ue to several causes. After having expected much of them, the
people were amazed and bitterly disappointed at their apparent
indifference toward the future of Rumania. Then there were the
unfortunate incidents at Odessa, the withdrawal of the French forces
from that city before the advance of the Bolsheviks, and the regrettable
happening in the French Black Sea fleet These things, of course,
contributed to loss of French prestige. Another contributory factor has
been the lack of enterprise of French capitalists, causing those who
control the financial and economic development of Rumania to seek
encouragement and assistance elsewhere. But the underlying reason for
the deep-seated distrust of France is to be found, I think, in France's
attempt to maintain the balance of power in Southeastern Europe by
building up a strong Jugoslavia. Now the Rumanians, it must be
remembered, hate the Jugoslavs even more bitterly than they hate the
Hungarians--and they are far more afraid of them. This hatred is not
merely the result of the age-long antagonism between the Latin and the
Slav; it is also political. The Rumanians have watched with growing
jealousy and apprehension the expansion of Serbia into a state with a
population and area nearly equal to their own. After having long dreamed
of the day when they would themselves be arbiters of the destinies of
the nations of Southeastern Europe, they see their political supremacy
challenged by the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, behind
which they discern the power and influence of France. When the
dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began, Rumania demanded and
expected the whole of the great rich province of the Banat, with the
Maros River for her northern and the Danube for her southern frontier.

"But that would place our capital within range of the Rumanian
artillery," the Serbian prime minister is said to have exclaimed.

"Then move your capital," the Rumanian premier responded drily.

As a result of this controversy over the Banat the relations of the two
nations have been strained almost to the breaking-point. When I was in
the Banat in the autumn of 1919 the Rumanian and Serbian frontier
guards were glowering at each other like fighting terriers held in
leash, and the slightest untoward incident would have precipitated a
conflict! Although, by the terms of the Treaty of St. Germain,
Jugoslavia was awarded the western half of the Banat, Rumania is
prepared