the sphere of influence of the Central Powers, as an early stage in their move to the East. Yet, nothing seemed more artificial than this association between peoples so widely different in character as are the Germans and the Rumanians, especially if we also take into consideration the constant friction due to the sufferings of the Rumanians in Hungary. Since the political emancipation of the European Near East sprang from, and was fostered by, French and English liberal ideals, the success of the German efforts is the more remarkable. The practical spirit, energy, and perseverance of the 6 *Italy,' No. 444; 'Belgium,' No. 445; France,' No. 447. Germans, and the éblouissement which their highly developed state organisation exercised when contrasted with five centuries of Turkish domination, cannot, therefore, fully explain the situation. It was the unfortunate tactics of Russia, coupled with the short-sighted passivity of the Western Powers, which most helped to build up the German policy, as the following considerations will tend to show. I should like to say at the outset that there is no intention on my part of denying or minimising the beneficial effects which German penetration carried with it. The process acquired an objectionable character only when it became a policy-a policy inspired by the conception, bluntly expressed by an Austrian historian, that the German public could only benefit by being less neglectful than heretofore in taking cognisance of the circumstances prevailing in the respective Danubian countries, since the Rumanians, like the Hungarians, belong to the "sub-Germanic " nations.'* The neighbouring Saxon colonies in Transylvania have at all periods provided a varying number of artisans, merchants, and members of the liberal professions to the Rumanian countries. But few of these remained there, for during the four centuries of Turkish domination conditions were so insecure that often the best thing which could happen to these artisans was to get home again with nothing in return for their services. By the end of the first quarter of the 19th century Turkish domination began to decline in the Rumanian countries; and the greater security and abundance of work and money which prevailed during the Russian occupation (1828-1834) attracted many skilled workmen from across the Carpathians. The moment was scarcely propitious, however, for Germanism. The movement towards economic and political emancipation which, deriving its inspiration from ideas liberated by the French Revolution, set in during the first quarter of the 19th century in the Rumanian countries, ran alongside a strong revival of the Latin spirit under the paramount influence of French civilisation. It is not too much to say that the educated Rumanians of the time *Jul. Jung, 'Römer und Romanen in den Donauländern,' 2nd ed., Innsbruck, 1887, p. 351. allowed themselves to be called Rumanians only because of the implication in the name of cousinship with the French. Many of the young 'boyards' went to study in Paris, and afterwards never again made use of their native tongue. Travellers who visited the Danubian principalities about that period state that nowhere outside France was French more spoken than in Bucarest and Jassy. So also Thouvenel (later Foreign Secretary under Napoleon III), who travelled through Wallachia in 1839. He spoke of the great natural wealth of that country, which wars and noxious domination had turned into a desert, and of the opportunities which it offered to enterprising minds. But neither private nor official France lent a sympathetic ear to the traveller's words; they remained content with hearing that all Rumanians were anxious to greet one in French, or what sometimes passed for French. Similar observations concerning the richness of the country had already been recorded by the British Consul in Bucarest, Wilkinson, in whose opinion 'the fertility of the soil was such as to provide nourishment for ten times the number of the present population, and leave wherewith to supply other countries besides, if only those countries [the Rumanian] could enjoy the important advantages of a regular government and a wise administration.'* The counsels of another traveller were to be more successful. In 1835 Moltke, at the time a young captain in a Prussian regiment, was called to Constantinople to organise the Turkish army. On his way down he passed through Wallachia, and he said in his correspondence that hardly a fifth of the arable land was being worked, and that the soil was so rich that it would repay many times over the labour expended upon its cultivation : 'The Germans who migrate across the seas in search of a better situation, would be better advised,' he went on, to direct their steps towards the Danubian regions. The journey is shorter and far less expensive, and the reward is certain— if only conditions could be made somewhat more secure.' † * W. Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia,' London, 1820, pp. 84, 85. † Helmuth von Moltke, Briefe über Zustände und Begebenheiten in der Türkei, 1835-1839,' 5th ed., Berlin, 1891, p. 7. The suggestion was taken up at once by the great economist, List, whose personality secured the attention of his countrymen. List adopts almost textually the remarks of Moltke, and then goes on to say that ' under the circumstances existing in Turkey it ought not to be impossible for the German states, in alliance with Austria, to exercise such an influence on the improvement of the public condition of these countries, that the German colonist should no longer feel himself repelled from them, especially if the governments themselves would found companies for colonisation, take a share in them, and continually grant them their special protection.' * In 1839 both the Prussian and the Austrian Governments undertook officially the safeguarding of the interests of the German colony in Bucarest, while in the early forties two German journals were started in that town, though there were no more than two Rumanian papers appearing at the time and the number of German residents was still small. Their number increased during the Magyar revolution of 1848, when many Saxons from Transylvania migrated to Rumania. Yet another opportunity was given to France to establish her influence firmly in Rumania, when the untiring support of Napoleon III had induced the Paris Conference of 1858 to agree to the general desire of the Rumanians that the two weak principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia should be allowed to unite into a single state. France did nothing to that end, however, and the game was practically lost, when Napoleon III himself privately put forward and supported the candidature of Prince Carol of Hohenzollern, who, on Bismarck's advice, accepted the Rumanian throne in 1866. A few years later, in October 1871, Bismarck met Austria's Foreign Secretary, Count Beust, at Gastein, and there laid the foundation-stone of the policy of the 'Drang nach Osten,' rich in evil consequences. Beust mentions in his Memoirs that, having touched upon the eventual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Bismarck 'obligingly remarked that one could not conceive of a Great Power *Friedrich List, 'Das Nationale System der politischen Oekonomie,' Stuttgart und Tübingen, 1841, pp. 583-584. |