e of Austria--wrote
Count Andrassy privately to Prince Carol a few months later--namely, to
prevent the fusion of the northern and the southern Slavs, she had only to
express her willingness to become at a given moment the third party in the
compact. In 1883 King Carol accepted a secret treaty of defensive alliance
from Austria. In return for promises relating to future political
partitions in the Balkans, the monarch pledged himself to oppose all
developments likely to speed the democratic evolution, of Rumania. Though
the treaty was never submitted to parliament for ratification, and
notwithstanding a tariff war and a serious difference with Austria on the
question of control of the Danube navigation, Rumania was, till the Balkan
wars, a faithful 'sleeping partner' of the Triple Alliance.

All through that externally quiet period a marked discrepancy existed and
developed between that line of policy and the trend of public opinion. The
interest of the Rumanians within the kingdom centred increasingly on their
brethren in Transylvania, the solution of whose hard case inspired most of
the popular national movements. Not on account of the political despotism
of the Magyars, for that of the Russians was in no way behind it. But
whilst the Rumanians of Bessarabia were, with few exceptions, illiterate
peasants, in Transylvania there was a solidly established and spirited
middle class, whose protests kept pace with the oppressive measures. Many
of them--and of necessity the more turbulent--migrated to Rumania, and
there kept alive the 'Transylvanian Question'. That the country's foreign
policy has nevertheless constantly supported the Central Powers is due, to
some extent, to the fact that the generation most deeply impressed by the
events of 1878 came gradually to the leadership of the country; to a
greater extent to the increasing influence of German education,[1] and the
economic and financial supremacy which the benevolent passivity of England
and France enabled Germany to acquire; but above all to the personal
influence of King Carol. Germany, he considered, was at the beginning of
her development and needed, above all, peace; as Rumania was in the same
position the wisest policy was to follow Germany, neglecting impracticable
national ideals. King Carol outlined his views clearly in an interview
which he had in Vienna with the Emperor Franz Joseph in 1883: 'No nation
consents to be bereaved of its political aspirations,