RUMANIA: Carol’s Trouble

The weak jaw, heavy mouth, bristling mustache, popping eyes and full cheeks of Rumania’s King Carol II make up a naturally pleasant, if weak, face. But the face did not wear a pleased expression last week. His country—already buffeted, squeezed, threatened, with Bessarabia snipped off by Russia and Naziism clamped on by Germany—was still at dead centre of a pressure play.

Through diplomatic channels, Germany advised King Carol to quit the Balkan Entente. This bloc, consisting of Rumania, Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia, to which King Carol adhered even after his tumble into the Nazi camp, has in general been favorable to British and Russian interests. He had a good reason: the Entente served as a check on Bulgaria, which wants the Rumanian province of Dobruja. Hungary, which covets Rumanian Transylvania, last week opened a screaming press attack on Rumania because of Carol’s “shifty” policy toward the Axis, to which Hungary clings. Finally, Russia handed King Carol a note stressing the desirability of a “popular Government” in Rumania. Having grabbed Bessarabia and Bucovina, Russia wants only that vague thing which she calls security, in the name of which Joseph Stalin has seized 210,584 square miles in the last ten months.

In the face of these pressures, King Carol moved with alacrity. While he was reported preparing to leave the Entente his subjects pumped 3,000 tank cars full of gasoline and sent them hurrying to Germany; pleaded with Rome and Berlin for advice on the Russian note. All this added up to Britain’s fondest hope: that somewhere along that long electrified line between German and Russian spheres there might soon be a short circuit, then a fire.