and slowly dying
because they have no food.

* * * * *

Rumania hesitated long before entering the war. The sympathies of her
people were strongly with the Allies, for military and economic reasons
connected with German domination of her resources made her actual
military participation with the Allied Armies difficult and dangerous.
The decision, however, was made in the late summer of 1916, and an
attack was made by the Rumanian army against Austrian forces. This was
followed by successes which continued until Bulgaria began hostilities
against the Rumanian army. Shortly after, a German army under General
Mackensen against Rumania was started which ended in the capture of
Bucharest in December, 1916.

THE TRAGEDY OF RUMANIA

STANLEY WASHBURN

Copyright, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917.

[Sidenote: What it meant for Rumania to fight.]

More than a year has now elapsed since Rumania entered the war. What is
meant for this little country to abandon neutrality is not generally
realized. Here in America we know that so long as the British fleet
dominated the seas we were safe, and that we should have ample
opportunity to prepare ourselves for the vicissitudes of war and to make
the preparations that are now being undertaken and carried out by the
administration of President Wilson. Canada and Australia likewise knew
that they were in no danger of attack.

[Sidenote: War's terrible cost.]

But the case of Rumania was far different. She knew with a terrible
certainty that the moment she entered the war she would be the target
for attack on a frontier over twelve hundred kilometres long. The world
criticized her for remaining neutral, and yet one wonders how many
countries would have staked their national future as Rumania did when
she entered the war. In a short fourteen months she has seen more than
one half of her army destroyed, her fertile plains pass into the hands
of her enemies, and her great oil industry almost wiped out. To-day her
army, supported by Russians, is holding with difficulty hardly twenty
per cent of what, before the war, was one of the most fertile and
prosperous small kingdoms of Europe.

[Sidenote: Why nations went to war.]

[Sidenote: America's reasons.]

When America entered the war she assumed, in a large measure, the
obligations to which the Allies were already committed. It seems of
paramount importance under these circumstances that the case