Killing

Under the "heavy pressure of circumstances" the Kingdom of Rumania last week signed a trade treaty with the Third Reich which, in effect, converted Rumania from an independent nation to a German dependency. In no instance of modern times has one State made such humiliating, far-reaching economic concessions to another as Rumania's King Carol II made in Bucharest last week to Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat, Fuehrer Hitler's traveling salesman.

The fact that no actual German military aggression had taken place gave Russia and the democracies a chance to turn their eyes from the eastbound Nazi steam roller. The German-Rumanian treaty, which in time is expected to reduce if not wipe out all commerce between Rumania and other States, provides that:

1) about 90% of Rumanian oil (annual production: about 53,300,000 barrels), farm products, wheat, timber, bauxite, chromium, copper and sulfate will henceforth be "sold" to Germany, thus going a long way toward ending the Reich's scarcity of food and raw materials.

2) The Reich will pay for the products in barter marks, manufactured goods and recently acquired Czecho-Slovak arms (which Rumania will probably never be able to use and which Germany may later grab anyway).

3) Rumania concedes to Germany free ports on the Danube and Black Sea (something like the foreign concessions in China).

4) Rumanian agriculture will be "adjusted" to Germany's requirements.

5) German engineers will build roads, improve river transportation and overhaul the Rumanian railway system.

6) New Rumanian oil fields and mines will be exploited by German capital.

The "circumstances" which bludgeoned Rumania into signing the treaty consisted largely of troop movements by old as well as new enemies. Fuehrer Hitler had massed German soldiers in the eastern tip of his new protectorate of Slovakia, only 75 miles from the Rumanian frontier. If Rumania was physically to fall to Germany (after Hungary had also fallen), other jackal nations might have a chance to dash in and grab a few mouthfuls as they did twice in Czecho-Slovakia. The Hungarian Army lined up 300,000 men on the Rumanian border. Even little Bulgaria, to the south, mobilized.

Richest and largest of the Balkans, Rumania is surrounded by nations which have long and impatiently waited for a chance to grab back some of the territories they had previously lost to the Rumanians. Revisionist-mad Hungarians long for the return of the Banat, Bukovina and Transylvania, old Hungarian provinces lost after the World War to Rumania, peopled now by some 1,500,000 Magyars and 800,000 Germans. Bulgaria has never forgotten that she lost part of the province of Dobruja to Rumania in 1913 and that some 500,000 Dobrujans are now Rumanian subjects. Bessarabia, to the northeast, with 1,500,000 Ukrainians, Russians and Poles, was absorbed by Rumania from Soviet Russia in 1920. Of Rumania's five neighbors, only two--Yugoslavia and Poland--do not hold grudges against her.

In a Hungarian-Rumanian war the early odds would probably be slightly with Rumania. The regular army of Rumania numbers some 220,000 men, that of Hungary about 70,000. Rumania is also far ahead of Hungary in trained reserves. But whereas the Magyars have earned a reputation as fierce fighters, the Rumanians are known more for their resplendent uniforms than for their fighting.* In the long run Rumania's greater resources should tell, but the joker is that Hungary would be backed by the Third Reich. The possibility loomed last week for a few short hours that Soviet Russia might come to Rumania's aid, but the last thing King Carol wants is Soviet soldiers on his soil. He might find it difficult to get them out afterward.

Rumania also mobilized last week, but rather halfheartedly. The country has long depended on alliances rather than military power for defense. (She was a member of the now defunct Little Entente, is at present a member of the Balkan Entente.) For a day or two it seemed to the outside world that Britain and France might rescue her from German pressure. But in the end Rumania signed on the dotted line. With that signature Adolf Hitler made his biggest killing to date. This week Rumanian Premier Armand Calinescu pathetically denied that his country had lost any of her independence.

* Favorite Balkan legend: Rumanian officers wear corsets, use cosmetics.

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