The boast of King Carol of Rumania, that he would "never cede one inch of land," has finally been brought to naught, and his kingdom stands now very much where it did prior to 1913. Russia has secured the return of Bessarabia, Bulgaria the Dobrudja, and now Hungary has secured the return of the greater part of Transylvania. Carol's vacillating policies have brought him no-4 thing. He repudiated the British pledge, E given in 1939, to protect the independence of his country in order to placate the Axis E Powers. Time and again he has sought to preserve his country intact by playing the Axis Powers off against Russia, and his chameleon-like moods have varied with the passing of the various crises. To please the Russians he dismissed five Ministers who 4 were friendly with the Nazis. To please the Nazis he appointed Professor Horea Sima, chief of the Nazi Iron Guard, as Under-Secretary of Education. When Russia made demands concerning Bessarabia he appealed frantically to the Axis Powers, when it came to the Hungarian and Bulgarian claims he found himself completely without any support which he believed he could expect, and has now been as completely betrayed as any other nation who 1 has put any faith in the dictators.
Forced to give way with regard to Transylvania, and accept a compromise which practically meets the whole of the Hungarian demands, King Carol has been unable to save his country, and in his political defeat has aroused the greatest resentment amongst his own people. At the moment the Rumanians appear anxious to resist the handing over which has been agreed upon. Should they do so, and war with Hungary result, it is expected that German divisions will move in to the dis-2 advantage of the Rumanians, The latter still have one weapon in their hands and that is their ability to destroy the oil fields. That would indeed be a tragic blow to Germany and Italy for practically the whole of their imported supplies of oil comes from those fields, but the probability appears to be-that reasonable counsels will in the end prevail and that the present demonstrations may not lead to war.
The great danger is that the Rumanian Government may not be able to control these demonstrations against the Axis Powers. Should it fail to, do so German Occupation of Transylvania may be confidently expected, and then the question will arise as to what Russia's attitude would be. Every politician in south-eastern Europe recognized that with his Bessarabian coup Stalin cracked the cornerstone of the Balkans. Should recent events lead to Rumania being thrown into the arms of the Soviet,—and there is little now to induce it to remain faithful to an Axis which has so grossly betrayed it,—Stalin's success in the Balkans will be even greater than it already is. The Bulgarians, the Yugoslav Serbs, and the Croats are all Slavic nations connected with Russia by history and speech, and with Stalin behind them the racial idea might ultimately prove irresistible. A Rumania dominated by natural resentment might very well seek to obtain from Russia, that which she failed to secure from Ger many and Italy, namely support. The quid pro quo would be to form a corridor with the Slavic nations across the Balkan Peninsula from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.
That might not be an immediate development, but the entry of Russia in the Balkans, and the consequent limitation of the influence of Germany and Italy, should ultimately prove a severe blow to those two nations. The betrayal of Rumania, then, may serve to bring about the very thing that Mussolini has feared all along, namely the bringing of Communism to the very doorstep of Italy. Again Italian in-"terests have been sacrificed to Hitler's needs, again has Mussolini been obliged to run at ihe German leader's chariot wheel, and out of it all Italy receives nothing but the prospect of just that trouble in the future which Ti Duce has consistently feared. Everything may remain quiet and peaceful so long as the three Dictators decide it is in their own interests to hang together, for their mutual loyalty is no deeper based than that, but, when the time comes for Stalin to act, the other two Dictators may have very good reason, to be sorry for the treacherous game they have been playing in the Balkans.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.