Habersack, Sabine - Puşcaş, Vasile - Ciubotă, Viorel (szerk.): Democraţia in Europa centrală şi de Sud-Est - Aspiraţie şi realitate (Secolele XIX-XX) (Satu Mare, 2001)
Teodor Pavel: Wold War I and Revolutionary Options in Central-Eastern Europe: the Project of the "Insurrection" of Romania at the End of the Year 1917
Focşani in the delegation which negociated the armistice with Romania, to transmit to Beldiman this demand of Berlin which was taken together with the Austrian-Hungarian foreign ministry, the count Czemin6. In the German and Austrian-Hungarian diplomatic circles, some names of the candidates to the throne of Romania were mentioned such as the son of the Emperor Wilhelm II, the brother of the Emperor Carol I of Habsburg, Max von Baden, the archduke Francise a.o. The military occupation authorities from Bucharest sustained a current of oppinion favourable to the substitution of the dynasty and the punishment of the Antantofil king. Some Romanian politicians in Bucharest considered the possible change of the country's throne as a premise for the amelioration of the peace conditions with Germany. This reason made Titu Maiorescu to express his surprise at the way which some of the conservatives looked at the sacrification of king Ferdinand7. But Petre P. Carp, one of the most obstinate exponent of the antantofil policy of the king and of the liberals, tells Grigore Antipa that altough he is not personal enemy of Ferdinand, nevertheless “between him and the borders of my country I cannot choose”8. P. Carp was hoping therefore to save Romanian State's territorial integrity through the sacrifice of the dynasty which was imposed from outside thus letting Germany the freedom to choose the new king. In the atmosphere of confusion and total isolation of Romania, after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, there existed also some utopical solutions of the rebuilding state integrity and of the union of all Romanian provinces under the Austrian sceptre. On the occasion of his visit to Berlin and Vienna in March 1917, C. Stere is suggesting in a Memoir the association of the country with “Mitteleuropa” and designation of one of the two emperors as king of Romania as a sure way of preserving the Romanian state and as a shield in the way of the Russian expansion towards the centre of the continent.9 In the political process intended against the collaborationists from Bucharest after the war, Stere's visit and his memoir were interpreted as a betrayal of the country. Commenting this Memoir, the “Universul” newspaper spoke in June 1924 about “A sensational document in the affair of the traitor Constantin Stere’’10. In reality, C. Stere, an implacable 6 P. A. Bonn, fond cit..loc. cit. 7 Al. Marghiloman, op. cit.. vol. II, p. 355. 8 C. Gane, P. P, Carp si rolul său în istoria politică a ţârii (P. P. Carp and His Role in the Political History of the Country), vol. II, Bucureşti, 1922, p. 559. 9 Al. Marghiloman, op.cit.. vol. II, p. 511. 10 Universul (The "Universul" newspaper), an XLII, nr. 143 din 28 iunie 1924. World War I and Revolutionary Options 89
