Nicolae Titulescu and the Romanian diplomacy in Europe in the 1930s
Steliu Lambru, 23.09.2024, 14:00
The diplomacies of countries that gravitate around the powerful ones, always have the mission of being one step ahead of events. They must decipher trends and intentions, if possible even before they occur. Diplomacies of the satellite countries are present in the capital cities and in all the places where important decisions are made. Some of them, even reach privileged positions. That was also the case of the Romanian diplomacy in the interwar period, under the leadership of Nicolae Titulescu (1882-1941).
The end of WWI had left behind a tense context and complicated European relations, marked by resentment. The defeated countries from the bloc of Central Powers led by Germany did not come to terms with the provisions of the peace treaties generically called the “Versailles system”. That would have meant legalizing their territorial losses and paying war damages. The emergence of the League of Nations in 1919, that would later be today’s UN, was an attempt to bring representatives of all nations together, at one table, and discuss de-escalation. Romania was a defender of the Versailles System and the League of Nations, through which the status quo would be maintained. One of the most active diplomats for that was Nicolae Titulescu.
A lawyer by training, Titulescu was born in Craiova, in southern Romania. He was part of the Conservative Party and a supporter of Romania’s entry into WWI alongside France. After the war, he was minister plenipotentiary in Britain, and between 1928-1936 he served as foreign minister in several governments. As of 1921, he was Romania’s permanent delegate at the League of Nations, being elected twice, in 1930 and 1931, as its president.
Iosif Igiroșianu was a diplomat discovered by Nicolae Titulescu. In 1997, the Radio Romania Oral History Center interviewed Igiroșianu, who explained why Romania enjoyed a privileged position at the League of Nations and the role Nicolae Titulescu played in obtaining it: “Romania was the only country in the world that had a legation with the League of Nations. That was accepted by the Swiss government to please Titulescu. Titulescu had done many things for the Swiss, he organized most of the gatherings and conferences in Switzerland because he was interested in them as well. And then, of course, all these things were of interest to the Swiss because he suddenly put Geneva in an extraordinary light.”
Thus, in the structure of Romanian diplomacy, the representative in Geneva, with the League of nations, became even more relevant than the minister in Bern. Titulescu was regarded as a negotiator with important countries, while the one in Bern was considered only an official with ties to the country by which he was sent. Titulescu was the one expected to make friends from among the most important politicians and the most influential diplomats and to create connections that would benefit Romania.
Titulescu himself was more than a permanent representative of Romania in Geneva. At one point, he was requested to mediate a reconciliation between the French and British governments. A friend of the French Prime Minister Pierre Laval, he was considered a very nice man, with a lot of distinction and a lot of tact.
The dispute between the French and British governments emerged over how Germany should be treated. France and Britain had generally gone hand in hand on security guarantees in Europe after WWI. The two had forced the signing of the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 which guaranteed France’s eastern borders. But at the beginning of the 1930s, Britain had proposed France a taming of the policy towards Germany, a proposal that France did not take kindly to due to the fear of the revival of German militarism. British suspicions went further, to the idea that France was trying to dominate Europe more than Germany was capable of. In that context, Titulescu was asked to come in. His role is explained by Iosif Igiroșianu: “The high profile diplomats, out of vanity, did not want to request meetings with the other side. Contacts were not being made through ministries, they were made through the heads of governments or major political figures. So they needed Titulescu. He had been a minister in England for a long time, he had many friends, and then the French did not want to ask the English to meet, and the English did not want to ask the French to meet. They wanted everything to be arranged through a third person who would probe the mentalities, the attitudes, and discuss with every party.”
In 1936, Titulescu was removed from public office in Romania because of he was against fascism and went into exile to Switzerland and then to France. He died in Cannes in 1941, disappointed by the course that history had taken.
