A fresh perspective on Romania's inter-war figureheads

Romania, for two decades, over 1920 and 1940, had to face the growing revisionist aggression coming from the country's two great powers lying nearby, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Revisionist claims also came from Romania's neighboring countries, Hungary and Bulgaria. Nazi Germany occupied France in June 1940. At about the same time, the Soviet Union issued two ultimatums to the Romanian government whereby it demanded the ceding of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. On August 30, 1040, through the Vienna Treaty, Germany and Italy imposed on Romania the ceding of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. On September 7, 1940, through the Craiova Treaty, Germany and Italy again imposed the ceding of the Quadrilateral region or Southern Dobrogea to Bulgaria. The ensuing crisis made it possible for a certain government to ascend to power, a government made of the Iron Guard and Marshal Antonescu. All things considered, King Carol II was the main character to be held to account at that time. Shortly afterwards, King Carol II lost his throne.

The sovereign had an extremely powerful personality. Clever and manipulative, in 1938 King Carol II instated a personal authority regime, dismantling the political parties and banning free press. For his son, King Carol II was an abusive father, since he dethroned him in 1930, when Michael was a still a minor. The name of King Carol and his camarilla were in many cases linked to corruption scandals. In his boundless vainglory, even after the deep crisis of 1940, Carol II refused to step down. Instead, he simply left the throne and the crown.

Notwithstanding, for his decade-long reign, between 1930 and 1940, the name of King Carol II is connected to Romania's most prosperous period. Capital city Bucharest was systematized and the building of the Colentina river lakes in northern Bucharest was initiated. As for culture, at that time it benefitted from substantial support. The King's contemporaries were not unanimous in stating that King carol II was a fated figurehead in Romania's contemporary history.

Gheorghe Barbul was Marshal Antonescu's personal secretary. In 1984, he was interviewed by then the well-known historian Vad Georgescu of Radio Free Europe. The interview, in 1993, was included in Radio Romania's Oral History Center Heritage. According to Gheorghe Barbul, despite Carol II's fraught relation with Antonescu, the latter's mindset was largely based on political stability, while in Antonescu's opinion, monarchy and the King simply overlapped. 

Gheorghe Barbul:

"Monarchy, Antonescu believed, was indispensable to a country like Romania, a young country. It was only monarchy that could guarantee the continuity of the state in a world of demagogues, where, in his own words, vote owners had replaced the land owners. He hinted at the gap between pre-1914 Romania and Romania after 1920. And he believed that, given the impending necessity for the country to have a monarchy, King Carol should in no way be lambasted, whatever his sins may be. And that because a form of instability on Romania's throne could have posed a danger for the country. The father had already dethroned the son and had ascended the throne, if what a certain part of the opposition intended to do, especially the National Peasant Party and the Iron Guard, namely having Michael remove Carol from power and ascending the throne for the second time around, if all that meant "instability."

For jurist and political detainee Radu Boroș King Carol II was, just as he claimed in an interview dated 1995, one of Romania's most important sovereigns who also gave an impetus to the development of aviation, a domain which at that time had been gaining ground in the country.

Radu Boros:

"For me, as a Romanian, King Carol is still la great king. And, had Romanians been able to understand him, the progress that we would have made would have been a lot greater that it actually was. All that was done from the end of World War One to the second world war, everything that was achieved at home, in industry, in administration and such like was entirely his will, all that occurred under his patronage, it was imposed by him. When he came, he found out that in Romania, regarding aviation, we had nothing! We, in World War One, had very few pilots and captive balloons. We dealt more with captive balloons than with fighter planes or strategic bombing capabilities. We, during World War One, had not been what we subsequently were during the Second World War. Then he decided to give a fresh impetus to aviation and the impetus he gave military aviation was really great. As part of military aviation, he was the one who was dead set on founding Romanian Aeronautics Enterprise in Brasov, where we also built a fighter plane, I.A.R. 14, which at that time, in 1937-1938, was one of the best fighter planes. And yet, apart from military aviation, he realized we also needed civil aviation. He was far-sighted and understood aviation was about to become an important means of transport. And then he decided to establish a Romanian air transport society. Before this Romanian company was created, Romania participated alongside France in the French-Romanian Society."

King Carol II is one of history's controversial personality. Yet without such a personality, existence would have been quieter but duller.