There is this difference, however, between the Congress of Berlin
and the Conference of Paris. In 1919 the small nations protested
more effectively against their exclusion from debates and their
non-participation in decisions affecting their interests. They had
taken advantage of the collapse of Austria-Hungary and Russia to occupy
“unredeemed” territories. Rumania led the others in defying the Big
Four. Refusing to abide by the decrees of a conference in which she
had no voice, Rumania went ahead and formed her enlarged state as she
wanted it. Only in a portion of the Banat of Temesvár and at the mouth
of the Maros River are the Rumanians not under military control of
Greater Rumania.
Most plausible have been the inspired articles from Paris condemning
the intractability of Rumania. Rumania violated the terms of the
armistice between the Allies and Hungary. Her forces occupying Budapest
acted like highwaymen. The presence of a French army alone kept the
Rumanians from overrunning a wholly Serbian portion of the Banat
of Temesvár. Saved from the Austro-German yoke by Great Britain,
France, Italy, and the United States, the Rumanians have shown their
ingratitude, by refusing to abide by the wise just, and impartial
decisions of the Supreme Council. They lay claim to purely Hungarian
territory. They give evidence of bad faith and intolerance by not
wanting to accept provisions in the Treaty of St.-Germain for the
protection of racial and religious minorities. These are the charges.
But before we pass judgment ought we not to hear the other side of
the case and to examine the internal and external policy of Greater
Rumania? What are the problems of Rumania as the Rumanians see them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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