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Deutsche Bank, in cooperation with the Schaaffhausenscher Bankverein and the Internationale Bohrgesellschaft, Erkelenz. The Diskonto and Bleichröder have promoted numerous undertakings, e.g. the Concordia for the extraction of crude oil; the Vega, for the refining of petroleum at Ploieshti; and the Credit Petrolifer, which owns an important installation at Braila, on the Danube, for the transport and sale of oil and its derivatives. They have also created various companies outside the country for the transport and sale of Rumanian oil, as, e.g., the Allgemeine Petroleum Industrie, A. G., Berlin; the Internationale Rumeensche Maatschappij, Amsterdam; and the Compagnie Industrielle des Pétroles, Paris. With the cooperation of affiliated Italian banks they have also founded the Italo-Română, a company concerned in the extraction of crude oil.

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This profusion of Teutonic undertakings was benefited by reduced freights on the Central European railways, which had also established a through service between Berlin and Bucarest, with direct connexion from Hamburg to Constantza and Constantinople. Equal advantage was derived from the enterprising spirit of German shipping. The advent at the close of 1905 of the Norddeutscher Lloyd ss. Tübingen,' 4213 tons, the largest vessel which has ever ascended the Danube to Galatz and Braila, inaugurated the establishment of a regular line of cargo steamers between the Danube and Mediterranean ports. In the following year an arrangement was concluded under which the steamers of the Australian and Indian lines of the Norddeutscher Lloyd were to run in connexion with the steamers of the line established by the Rumanian state-owned Maritime Service between Constantza and Alexandria. It was hoped that the passenger traffic from Berlin to Egypt would be monopolised by the new line. In the same year a new company, Atlantica, was founded under the auspices of the Anglo-Austrian Bank for cargo trade between Hamburg, Antwerp, and the Danube. The new company was to receive a yearly subsidy of one million kronen from the Austrian government. Again, services with the Danube were established in 1913 by the German Rickmers and Hamburg-Amerika lines. The largest lighter company trading on the Danube, the Donau

dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft, possessing 134 passenger steamers and tugs, and 854 lighters, has always been subsidised by the Austrian government, and is properly speaking a state concern. Recently a Hungarian Navigation Company has been created, which owns 14 passenger steamers, 34 tugs, and 250 lighters, and is in its turn to be subventioned by the Hungarian government.

The German government has never failed to back the efforts of German finance and industry; and, though the 'Imperial Commercial Traveller' never honoured Bucarest with a visit, for personal reasons, the German diplomatists have not thought it beneath their dignity to sing, not always in the sweetest of tunes, the praises of this or the other German product. And these diplomatists were of the best that Austria and Germany had at their disposal: Count Goluchowsky, Count Aehrenthal, Marquis Pallavicini for Austria; Prince Bülow, Herr von KiderlenWächter and others for Germany, contributed each his share towards extending Germanic influence in Rumania. When called to take office as Foreign Secretary in 1910 Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter had nearly finished a decade of activity in Bucarest, an activity which succeeded in raising German imports in Rumania well above those of their meek ally, Austria, though the latter had considerable advantage in transport. It was only by an outburst of Rumanian public opinion that he was prevented from laying the last stone in the German wall of encirclement; for in 1908 the Rumanian Ministry of War was about to enter upon a contract farming out the military arsenal of Bucarest, the only Rumanian arsenal, to the Krupps.

German money never comes alone. Every new investment, every new undertaking, industrial or financial, brought along with it a crowd of German clerks and workmen. This peaceful invasion was rendered easier in our case by the fact that the Rumanian peasant, being deeply attached to the land and disinclined on account of social and climatic circumstances to regular work, settles down with difficulty to industrial labour.* On

* It is interesting to note in this connexion that various attempts to establish German agricultural colonies in Rumania have utterly failed. It is only in the Dobrudscha that such colonies exist, but they were established there in the sixties, when the province was still part of the Turkish Empire, Rumania acquiring it after the war of 1878.

the other hand, the ideal of the middle and upper classes is politics and officialdom. If not exactly welcomed, the Germans were in these circumstances suffered. In 1910 their number reached a total of about 50,000, Bucarest alone (350,000 inhabitants) giving hospitality to about half that number. A German writer candidly remarked a few years ago: 'One should only try to imagine what an enormous economic and political difference it would necessarily make, if instead of Germans there were as many Englishmen living here.' * It must be observed, however, that only about one third of this total are citizens of the German Empire; the majority are Austrians, including a small number of German-Swiss. The banking, transport and insurance industries-all of them industries which control the trade and offer the best opportunities for becoming acquainted with the economic and social life of the country-absorb the majority of these German clerks. Those who after a few years return home become valuable collaborators with the German merchants and manufacturers, ever anxious to adapt themselves to the particular taste and requirements of the various markets. Those who remain keep language and customs unimpaired, are faithful customers of German industry, and, with the assistance of the spirit of imitation inherent in every social animal, contribute to the growing consumption of German products.

A similar influence is exercised by the German schools scattered all over the country. That of Bucarest, supervised and subsidised by the German and Austrian governments, attracts more pupils than any other school in the country; in 1910 there were 2063 boys and girls in the various departments. These schools serve a double purpose, by enabling the German residents to maintain their nationality while, at the same time, they spread German culture among the native children of the country. The German Ministry for Education sends down a school inspector every year to be present at the yearly examinations. The growing intercourse with Germany has also resulted in German Universities attracting Rumanian students in constantly increasing numbers. German

* E. Fischer, 'Die Kulturarbeit des Deutschtums in Rumänien,' Hermannstadt, 1911, p. 303.

scientific circles take interest in the development of study in Rumania; and Rumanian institutions have often received assistance in advice and in kind from German institutions and private people. As an instance, the new Zoological Museum may be cited, the director of which, Dr Antipa, is a pupil of Haeckel; when the new building was undertaken, a subscription was opened amongst members of the German Universities, resulting in 7007. being collected the actual money, in such a case, being of quite secondary consideration. Many officers pass yearly through the German military academies, while they have no access to those of France. This fact is largely responsible for the high opinion in which the Rumanians hold German military power. Finally, the German clubs are active. When three Germans meet they at once form a society, with a chairman, a secretary and a treasurer. In 1910 there were twenty-two musical, literary, athletic and other German associations in Bucarest, exercising a powerful social influence. They have done admirable pioneer work in the musical, theatrical and other fields; it may also be mentioned that the first painting exhibition was organised by a German painter in 1850.

We must not overlook the fact that all this influence has been brought to bear upon a country only just emerging from age-long political servitude of the most demoralising kind. After having borne for ten centuries the brunt of barbarian invasion, the Rumanian countries passed through nearly five centuries of soul-destroying Turkish suzerainty, with, in addition, Greek economic exploitation, and a doubtfully beneficent Russian protectorate. As a Rumanian boyard confessed to SaintMarc Girardin about the middle of the last century: 'Our customs are to some extent the customs, or rather the vices, of all the peoples who have ruled or protected us. We have borrowed from the Russians their libertinism, from the Greeks their lack of probity in business, from the Phanariote Princes their blending of baseness and vanity, from the Turks their idleness and sluggishness.'* With these the qualities of the German

* Saint-Marc Girardin, 'Souvenirs de Voyages et d'études,' Paris, 1852, i, pp. 284-5.

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newcomers formed a striking contrast. It was a German who drew the first plans for underground water supply; a German constructed the paving of Bucarest in 1824-1826, another the first hotel in the European style in 1829, another the first technical school for wood and metal workers in 1840; the first telegraph line was built during the Austrian occupation of 1854-56; a German organised the postal service, while yet another built the first Rumanian railway in the later sixties.

Their sense of order and discipline, their genius for organisation, their energy and perseverance could not fail to compel respect and appreciation. But this was all. The two nations differ too widely in spirit for German influence to penetrate deeper. The German writer whom I have already quoted, and who is well acquainted with the situation in Rumania, feels bound to recognise that 'respect for everything German has visibly increased-but not love.'* It is striking that in a country where, in certain classes of society, French is more widely and better spoken than Rumanian, and French literature better known than Rumanian, the import of German books by far surpasses that of French books. In 1904 the customs statistics show an import of 84,216 and 42,760 kilograms respectively. In literary matters mere weight, it is needless to say, is no reliable criterion; but in this case the fact is that the French books imported consist mostly of novels and light literature, whereas scientific books form the majority of the German import. And this correctly represents the general situation. In matters literary and those in which taste is supreme the Rumanians pay homage to the French; in matters of business or those in which reason prevails, they appreciate the Germans. There is something dramatic in the fact that, in a country whose whole civilisation has been built up upon French ideas and ideals, a Rumanian historian and nationalist politician, Prof. Jorga, should have been able to write-and, bitter irony, in the leading French paper of Bucarest, 'L'Indépendance Roumaine '-that no one but a Frenchman can doubt that for a people at the beginning of its civilisation German influence is better, saner, and more

* E. Fischer, op. cit., p. 330.

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